Thankful, 04 November 2014

Today I am completely humbled and filled with gratefulness.  I have such an easy life.

When my parents were newlywed college students, they were asked to take part in a broad study that looked at employment history and wages and family relationships.  They continued to be interviewed every few years, and when we kids rolled around, we started being interviewed too.  "Here comes the Interview Lady!" someone would announce, and the rest of the day was spent with a nicely-dressed woman with a clipboard and rudimentary laptop, who questioned the eight of us in turn for hours.

This process has continued with us "kids" into adulthood, and today I had my interview.  I was asked about family relationships, about income, about employment history, about my children, my religion, my personality traits, and so-on (it took three hours; this is a serious study!).  The more questions I answered, the humbler I became.  Yeah, my parents and I have made a lot of good choices, but so much of where I am today has absolutely nothing to do with being "good."  My heart breaks for those for whom the answers to these questions are completely different from mine.

"In the last 12 months, have you ever been without a place you could depend on to sleep?"  No.

"In the last 12 months, how often have you felt you were treated more unfairly than other people?"  Never.

"Have you ever been been personally beaten or the victim of any other violent crime?"  No.

"How often have you gone without something you need, because you could not afford it?"  Never.

"Think about your childhood.  Was there ever a period when your family did not have enough to eat?"  No.

"How often do members of your family have calm discussions?  Every day, a few times a week, once or twice a month, several times a year, or Never?"  Every day.

"Other than spankings, how often do members of your family hit each other?"  Never.

"In the last 12 months, were you ever denied employment because of being treated unfairly?"  No.

"Within your day-to-day life, how often do you feel you receive the same respect as other people?  Every day, a few times a week, once or twice a month, several times a year, or Never?"  Every day.

"In the last 12 months, how often were you unfairly stopped, targeted, or questioned by law enforcement?"  Never.

"Have you ever seriously contemplated suicide?"  No.

"In the last 3 months, how many days of work or school did you miss because you were physically or emotionally unable to attend?"  Zero.  (Yes, even SAHMs can miss work by literally not being able to get out of bed.)

"In the last 12 months, how many days of work or school did you miss because you were physically ill?"  Three.  Three days only.

"During the last 3 months, how often did G or Z seem confused, as if in a fog, or unresponsive?"  Never.

"All in all, how would you rate your satisfaction in life?  Very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied?"  Very satisfied.

My life isn't perfect.  I had an emotionally difficult time answering questions about whether I'd lost anyone close to me in the last four years (Yes, three women); and I answered that my biological mother was 52 years old when she died; and yes, I'd lost a home to a foreclosure.  But I've dealt with those things without ever dealing with discrimination based on my age, gender, ethnicity, or economic status; without ever struggling to buy my children nutritious food; without ever worrying about where we would sleep the next day/week/month.

Why me?  Why do I happen to be a Caucasian in a country where Caucasians are generally treated with respect?  Why did I happen to be born into a family with a continued upward economic trajectory?  Why did I happen to have children born to me without any physical or  mental illnesses?  Why do I happen to be alive in a time and place where women are given at the very least the same legal respect as men?  Why do I happen to even be alive today?

I don't know the "why"s, but I do know this: It's not because of me.  Every single one of those answers could change tomorrow, but that still wouldn't be because of me.

I am so humbled at the gifts God has chosen to give me at this time, and sobered as I contemplate how to share them.  I am so thankful for Today.  Tonight's prayer is that I can be just as thankful tomorrow...whether I'm given the same gifts or not.

A Penny Saved Is a Penny Earned, 27 August 2014

Today I had a job that paid $100 an hour!  Read on to find out how (or skip to the very bottom if you're a punchline person).

When Jay and I bought our house in 2010, there were two--count them, two--sliding glass doors in the master bedroom.  One of them looked out onto a wall.

(Don't worry; we painted the walls/ceiling and replaced the carpet and ceiling fan.)  About two years ago, we hired a friend to take out the superfluous door and frame in the space.  He put in the drywall and we left it at that, deciding that someday "soon" we'd hire someone to texture the drywall to match the rest of the room.

Meanwhile, Jay and I stuccoed the exterior wall ourselves after hearing an exorbitant quote for having someone else do it.  This wall, too, lay unpainted.

As you can see, we're not pros at the whole matching stucco thing. Eh. No one sees this wall anyway.

Last month, I decided I was tired of looking at bare drywall every day, so I got a quote from a paint company to texture it.  Not including the painting afterward, they asked for $450.00.  I hemmed and hawed and thought about it but didn't commit.

Now this week, both boys started class, which means that I now have 16--count them, 16!--hours per week while my kids are at school.  On Monday I did a lot of praying and list-making and thinking about those weekly 16 hours, and one of the things I've decided to do is pursue making my home visually and logistically more peaceful.  I have a loooooooooooooooong list of things I'd like to do, from re-landscaping the front yard to painting furniture.

What I don't have, however, is a money tree, and it's funny how all these projects add up when it's $450 here and $450 there.  But what I do have is time.

So, bada bing bada boom, after a little internet research I decided to take on this texturing project myself!

This morning I started by spackling all the shrunken joint compound around the edges and screws.  I also resolved not to stress about making the wall look absolutely seamless, because I knew that would be impossible for me to do.  I just wanted it to be better than it was.

Then I read the back of the spackle bucket and saw that it could take five hours to dry if it was put on thickly...which it was.  So for the next five hours I...

...paid some bills

...checked Facebook (but only for a couple minutes, I promise)

...spackled the cracks around the patched stucco on the exterior side of the wall

...patched a small hole in the drywall of our hallway by a new thermostat

...did the dishes

...ran a load of laundry

...ate lunch

...picked the kids up from school (yup, my four kid-free hours were done, but they cozied up with some video games so I still had unfettered time)

...prepped a make-ahead dinner

...and read from some special books.

Now the mud was finally dry enough to sand it down, so I put together my brand new little toy and made a ridiculous amount of dust all over my bedroom.  But it had a little catching bag thingy!  Why so much dust?!?  Ah well.  Sanders will be sanders.  We'll sleep in the guest bedroom tonight and I'll clean it up tomorrow.

Like my floral drop cloth? :-)

Naturally, I didn't spread drop cloths over the bed and all of Jay's clothes and all my furniture. So much dust...

My next step was going to be to wipe the dust off the wall where I'd be spraying the texture.  But I forgot.  Oops.  Moving right along...

I used pre-mixed spray cans, practicing on a couple cardboard boxes in the back yard until I figured I'd set the spray volume close enough to match my wall.  The texturing itself went really fast and was actually kinda fun!

Not that it looks much different from this distance. There's only supposed to be about 70% coverage.

While it dried, I popped the casserole in the oven and put on my Teacher Hat for some homework with the boys.  There were some tears (not mine), but before a complete breakdown happened, Jay arrived home from work and soothed the troubled waters.  I love Jay.

Then we ate dinner.  I love one-dish meals.

I primed the wall.

Then I primed the exterior wall, which was no fun at all because I really needed a roller with, like, 6-inch nap to actually get into the crazy stucco job--which I didn't have.  So I rolled and then jammed the bristles of a large paint brush into as many of the low spots as I could.  I'll figure out how to paint it tomorrow (yes, I know a sprayer would be ideal, but I don't have one).

The exterior priming took longer than I thought it would, but when I was finished with that I could go back in the house and paint the opposite side.  I love paint!  Notice I didn't say that I love painting; but a flat, rectangular piece of wall that doesn't need any cutting-in is pretty straightforward.

Two coats of paint and voila!  Done!

The perimeter of where the door used to be is still visible, but at least half of it will be obscured by furniture, and in lower lighting the seams really don't glare out.  And you know what?  It's good enough for me!

I added up my labor hours of this texturing deal (minus all the other projects) and it amounted to about four and a half.  Which means that I spent four and a half hours of my time today to save $450.00, which means that I basically earned $450.00, which works out to $100.00 an hour.

Boom, baby!

Now I'd better go make up the guest bed.  Aaaaaand take a couple ibuprofen.  'Night!

Happy Mommy Moments, 27 May 2014

Today I'm a happy mama.

Nothing particularly huge happened today--unless we count G giving his first-ever speech in front of his 2nd grade class--but I felt delighted at a number of little moments.

I arrived at the kids' school early enough to catch G's oral report on the common hippo (I'll refrain from quoting the whole thing right here, although I could probably do it from memory myself), and as I walked through the center common room on my way to his classroom, a little Kindergartner from Z's class walked past me on the way back from the restroom.  His face lit up in recognition when he saw me.  "Hi, Z's Mom!" he grinned.  At that moment I realized I love being known as Z's Mom.

And known as G's Mom too, as the 2nd grade kids refer to me!  I'm not gonna lie, I burst a few buttons as my darling 7 year old presented his research on the animal he'd chosen for his year-end project.  He remembered everything we'd practiced!  Deep breath to start, feet rooted to the floor, talk slowly, glance down at the cue cards and then look up and speak to the class with eye contact.  For this project, which included a multi-page written report, a diorama, and the speech, we were handed blank grading rubrics along with the assignment.  When I saw those, I gulped.  We're in the big leagues now, I thought, with rubrics and bibliographies and clay-baked sculptures.

G insisted on reading through the rubrics ahead of time to see what he'd need to do for the full 4 points per element.  He didn't want to mess around with 2- or 3-point quality work.  "Mommy, I want to get 4 points on everything," he declared.  We haven't gotten his grade for the written report or the diorama yet, but immediately after finishing his speech today, he turned to his teacher and asked, "Do I get 4 points??"

She chuckled, and that's all the grade he's gotten so-far.

But it sure seemed like a 4-point presentation to me!  His diorama is pretty cute too, and I'm especially proud because it's the the first time we've done baked clay for anything.

Presenting a common hippo and her calf wading somewhere in Central Africa.  I should have photographed this before taping the plastic wrap on it.  G told his class he'd used "assilic" paint.

Another absolutely precious little thing warmed my heart today.  I'll be revealing something about my age when I say that I grew up on the show Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton, and I recently discovered that our instant-streaming video provider carries the old episodes.  Naturally, I have been eager to watch through every episode myself share the show with my kids.  It turns out that Z's Kindergarten teacher has shown his class a couple of episodes too, so he's already a little familiar with it.  (I have to admit, it takes the wind out of my sails a bit to hear, "Oh, I've seen this one.")

As the two boys and I sat on the couch tonight, taking an inside-tour of the Library of Congress and getting up close and personal with the Statue of Liberty, I couldn't have been more full of warm fuzzies.  That is, I thought I didn't have room for more fuzzies...until the final credits and the reprise of the theme song--when Z started signing along.

My sweet little boy in his wandering soprano voice, singing a theme song that was heard in my childhood home almost every school day?  That is a happy feeling.

While we're on the subject of nostalgia combined with literacy, I recently brought out my copy of Heidi, on which is penned the inscription, "To Rachel, on her 7th birthday.  With love, Mom and Dad."  I could have handed the book to G to read, but I love reading aloud to my kids.  (Plus, I don't want him to crinkle the pages.)  Reading aloud, I get to use my college drama skills which don't see the light of day very often!  So for the last couple weeks, whenever the boys and I have some downtime, we sit together and I read about the little Swiss girl in the Alps who eats toasted cheese on bread (Z's new favorite breakfast) and delights in the beauty she finds in wildflowers, goats, glaciers, fir trees, and old grandmothers.

P.S. I'm ready to move to Switzerland.  Now.

Both boys love the story, although I think Z enjoyed The Secret Garden (which I read a few months ago) more.  Maybe something to do with the ratio of girl:boy characters?  [Teacher Note: It is way cool to do a compare/contrast with Heidi and The Secret Garden.  I hadn't realized how many similar themes they have until re-reading them so close together.  The kids and I had a great conversation about this during breakfast at a buffet this weekend.  SPOILER ALERT  And we haven't even gotten to the part where Klara starts walking yet!]

A couple days ago I finished reading a couple chapters and left the room to go work on something.  Thirty minutes later, I noticed it was still pretty quiet in the living room.  I could hear Z talking to himself a bit as he played with toys, but G seemed to have dropped out of sight.  Did he fall asleep? I wondered incredulously.  But his bed was empty.  Not seeing his fuzzy head peeping over the back of the couch either, I walked around to the front of it to see if he had lied down.  He hadn't.  He was kneeling on the floor, Heidi spread out on the couch in front of him, reading ahead from where we'd left off.

Talk about simultaneous horror of "He'll find out what's coming!!" and immense gratitude of "He cares about this story enough to read it himself!!"

The latter feeling has definitely won out.  And--thanks to those drama skills coming in handy--he's not bored listening to me read the parts he's already seen.

I'm not bored either.  In fact, reading this story again as an adult, I'm astounded to rediscover the incredibly strong theme of redemption in this story.  I choked up, right on the living room couch, reading the Grandfather's break-through moments after hearing Heidi tell him the story of the Prodigal Son.  And I again had to clear mist from my eyes when the story revealed that the darkness Heidi had experienced during a hard period of her life directly brought light to the heart of the Grandmother--a woman whose blind eyes saw nothing but blackness.

It's a good book, people.

But I've digressed from refraining to give you a report on the common hippo to giving you a report on Heidi.  That wasn't my intent!  I just wanted to take some time tonight to share a few ways that I'm loving being Mom to my boys.  There's been so much sadness and darkness in my adult life...I'm so thankful for these beautiful moments of recognition that all is not dark.  There can be light in my heart.

With that, in the iconic words of LeVar, I'll see ya' next time!

Sitting Close to Mom, 11 May 2014

Apparently, 1:00 in the afternoon on Mothers' Day is rush hour at the cemetery.  In the past thirty minutes, five families—not counting me—have come to lay flowers and balloons at the gravestones of their loved ones, their mothers and grandmothers.  Oddly enough, disproportionate to the county demographic, four of the families have been Asian, and I realized today that up until this afternoon I've only heard one other Asian woman cry.  Sonya, my dear Korean friend from church who has cried with me as we've mourned our respective losses, also happens to be the one who loaned me the beach chair I've planted myself in next to my mom's grave marker.

Today, I'm spending Mothers' Day with my mom.  Okay, technically I'm spending Mothers' Day in a chair on a grassy knoll next to a piece of rock with her name on it, under which sits an unremarkable can of precious dust, but I feel closer to her here.  Her remains (how clinical that sounds!) are buried in a little cemetery not one mile from where I grew up;  a plot of grass surrounded by non-irrigated fields browned by the sun, shaded by a cluster of old pines and flanked by a range of brown and blue mountains in the near distance.  [Eew, gross!  Did you have to hack up a spit-wad, O giggling teen visitor?  I was just starting to feel poetic.]

Mom used to love wandering through cemeteries.  I think she liked the quiet—and a mother of six certainly would—and she was fascinated by the history behind old grave stones.  She liked to wander around and see what the earliest dates were.  Honestly, it seemed kinda weird to me, although the history part of it was cool.  We weren't a family with traditions of visiting family plots, though.  I think I've been to my paternal grandfather's site once, as a child, and I'm not even sure which cemetery it's in.  I've seen the site of my maternal great-grandparents a few times, but only while attending the burials of other ancient relatives.  So it definitely feels a little out of character to have driven two hours from my home just to sit in a beach chair next to a rock.

[The other visitors have all gone and a resident killdeer couple has made peace with my presence and stopped scolding me with their plaintive calls.  I see a squirrel sunning himself on the bordering chain-link fence; a blue scrub-jay hops around under a tree while a green hummingbird hovers in front of it.  I can tune out the occasional whoosh of passing cars on the country highway, and the gentle breeze breathes peace.]

But this rock has my mom's name carved into it: Constance.  A beautiful name, full of swirls and curves, with such a soothing meaning, “constant.”  One thing's for sure: Mom was constant.  When she committed to something, she saw it through—and saw it through excellently.

• She saw six children through homeschooling from Kindergarten through high school graduation, and she was able to watch the first four graduate with degrees from universities.

• She started dating my dad at 16, married him at 19, and nourished and cherished their beautiful marriage through thin and thick, sickness and health, until her passing out of the arms of her husband into the arms of her Savior, just eight days after her 33rd wedding anniversary.

• She and my dad bought five acres of empty, wild oat-strewn land three hours from their city home, not knowing when or if they would ever build.  The next year, they decided to go for it and put their house up for sale.  They had five little children (one a newborn) and my dad didn't have a job to relocate to, but no matter!  Mom and Dad felt God wanted them to move, so they did.  Mom watched God provide for them as they designed a new home, transitioned my dad into the—surprise!—new job he'd gotten, while she homeschooled three of the five kids and carried a sixth in her womb.  Over the next two decades, she spearheaded landscaping, gardening, sheep-raising, treehouse building, orchard planting, wallpapering, home library collecting, fruit canning (and even a foray into meat canning and food stockpiling before the threatening approach of Y2K), the occasional needlepoint, and so many other projects.

• She played organ, her instrument of choice, for countless church services, playing with tenderness and passion.  Receiving her Master's degree in music at the age of 45 (a year before I got my Bachelor's in music), she took great joy and care in choosing music and playing it with love and skill.  She had many disparaging things to say about electric organs, reed organs, and organs played all “mushy” with tremolo.  She liked crisp, clean, open, beautiful sound.  One of her greatest joys was trying out pipe organs in historical churches.

• While my youngest four siblings were still in high school, Mom and Dad bought a mountain lot and designed and built a beautiful rustic-looking home as a rental investment.  For months, Mom scoured city thrift stores and yard sales for furniture and decor to fill each of the mountain home's eight or so rooms.  Books, paintings on rough-hewn boards, distressed-wood chairs and dressers, quaint bed posts, fishing poles, even a little pump organ--every detail needed to outfit the rental home with care and style.  Oh, and did I mention that these were the first years she was undergoing intensive care for her newly-diagnosed polymyositis?  Talk about dedication.

Her canned peaches were always colorful and the right sweetness to tart ratio.  Her landscaping design was always a wonderful balance between the manicured and the barely-tamed.  Her interior decorating was always homey and welcoming.  Her music was always well thought-out.  Her children were well-educated and her husband well-loved and her whole life well-lived.  Yes, my mom was constant.

And I constantly miss her.

So being at this middle-of-nowhere cemetery surrounded by granite signs of people's losses, I sit, feeling close to Mom.  And isn't it the height of irony and beauty that the scolding killdeer has made her nest on a grave marker?  Level with the ground, in an unremarkable can empty of decoration, she sits on four speckled eggs, waiting for life to hatch out.  I’m sitting near a grave right now, too.  How long am I going to sit next to the dead, waiting for new life and joy to “hatch” in my life?  I don't know.

But I do know that today I needed to sit.  To warm myself with memories of Mom and care for my fragile heart by letting the calm of the countryside caress me.  I can be like the killdeer.  I can sit, and I can tend the nest of my heart, and I can wait for joy and breaths hungry for life to hatch.

It's coming.

Ups and Downs, 28 February 2014

Today started with downs and ended with ups.  Jay and Z woke up first this morning, complaining of sore throats.  Not long after, G woke up with a hoarse cough and an intense whine.  Homeschooling today is going to be fuh-uhn, I moaned to myself.  (Seven-year-olds aren't the only ones who whine.)

The kids and I limped through the morning, getting a decent amount of homework done, although the subject matter didn't help our moods.  G's vocabulary exercise used a narrative about Anne Frank to teach words like "dreary," "tragic," and "appalled."  Not a cheery subject.  We did have a few nice moments together though, my favorite of which was standing just inside the garage, sticking our arms out into the fast-falling rain.

Because of the morning sore throats, I wasn't sure if the boys were going to get their weekly overnight stay with the FILs, but when I talked with Mrs. FIL around 1:00, the kids seemed to be acting/feeling pretty normal, so we planned on a 4:00 drop-off.  I happily dropped off for a nap, looking forward to saying goodbye to the kids for 18 hours and having date night with Jay.

At 3:00, I was awakened by noise from the vicinity of the Xbox 360: high-pitched crying from G, followed by yelled threats, followed by Z shouting, "I'm going to tell Mommy!!" followed by a frantic knock on my bedroom door, followed by indistinct tattling, followed by a wailing G stomping off to his bedroom, followed by the sound of muffled pillow-punching and a return of the hoarse cough.

It was at this point I texted Mrs. FIL and told her that the kids' emotional fragility indicated physical illness and they should probably stay home.  It was also at this point I felt particularly low.  I don't understand seven-year-old boys, I griped.  I'm so sick of the eye-rolling and the I-know-better-than-Mommy-does attitude.  He's way too sensitive.  I'm sure I wasn't this volatile as a seven-year-old.  Frankly, I had really been looking forward to getting rid of the kids for the evening, and now on top of my own disappointment I dreaded breaking the news to them.  Meanwhile, whimpers of, "This is the worst day EVER!" were floating from G's bedroom...and he hadn't even gotten the bad news yet.  I groaned. 

Then Jay called on his way home from work.

"Hey, so I hear the kids are too sick to leave tonight?" he asked.  I glumly answered in the affirmative.

"How about I pick up pizza on the way home, and we can eat it while we watch a movie, and then make popcorn," he suggested.

"Well," I brightened, "we do need milk anyway...so you could stop by the store to pick up the pizza and milk...and how about ice cream for root beer floats?"  Suddenly we had a plan for a fun evening and I had something positive to tell the kids!

It's amazing how well our sons respond to junk food + television.  There were cheers of excitement throughout the rest of the evening; in fact, when Z found out he could have a second glass of root beer, he cried out, "This is the best day EVER!"  G and I got cuddles on the couch instead of the discord we'd struggled with during homework this morning, and I further endeared myself to the kids by agreeing to watch a bit of a machinima show they and Jay enjoy.

But the true high of the day came when I tucked the boys into bed and settled into our little prayer time.  G prayed first.  "Dear God, please help the people with leukemia and the people with AIDS.  Please take away the AIDS from those people and make their bodies even more powerful than they were before.  And please help the people with malaria, and the ones with smallpox.  And please give orphans families, especially families who will understand their needs.  And I pray for the poor people, that you would give them lots and lots of money.  Amen."

Then Z prayed, "God, I love you.  Thank you for G and for my mommy and for my daddy and for all my family.  And thank you for you, God."

Standing by their bedside, all I could think was, Wow, I would have totally missed hearing these beautiful prayers from my beautiful children if today had gone as I'd planned.

As I gave goodnight hugs, G wrapped his arms around my neck and said, "Mommy, tonight was really fun!  But," he added, snuggling down onto his pillow, "the day did have some dreary moments."

All I can say to that is: I love seven-year-old boys!

Out of the Mouths of Babes, 22 February 2014

Today I got a beautiful, spontaneous, unbelievably precious gift from five-year-old Z.  As we were walking home through our neighborhood, he held onto my hand and began,

Mommy, I love you more than dandelions.

I love you more than trees with flowers.

I love you more than Rabber.

I love you more than Bunjy.

I love you more than parks filled with funness.

I love you more than bushes.

I love you more than rose bushes.

I love you more than our house.

I love you more than Liam.

I love you more than Evan.

I love you more than Stephen.

I love you more than Kevin.

I love you more than Katie.

I love you more than the universe.

I love you more than grass.

I love you more than Papa and Gigi.

I love you more than spring.

I love you more than summer.

I love you more than July.

I love you more than pumpkins.

I love you more than pumpkin pie filled with blueberries and cherries.

I love you more than my room.

I love you more than the punching bag.

I love you more than my stuffed animals.

I love you more than fish.

And with that last statement, his round eyes smiling into my misty ones, he gave me a hug and ran off to play.  I don't think I'll ever recover.

An Unexpected Gift, 28 December 2013

Today I am recovering from Christmas!  Thanks to my blessed FIL and Mrs. FIL, the kids had a sleepover with them last night and I slept until 9:00 this morning.  Heavenly!  Now, after hot tea and a toasted bagel, I'm back under the blankets, still in my flannel nightgown (no photos forthcoming).  I can think of few better ways to recover from the flurry of planning and socializing that characterized this year's holiday!  (Okay, let's be honest: a bungalow on a white-sanded beach or a cabin in snow-bound woods could probably be even more restorative than this, but both of those involve driving or flying, plus rental fees, so I think I'm good with the current scenario.)

While out to a delicious New Orleans-style dinner last night (thank you again to the FILs!), Jay and I discussed how we can prevent next year's Christmas season from being as thoroughly exhausting as this year's was.  We came up with a few ideas.

1. Keep the house more orderly going into the hosting season to prevent a sudden loooooooooooooooong to-do list of chores.
2. Spread out the various family events.  Three Christmas celebrations three days in a row (with book-ending celebratory weekends) was just a bit much.
3. Pester gift recipients for their wishlists and do the shopping (preferably online) before December.
4. Apply for, be interviewed for, and accept any new jobs before mid-December.

I'm sure you nodded to yourself as you read the first three, possibly glazing over a bit at how predictably generic they are, but you may have been caught a bit off-guard by the last item.  I shall elaborate.

Jay read a book a number of years ago that described three main kinds of labor: Wage, Reproductive, and Domestic.  For the first years of our marriage, Jay and I were both engaged in full-time wage labor (working for a monetary income).  When we decided to start having kids, I shifted to part-time wage labor and full-time reproductive labor (growing a human being is a 24-7 job!).  Once we had two children, I transitioned into full-time domestic labor; some call this being a stay-at-home-mom, others call it being a homemaker, and my favorite is the title my parents gave it: Domestic Engineer.

I've used this cartoon in a post before.  I like it.  :-)  Although to be clear, I don't daily wear skirts and heels. And I don't drive a station wagon.

The above paragraph is a fancy way of saying that I have not had a money-paying job for over five years.  Jay and I are definitely at peace with that, because we place high value on all three kinds of labor, and this has seemed the best way to do things for our little family.  But starting January 2nd, I will have a money-earning job!

No, I'm not "going back to work" full-time (just 17 hours a week), and it's not even a permanent position.  I will be acting as Interim Music Director at a local church for three or four months while their leadership looks for a permanent person.  It will involve directing their small adult choir through rehearsals and Sunday mornings, teaching two 1/2-hour music classes to elementary kids once-a-week, and selecting and leading songs for two worship services per week.  This is a super opportunity for me for many reasons!

In the first place, this has come at a great time.  Those 17 hours a week include the weeknight/Sunday services, so my other prep time will fit neatly into the eight hours per week both my kids are at class.  In the second place, this is so great for me is because it is a temporary position.  I'm not ready to commit to a long-term wage-job, and Jay and I aren't ready to make decisions about whether we'd move our family to another congregation.  (While I'm working at this church, Jay and the kids will continue to attend our "regular" church family; it would just be too disruptive for the kids to switch congregations, and Jay and I are still very much "at home" there.)

A third reason this opportunity is perfect for me is that--unfortunately--the situation with the church's previous music director has been messy, and there are wounded people left in the wake.  One of the things they want in an interim director is someone who will enter and gently love on their congregation.  And you know what?  I'm really good at loving on people.  I'm not tooting my own horn here, it's just acknowledging that through my various life experiences, God has given me a growing capacity for compassion and tenderness.  This is not to say that I won't be extremely challenged and stretched through this time, but I think I'm coming into it with a background that prepares me well.

Another reason I'm so excited about this opportunity is that it is a paying music job.  Paying.  Music.  Don't get me wrong...I enjoy all the volunteer-music I do, but there is something incredible about being given money to use the skills I've worked so hard for (I have a Bachelor's of Music degree; for the whole long scoop on my history with music, grab a coffee and read about it here).  I am so excited about taking time to plan, produce, and participate in music on a consistent basis!  And I'm getting paid, too!!  WOW!!!

I'll try to moderate my music choices, heehee

Not gonna lie though...I'm nervous too.  Logistically, everything I've done in my few alone-time weekday morning hours will have to find other slots while I'm involved with this new job.  Emotionally, I'm coming into a somewhat volatile situation and I'm not sure what interpersonal dynamics/demands will be like.  Mentally, I'll be stretched by a new church service format and by the weekly kids' classes I'll be teaching, especially.  And this will certainly be challenging spiritually.  (My observation has been that when someone is in a ministry-type leadership position, they tend to get hit with a lot of life difficulties, from home plumbing problems to kid behavioral issues to health crises etc.  These things could be attributed to any number of factors; perhaps simply the added strain of leadership creates extra tension; but I believe that there are very real forces of good and evil at work in the world, and when the good is moving forward, the evil strikes back.  Star Wars, the Matrix, and a lot of other "epic" stories seem to tap into this idea.)

So yes, I'm really thrilled at this opportunity to use my music skills, gain new experience, meet new people, and be stretched as I love and learn.  The timing and the nature of it feels like such a gift from my loving God, even if it did enter my life in a particularly crazy month.  I'm thinking a little eggnog and television with my family just might be a great way to wind up our celebrations before this new whirlwind hits the first week of January.  A couple more mornings of sleeping-in would be great, too.

Happy New Year!

Home Alone, 28 August 2013

Today is a major milestone in the life of Rachel.

Why?  Because for the first time in my life, both of my children are at school.

Give it up, what!!

Did I shed tears upon leaving little Z at his Kindergarten class today?  Not a one.  Is it because I'm heartless?  Not at all.  See, the deal is, the kids are only in class for 4.5 hours, 40 minutes of which is spent by me driving back and forth to the school.  Furthermore, Z is only in class two mornings a week, so we still have puh-lenty of time together.  (For any of you not familiar, my kids go to a school that is about 70% in-class learning and 30% homeschool.  Teachers send a packet of work home at the beginning of the week and the parents guide the kids through it.  We've already been doing the homeschool work for the past two weeks, which you can read about here and here.)

So what have I done with the first morning on my own??  I'll give you some hints.  Not this:

They've been there for less than 24 hours, so hey.

Or this:

Well these are already clean.

Or this:

Would you believe me if I said we're studying jungle ecosystems in my backyard?

Or this:

This stuff has been on the floor of our guestroom for over a month; what's another day?

But neither have I done this today (although I did eat two muffins):

Wish I knew who to credit for this photo!  Thanks Internet.

What I did do is actually fairly mundane--I took a walk with a friend, showered, snacked, read my devotionals, and puttered on Facebook.  Oh, I also trimmed down some potted chrysanthemums, which took all of two minutes.  Oh, and I put away the cereal boxes left on the table from breakfast.  And now I should really eat some sort of lunch before I leave to pick up the kids in 10 minutes.

But while this morning wasn't a red-letter day in terms of what I did--or didn't--do, it IS significant that I did those things without my kids.  This little introverted gal is very appreciative of the people teaching my kids this morning.

Once they get home, I'll be back "on" with homework and chores and whathaveyou, but I get to have this "free" morning again next week.  And the next week.  And the next.  And I just might find myself doing even more exciting things with my time than blogging about it.  Singing, volunteering, organizing, working on a foreign language...who knows!  The sky's the limit!

Well maybe not the sky.  I guess 4.5 hours is the actual limit, but right now that feels pretty vast to me.  Look out, world!  I'm coming to get you!  And sit tight, G and Z; I'm heading to the car to come get you in a minute.

Many Hats, Few Hours, One Head, 24 July 2013

Hello Blog!  I've missed you.  Whatever may be said about lazy summers, this certainly hasn't been one.  I suppose if I were a professional making money with my writing, I wouldn't relegate composing posts to irregular lazy moments, but that "really makes no matter," as Lady Bracknell says in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Obscure literary quotes (or movie quotes) aside, it is good to sit down and write!  It's nice to be a whole paragraph into this post without having said anything of real substance yet, which is perfectly fitting for a lazy moment.  I did, however, open this page with the intent of writing about something, and must just call it to mind.  One moment...

Ah yes.  Stay at Home Moms.

Actually, not all stay at home moms-- just me.  When a neighbor recently dropped his young grandson off with me because he was late to work and the babysitter "was only about 30 minutes away," and I supervised/entertained/mediated between three little boys for the following three hours--and it wasn't the first time this had happened, or even the second or third--I realized that (1) I should stop agreeing to watch neighbors' grandsons for indeterminate amounts of time and (2) some people must see me as having a lot of extra time on my hands.

Obviously, my readers all know I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands, because if I did, there would be a lot more blog entries.  But not everyone I come across is familiar with my 2-3/month posting trend, so I would like to elaborate for those people.  (Nevermind that "those people" don't read my blog and won't see this post; we'll just call this scribal processing.)

In a few weeks, Z will be starting Kindergarten (!!) while G continues on into 2nd grade.  When I mentioned this fact to an acquaintance earlier this summer, she said, "So what are you going to do with all your free time?  Get a job?"

The irksome idea that what I do now isn't a job aside, I have to admit, I had a moment of panic.  "Oh no!  Is that what I'm supposed to do??  Am I suddenly going to have all this empty time on my hands that will be squandered if I 'just stay at home'?!  Do I need to squeeze myself into some mind-numbing clerical position so that I can earn money instead of having 'free' time?"

In spite of Jay's insistence that I need those eight hours, I still felt guilt about not wanting to get back into the "work" force.  I calmed myself a bit by remembering that once the school year starts, I'm actually only going to have 8 hours per week without kids (we do a hybrid homeschool program, and Kindergartners are only in class 9 hours/week).  But thinking about the new phase I'm entering caused me to look again at the jobs (yes, plural, thank you very much) I already have. 

I've written before about the many "hats" I may wear in a given day; looking back at just the last seven days, I think I can group my activities into a few broad categories.  In no particular order:

• wife
• mother
• multi-organization volunteer
• relative (sister, in-law, auntie, etc)
• friend
• informal grief consultant (which often overlaps with "relative" and "friend")
• home and garden caretaker
• motherless daughter

During the past week, I have spent every minute being/doing at least one of these categories.  Now, I know that I'm a mother every minute, but--moms of infants and toddlers have hope--there are times of the day I'm not actively doing something with my kids.  Believe it or not, the two boys do have moments of entertaining each other without eyes-on supervision from me, at least for part of each day, which is wonderful.  Jay also does a fantastic job of doing things with the kids sans Mommy.  Naturally, during those times I put my feet up, put in earplugs, turn off my phone, and eat chocolate.

NOT.

Although I think my life would be better if I did that combination of things a little more.  Huh.  Let's put a pin in that.

No, the moments that active mom duty is on hold--and even quite a bit of the time it's not on hold--are moments filled with one or more of the other categories.  I'd like to go over some of the things I did this past week, and "those people" who think I have lots of extra time might understand my reality a bit better.

Since all of my readers are above-average intelligent (they have to be, to read this; after all, I quote Oscar Wilde), I'll dispense with delineating every category each activity belongs to.  They often overlap, anyway.

Last Wednesday, Jay gave me the day off from active mommy-ing.  I filled the day with birthday shopping for Z, and lunch and dinner out, catching up with two different friends.  Arriving home refreshed at 8 p.m., ready to have a quiet evening with Jay in front of the TV, we unexpectedly got an urgent request from a friend whose grandmother was in the hospital.  The next 4-5 hours were spent in caffeinated "friend" and "informal grief counselor" modes as I transported our friend from another city to our house for the night.

Thursday was mostly spent in that same mode, driving our friend to transport her out-of-town relatives to the ICU, where I stayed with them until the grandmother passed away Thursday evening.  (Thankfully, Jay thought to remind me to get a sub for my volunteer duties at my Thursday Al-Anon meeting, so I was able to coordinate that in time.)  As much as I tried not to slip into the "motherless daughter" category, the traumatic memories from my time in the ICU with my mom took their toll.

I spent Friday working off physical and emotional exhaustion.  In the morning, I got a message from another friend whose dad was in surgery after a heart attack, but prayer doesn't take too much physical energy, so I was happy to support her in that way. I also prayed over my daily email update from a friend whose 1 yr-old has stage 4 neuroblastoma.  Those updates aren't fun to read.  :-(

Perhaps surprisingly, by Friday evening I had recovered a bit, so I cleaned a bathroom and the living room floor, picked some tomatoes, and had a wonderful visit with a local friend who came over after the kids were in bed.  We chit-chatted over a wide variety of subjects while experimenting with a new French macaron recipe in my kitchen.

At about midnight, seconds away from being fully asleep, I suddenly realized I'd forgotten to wrap Z's birthday breakfast gift.  Enter mother mode again.  I get up.

Saturday morning officially began awfully early, because Z was so excited to start his 5th birthday!  Who wouldn't be?  The morning continued with making a grocery list for a 12-person dinner, packing the boys off to the store with a long shopping list.

The afternoon was filled with birthday/dinner prep (along with stolen bits of auntie time with visiting Baby K), and I spent the evening hostessing.  Incidentally, that may be the last 12-person birthday dinner I make.  There was too much work and not enough fun.  Putting a pin in that, too.

The guests were gone and excited boys in bed by 8 p.m., and my aching, grumpy body had just sunk into the couch when Jay said, "So I guess we should start planning tomorrow's Sunday School lesson."  Scream!  He reminded me that this Sunday was our turn to lead the 3s-5s class.

Finding me taciturn (that's a nice word for "surly," right?), Jay did as much planning on his own as he could, leaving a few bits for me to look over before church in the morning.

Sunday morning started well, perhaps in part because I donned an adorable outfit, and even though we scrapped our Sunday School lesson because only two kids showed up to class (one of whom was Z), I was content with being in volunteer mode.

But in the parking lot, headed toward lunch, "motherless daughter" showed up out of nowhere and smacked me across the face.  A friend at church asked me if I knew how to can peaches.  I'll leave the peach-canning back-story for another time; suffice it to say that it triggered a lot of happy memories of growing up with my mom, and a lot of weepy feelings that I can't call her and talk about it.

Those feelings stayed through Monday morning, thankfully relieved a bit by two tearfully-cathartic phone conversations with sisters.  Monday was also Jay's first day back at work, so all three of us were missing him after a summer-full of Daddy time.  "Mother" mode was definitely back in full swing, but we made the best of it and had a nice day.

Tuesday started with a playdate with another young mom who is motherless, and while our kids poured sand over each other, the two of us shared struggles and encouragement with each other.  In the afternoon, I found some new fresh tomato recipes and put a lovely dinner on the table (while texting back and forth with my sis-in-law), which felt great!  After putting the kids to bed, I had a conversation with yet another sister, focusing mainly on her boyfriend, whom I haven't yet been able to meet.  It was delightful to hear her gush on about this budding relationship...although I have to admit I felt a bit old and matronly.

Today we got out of town for a zoo visit with another family, and I--mostly--enjoyed cooking another tomato-centered dinner this evening.  The four of us definitely enjoyed eating it, at any rate!

Looking over this rather lengthy narrative, there are two main things that stand out to me:

1. I have a lot of friends and sisters.
2. I have a jam-packed life.

Eight non-mom-mode hours per week might just allow my life to be a little more paced out.  Or maybe other unexpected events will challenge my time in new ways.  Or maybe I'll get to have fewer multi- and more single-tasked times.

Or maybe, just maybe, I'll start the school year by putting my feet up, turning off my phone, and eating chocolate...at least for the first few hours.