This winter has been pretty bleak, so far. It's the usual stuff as well as some genuinely difficult circumstances---most staunchly filed under Matters Largely UnbloggableTM---and while the bottom line is that we are all fine, I respectfully submit that T.S. Eliot got it all wrong. April is not the cruelest month, January is. Hands down. One of the things I'm discovering, finally, after coming-up-on-two-years worth of remarriage, is that blending a family is not a linear process. It's more like the Electric Slide gone haywire, with steps forward and back and then---surprise!---sideways at an...
... for everyone to LOSE THEIR FREAKIN' MINDS. Seriously, I don't know what it is about December---whether the twinkling lights, much like certain over-the-top animated programs, cause people's brains to short-circuit, or if all of that GOODWILL and CHEER is just destined to backfire, or WHAT---but this is the time of year when otherwise reasonable people just up and go NUTS. And I don't want to cast aspersions, really, I don't. But I'm pretty sure this is NOT what Jesus had in mind. (Then again, Jesus strikes me as the sort who would find the birthday hoopla unnecessary. Though a national...
I had something else planned, for today, but then I read Karen's post and realized there was something different I needed to say. Once upon a time I was a Stephen Minister, and at a certain point during my tenure as a single mom, it was one of the things that needed to be cut from my schedule to help preserve my sanity. I really regretted having to step down---it was and is something I feel strongly about---but there is only so much time in the day, you know? And I was heeding some excellent advice from a friend, too, at the time: You cannot help others if you haven't helped yourself. My...
You name me a discipline method---other than corporal punishment---and I have tried it. I have punished for being bad and I have praised for being good and I have tied allowance to behavior and I have set marble jars on the counter (good deeds put marbles in, transgressions take marbles out) and I have overreacted and underreacted and just plain REACTED over and over again. And any parenting book I could write, at this point, with ten-and-a-half years of experience under my belt would read like this: "Pray. Then buy rum. The end." This is to say that I think my kids are going to turn out...
One of the things that inevitably happens when you spend time with a friend who's known you for a long time is that you talk about the past, right? It happens to all of us. And it's inevitable that when I spend time with Kira, we cannot help but marvel about what a long, strange trip it's been. When we first started talking, four years ago, we were both in a place of grim determination, I think. I know I was. It was emphatically NOT a place where we'd overcome adversity and knew that a better life was coming. It was more of a place where we'd overcome adversity and we were just hoping that...
We're just past the halfway point of the kids' first week away this summer, and truthfully, the days are passing at a tolerable pace. It helps to have a major catastrophe to tend to, I guess, to take my mind off of other things. LUCKY ME! Oh, I kid. The whole computer failure and subsequent retreat into the fetal position has only occupied a tiny (gigantic) sliver of my time. Actually, I've been quite busy with my little container garden out on the deck. And that's because I love to garden! Oh, wait. Actually, I think it's because some sort of mystery bug is eating through my banana pepper...
Things have been a tiny bit tense around here lately; I don't suppose you've noticed. To say we've all been a little stressed out would not be inaccurate. And while I can't speak for the kids, obviously, I know that I personally feel a lot more angst when my children are having trouble getting over a hump and I can't seem to help them. Both of them are struggling right now with different things. I am left feeling like what I do is never enough and that if only I could find THAT THING that would fix it all, we could all heave a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, THAT THING is completely beyond my...
Joshilyn arrived yesterday afternoon with Sam and Maisy in tow, and Monkey and Sam were LITERALLY engrossed in a discussion of the finer points of various Pokemon beasties before the door had even shut behind them. For a couple of glorious hours, Joss and I got to sit and relax and chat while Chickadee dressed Maisy in a variety of her outgrown clothing and generally led her around like a wee and precious pet lamb, and the boys bounced off the walls upstairs (where we could hear them but not be overly disturbed by them). I dished up dinner earlyish (Chris' most excellent chicken curry with...
I may have mentioned that I accompanied my daughter's class on a field trip on Monday. There's really no way to describe heading into the woods with twenty-four fourth graders, some of whom believe that nature ends at the edge of the playground. Chickadee is turning ten soon, and I keep asking her, "So, when do I become an embarrassment? When will the very idea of me daring to show my face within a mile radius strike fear into your heart?" Make no mistake---I've already started becoming stupid. Very, very stupid. And demanding. [Insert huffy sigh here.] But so far, she laughs at the idea of...
