A Week Of Transformation

My sister (who was born on my grandmother's birthday and is currently pregnant with my second nephew!) turned 39 on Friday, May 15th. A lot has happened since my (one and only) sister's birthday: I've transitioned out of grief, marked the healthy loss of 19 pounds, been zapped by the lightning strike of finding my next, right career, joined a women's running group that benefits local trails and a village in Tanzania, put one writing project to its final rest, and launched a brand new writing project into the stratosphere. In the midst of all of that I have celebrated my daughter - the Ninja Princessa's 14th birthday, celebrated my mother's birthday, and had numerous, numerous validations that I'm on the right path for my life.

The grief has (obviously) been a long time in passing and I am not pretending like there are not going to be after pangs. However, I've been working persistently and kindly through it and feel confident about leaning forward once again. Though processing grief is not the ONLY thing I've been doing lo, these many months of not blogging. For all of 2009 (thus far), I have been doing things like training for my triathlon, staying connected with my kiddos both near and far, focusing on nutrition (and becoming a vegetarian - eeek!), writing in lots of other venues, and discerning what my next steps are going to be. All that slow, steady plodding came together in a conflagration of energy, resources, and forward progress last week. It all clicked. I am miles into my next ventures and my spirit is joyful again.

I feel myself impatient to get to my projects this morning - which is very different from not blogging because I am worried I'll just dump stress, anger, frustration, and ick onto the page. I will say before I dash off to my studio that I met Meinrad Craighead last night at the premiere of the documentary about her. It was a phenomenal, affirming and challenging experience. My fiber art and my prayer life will never be the same again. She is an artist who has been exploring and expressing the Divine Feminine for half a century. She was a cloistered Benedictine nun for 14 years and even 30 years after leaving the abbey, lives a contemplative, solitary life. She is fearless and gritty - many of her images disturbing, entrancingly dark, and rending. She is also peaceful and present and genuinely humble. She offers you the feral wisdom of her connection to the Great Mother - in a way that gives you an access of your very own. In closing the presentation Meinrad told a story of the Pueblo people. (Sidenote - she lives in Albuquerque, NM and to travel to NC for this was a BIG deal for her.) She told the story of the Salt Mother - who nourished and protected her people (maybe with the Corn Father??) As peoples are wont to do with their dieties, the Salt Mother's children began to fall away from her, forgetting to honor her, turning away from her. As a result, She fell away from them and turned away too. And the people sickened and no longer thrived as a people. The people realized their error and began pleading, asking the Salt Mother what they had to do to return to her. She told them to start every morning by placing a small amount of salt in their mouths, taking it in to honor her and to align themselves with her restorative, healing, preservative power. She told them to absorb some of her very godstuff intentionally, each and every day in order to live as they should - in harmony and peace with the Mother. Meinrad ... I want to say charged, instructed, or commanded us to do the same - but she used no coercive or authoritative language. She merely offered the story with such powerfully resonant invitation that it strikes me as beyond foolish not to accept. Accepting, however, was not without its internal backtalk. My new nutrition plan is very, very low salt as it's all fruits and vegetables (mostly raw) and almost no processed food. My first thought was "Salt? On purpose?! I can't do that!" I shushed the sass in my head by reminding myself I do make small exceptions for training food (e.g. Gu on long runs and electrolyte replacement drinks). I decided to make another "exception" and incorporate the Salt Mother into my daily, intentional living practice.

One final Meinrad note. I was standing in the group surrounding Meinrad as the evening was winding to a close. (The friend I went with wanted a chance to speak with her as they've known each other in the past.) We were in a cluster and the woman in front of me was telling Meinrad how much she needed Meinrad's example and inspiration. The woman said several somethings about how she wanted to be as brave and courageous as Meinrad in her own artwork. Meinrad tried to deflect some of this saying she'd only done what she was called to, she affirmed the fearful artist's own ability to do the same, and finally when the woman wasn't hearing her, Meinrad said forcefully, "No. It is for you. Take this! I give you permission to [and here she bared her teeth and growled] be FIERCE in your pursuit. Go." Her energy and her growl encompassed us all. She took the woman's hands in hers and while pulling them together, pushed her gently away. Then Meinrad looked directly at me. It's possible she swept the whole circle with that gaze but I wouldn't know because I was RINGING with the force of those words and her attention. Words said to another, but meant for me too, all the same. She and the Divine Mother gave me permission - a directive - to be FIERCE in my pursuit. Fierce has always meant scary to me - but fear can't get a hold of this inside me. It's too big, too right, too deep for fear. Meinrad Craighead's example gives me an incredible reassurance that my fierceness in this world will be entirely reflective of my own, personal and unique connection with godstuff. I am so grateful to have had the chance to meet Wisdom in this way.

And now, my studio beckons! Peace.

In Which Translation Occurs (Sort Of)

Lilymania needs an update. Bad. I thought I'd go out and find a cool new template to celebrate three years here in the blogosphere. (Three years!) Of course I managed to find the perfect template - on a technical blogging page that's all in SPANISH. (I have always wanted to learn Spanish, but so far all I've managed to get is a little Russian, some French, and a smattering of Italian and Latin. The last two help a teeny bit with the Spanish but not nearly enough to translate a page about widgets and templates!) Then I noticed a handy dandy translator button off in the margin. (You see where this is going, right?) Who is in charge of this stuff?!! Here is a sample of what I got:

I think ofreceros free, as always, several designs of pagination so that you prune to unload them and to install them without problems… You have a little patience.

One forgot to me. . . You can see a sample working in the main page of my blog, right under the entrances or posts, you puncture Here.

Errr, yeah. That was helpful. (Not.) I particularly like the pruning to unload and the instruction to "puncture here". You have a little patience indeed! Well, I'm out of patience, friends. For the nonce, Lilymania remains the same. Oh - and Bet and I are off to Philly tomorrow to see Madonna in concert. Chances are I won't be blogging until we get back. (Shall I say "so much for NaBlo" once more? :P ) Peace.

Yay Australia!

I meant to post about this the other day and got too caught up in my own crapola. I am THRILLED for Australia. I wish I could pull Australia just a little bit closer and rub shoulders with her in the hope that whatever fever of sanity her electorate caught is contagious. Howard lost because he was seen as old and out of touch with the rest of the world. I do not discount the many positive things Howard has done during his long tenure, but it's like he missed the part where his people are concerned about the climate change and the war he's supported, and that cost him. The environment was a huge election issue and the younger generation voted vocally to support a prime minister who would ratify the Kyoto protocol. I am impressed by Australia's forward-thinking move. Gee, where can I get me some of that? Peace.

Jackpot

I LOVE playing the lottery. I know, I know - tax on the poor, the evils of gambling, the curse of sudden wealth syndrome, yada, yada, yada. Still. I love to play. It feels like play. I'm a lucky person in general and it's fun - so why not. It's exciting to pick numbers and dream about what I would do if we won. I don't HAVE to play. I don't buy a ticket every week, but I probably buy one a month. I certainly don't use the lottery as my retirement planning tool or spend money I don't have. I do, however, enjoy it as a big, wild, "what if". If I had to justify it, I could point out that I spend significantly less on the lottery than the average American spends at Starbucks. A chai latte gives me a tummy ache but a lottery ticket gives me a license to dream. This flimsy piece of paper may not be an exotic guilty pleasure, but it's mine and I'm savoring it. For a few more hours anyway. Until I make myself go to the Powerball website. Between now and then, I'll just hang out here with Schrodinger's cat and dream a little dream.

What about you? Lottery - love it or hate it?
Peace.

Pep Talk For Myself

I will not be getting any of these when we finish up school supplies shopping tonight. Maybe I'm wired differently than other parents, but if I truly felt like my kid would need one then I wouldn't be able to let them go to school - ever. Am I an ostrich? I know how random and unpredictable violence has gotten. Of course I think about Columbine and Virginia Tech. I just can't help but think that the solutions that lead to safety and peace for our children are not down the path of better defensive armament.

This week is filled with new student orientations, placement tests, and meet the teacher nights. I keep typing and erasing what I want to say about this. We had a short family meeting with the kids to get organized about the week and to say that we'd found out Mr. Tapioca was no longer moving here and that he was suing for custody. We told the kids that when they felt like sharing we wanted to hear how they felt. We had to make some decisions and certainly wanted to take their thoughts/feelings into consideration. I'm sure I'll hear more as I have more one on one time with my guys this week but it's hard. Mostly it's hard to see my kids now torn about investing themselves here. Chaos got home from the time with dad and didn't want to look at his schedule to see what classes he got. Havoc (the 8 year old) told me last night while we were waiting for the muffins to bake, that since I'd gotten to have him for the weeks and Dad had only gotten the weekends for the past six years, then he thought maybe he wanted to live with dad for a while. Very interesting to me that Havoc quoted the six year part. He doesn't track time like that. He's never once shown an awareness of how long his dad and I have been divorced. It was hard to hear him parrot his dad's type of reasoning. I let him keep talking and he began to sound more like himself - trying to find a solution, trying to put things together one way and then another. He told me it was hard - he didn't want to have to choose because really, he wanted to choose both. He said part of him wished dad and I hadn't gotten divorced so we could all live together still. Then he said that wouldn't work because he'd miss Linus. He said he'd still have gotten to see Bet (as she's known them all their lives.) He finished by saying he didn't know what to decide.

I told him that I needed him to understand some very important things - the first one being he never had to "choose" one parent over the other. He could say where he wanted to live, he could say how he felt - but he didn't ever have to make a choice of one over the other. He gets to love his parents as much as he wants no matter what the living arrangements are - and that none of this custody stuff changed how much we loved him. I explained that I needed to know how he felt because that informed my decisions, but that he didn't have to make any decisions, the decisions were for the grown ups to make. He said, "Yeah the judge." I told him I still hoped his dad and I could work this out without a judge but if we couldn't then yes, a judge would have to decide for us. My peacemaker middle child, Mayhem said whatever happened would be ok with him.

Interestingly, Mayhem just came in to snuggle and talk to me. God, I love my kids. They are so ... good. I keep reminding myself how lucky we are. This custody stuff sucks. I feel threatened. I do not want my kids taken away from me. I believe with all my heart that they are better off with us because we know how to be present, how to build family, how to help them with school and how to teach them life skills. Mr. Tapioca hasn't yet been able to maintain any of that even in the time with the boys he has now. He talks a good game - but work always trumps family for him. I can't imagine how he thinks he'd be able to do all that needs to be done in daily life with the boys. But for all that - even if the "worst" case happens and I lose in court - it has to be remembered that my kids are not in a war zone; they are not doing drugs or in trouble with the law; they are not being abused and molested. And in addition to all the bad things that aren't happening to them, they are, at heart, naturally sweet guys! They will be good men. Even if this patch for our family is rocky, they will be good men.

That helps. Some. I think the more I remember it, the more it will help. I had NO IDEA that parenting would require learning to give myself pep talks. Feel free to give me advice on how to do it better! I'm not at all sure I've got the hang of it.
Peace.

It's The Little Things That Get You

Despite the fact that I have been fixing to move for well nigh three months now, it's a whole different thing to actually BE MOVING. There is a part of me that just hasn't caught up. (This is the exact same part of me that opened the skinny middle desk drawer into my pregnant tummy twelve times a day while I was carrying Chaos. It didn't matter that 99.999% of my brain was obsessed with being pregnant, having a baby, thinking about the baby, etc. That .001% was not only not obsessed with my pregnancy but it actively refused to make any allowances whatsoever.)

Yesterday morning VBGF and I went to the convenience store next to the hotel to buy some Dramamine for Havoc. (Havoc, bless his heart, had puked the minute he got out of the car the night before.) The chewable Dramamine comes in small, one dose packets. I picked one up and then said to VBGF, "I know he only needs the one dose for today since we'll only be in the car for a couple of hours, but do you think I should get another one to have on hand for the drive back?" She gave me a funny look and said, "Drive back? This is a move." RIGHT. Move. Not vacation. Not a visit. A permanent move. To another state.

The slow fraction of my brain hates being caught out. For a moment all was shaky and a little teary. Then there was some mental wagon circling and some internal cluckings of "There, there" and "It'll be alright." The rest of me got back in the driver's seat. I think we're all onboard now - slow bits and all. I'm hoping we're even all buckled up, because this next part is a doozie. Closing. In an hour. With crazy* people involved. Cross those fingers!!
Peace.

*I know, I know. Pot, kettle and all that. But really, these folks (<-- our sellers) are a piece of work. I would avoid all of Chicago if I were you because that's where they live now! Travel to the Windy City at your own risk.

Mid Point

Greetings from East Asheville! We're a traveling circus - we have four adults, six mostly teenage boys, a dog, two U-Haul trucks (one of them towing my 12 year old Rodeo), and two VW's all trekking east on I-40. Our closing took about 10 minutes (and most of that was chat!) Our realtor gave us a huge canvas bag stuffed with goodies. She laughed and said she tried to put some healthy stuff in there. Her ratio? 40 lbs of junk topped with a two peanut butter crackers and a token bag of trail mix. I think we'd gone about thirty miles before all of the cookies, the M&M's, the jelly beans, and one of the peanut butter crackers were gone. The trail mix and the vitamin fortified water bottles were all that was left. Yep - Lindy the listing agent rocks the house!! Smartest gal on the planet! What else can I say about someone who sells my house in two days and then gives me the perfect present to appease a car full of teenage stomachs??

Poor Robbie the Realtor on the other side. She is working probably four times as hard for not nearly so much joy. We will all breathe a huge sigh of relief when we get through the closing on the new house. The people selling us our new house are ... crazy. Like ape shit crazy. From the first week of weird negotiations with them where they ended up not even being able to accept their own offered price, we've known they weren't right. The house is perfect for us or we would have walked away at about the third obstacle. I no longer buy the excuse that they are young, don't know what they're doing, and have stressful jobs in Chicago. Normal people, even young, inexperienced ones with stressful jobs in Chicago can figure this stuff out. I would add that they have their own realtor to help them through the process but I don't know if she's speaking to them anymore.

We knew they wouldn't do any repairs. They have no money. Integrity seems to be in short supply with them too. Emotions, however, they have in spades. They have bitched and whined about how we're taking advantage of them by buying their house at the list price. We have received more than one letter accusing us of "taking advantage of a marketing strategy" by purchasing the home they've been trying to sell for months and months (with several agents and more than one agency). Ok fine. They are crazy, but we can work with crazy for a limited time. Let's just get through this!

We say to them - we hear you, no repairs, but please provide us with the building permits for the work you had done as the inspection shows that there are some code violations which we will need to address. They refused. Not only did they refuse but their response was a "how dare you ask for such a thing" type of letter. They blathered on about how they'd had licensed professionals do the work - NOT day laborers (a strange defense since we'd not even thought of that - we just wanted the papers to cover our butts about the permits). According to our sellers, they'd paid good money (here we were treated to yet another digression about how we had NO IDEA what kind of deal we were getting on the house) and the work was done flawlessly (despite our evil inspector's malicious observations to the contrary). They will not be providing documentation of any description - not even the name of the (supposedly licensed) contractor who did the (provably not flawless) work.

Sometimes I really don't understand how people work. Do they expect us to believe what they say even when it makes no sense? Do they have friends who listen sympathetically to their woes and say, "There, there. Your buyers are just whacked. It will all be over soon"? That's all neither here nor there. We have in writing what we need legally to cover ourselves. Our inspector gave us detailed instructions on what needs to be done to make everything right. We're ready to close and be done with these jokers.

Then on Friday our realtor lets us know that there's a teeny, tiny little problem that affects them, not us, and as far as she knows we are still set to close on Wednesday morning. This infitesimally small issue turns out to be nothing other than a LIEN against the house, a dispute with the neighbors, and a pending court case. Poor Robbie had to tell us (yet again) that she's never had anything like this happen in her 20+ years in real estate. It's the third never-before-seen thing these people have achieved. I think it is a remarkable act of faith that we launched ourselves out on this journey with so little assurance of a successful end. Granted, we hadn't many options considering our homelessness as of 8:30 a.m. yesterday. Might as well launch and hope for the best, eh? Of course it wouldn't hurt if all of you out there, my lovely internet friends, would hope for the best for us too! Maybe that will tip the cosmic scales and the universe will allow Wednesday to proceed without a hitch. A girl can dream, can't she?
Peace.

Grownup By Degrees

Until recently, I have always been one of the youngest in my crowd of friends. I have also always looked significantly younger than I am. (That used to make me sad and often frustrated - like when I was in the Navy and got carded for BUYING GAS for my car on my 19th birthday. Now? I kind of like it.)

I think the connection between how old you look and how old you act is strong - and not necessarily straight forward. Perceptions about age and aging shift subtly. Our ideas of what we think a certain age is going to be like are often very different from the way it seems to us when we get there. On my thirteenth birthday I wondered when I'd feel like a teenager. Confusing cultural messages about what age signifies abound. Uplifting slogans like "You're only as old as you feel!" and admonishments like "Act your age!" war with the next generation's comeback of "If my music is too loud, then you're too old!" Our mile markers along the journey are not precise. When are we "grown up"? When we make our first paycheck? Get a driver's license? Vote? Serve our country? Get shitfaced (legally) for the first time? Get married? Have a baby?

For me I'd done all of those things and still didn't FEEL grown up until I was trying to prove to my 6 year old cousin and my 2 year old son that it was possible to eat brussel sprouts without gagging. At 25, I'd never actually managed to eat brussel sprouts (and keep them down) before but I was highly motivated by an article I'd just read. This article seemed to imply that my child would die of malnutrition if I could not find a way to instill an appreciation of all things vegetable in him IMMEDIATELY. Apparently, moms can DESTROY a kid's chances of ever liking healthy food by failing to provide enticing, nutritious food during a critical developmental window lasting approximately three weeks in toddlerhood. I put on a jolly face. I made vegetables EXCITING and INTERESTING. Earlier in the week I had tackled the easier ones - sweet potatoes and carrots (with brown sugar!), peas (roly poly!) , squash and pumpkin (fun with gourds!), broccoli (with cheese), green beans (with dipping sauces!) and the like. I worked my way down the list and was stumped by brussel sprouts. Egad - do people still eat those? They were not only on the list but STARRED (meaning that if you were on a desert island this vegetable was soooo good for you that you should choose to be stranded with it above all.) I didn't even know how to fix brussel sprouts. I ended up buying frozen, buttered, baby sprouts with the jolly green giant on the box, figuring the big, green, leafy guy was more fun than the Kroger brand. I admit I was grasping at straws. MUCH to my surprise, I gulped down the first one and realized it was not horrid. I even chewed the next bite and LIKED it. It dawned on me somewhere in the middle of that second bite, that I must well and truly be a grown up now. Despite my vegetable epiphany, the brussel sprouts were not a hit with the pre-school crowd. I was too freaked out to worry about it. I kept thinking to myself that somehow I'd become a grown up and not even noticed it! I think I spent the next three days eating cheetos and drinking coke for breakfast.

Today I again feel like I turned a significant corner in the aging process without noticing. Somehow I've become middle aged without meaning to!! I've just come back from our first meeting with a financial planner. We PAID someone lots of money to spend an hour or two talking to us about insurance, wills, retirement accounts, and estate planning - and it was ENJOYABLE! It was affirming to find out we've been on the right track; it was interesting to learn more; it was exciting to think about what the next five years are going to be like. LISTEN TO ME! Insurance, budgets, IRA's - interesting and exciting?!!

Oh my god - I don't think coke and cheetos are going to soothe me this time! Quick somebody throw a keg party!!

Peace.

Wimbledon

Two weeks from today we sell our house. For 48 hours we'll be in transit and then we'll be in our new home. All with the caveat of "God willing and the creek don't rise." Well that and if Mr. Tapioca Head doesn't find a way to take me back to court and ruin things. YES - it was that kind of a fun weekend. But I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about way more fun stuff.

What I want to say is "Yay me!" for starting to run again and for playing tennis this morning for the first time in almost two years. VBGF joined the USTA (US Tennis Association) purely to get the shirt to wear while she watches Wimbledon. Unlike me, she cannot watch Wimbledon without being completely motivated to go out and play some tennis herself. Now she's busy infecting her closest friends with her tennis enthusiasm. She bought a racket for me to use (mine being packed already - who knew I would play tennis the last 14 days I'm here??) and dragged me out on the court this morning. We had a ball! It was warm but breezy. Clear skies. Perfect tennis weather. I love being active. I love being outside. I love being around other active people. Especially ones who are having as much fun as VBGF has on the tennis court.

After two consecutive days of exercise and crazy amounts of adrenaline, I feel justified in spending the afternoon on the couch watching other people exert themselves. If you're not going to watch Wimbledon, I hope you do something to enjoy the summer day!

Peace.

Just Like Vegas, Only In Kentucky

When I picked Chaos up from camp on Friday, he was one of only two kids left. There was no set pick up time. I was told that they'd call when they were on their way. Chaos didn't call until they were already there. When he gave the one remaining camper a great big hug as he left, I began to suspect why he'd waited to call. Her name is Kelsey.

I asked about her (NATURALLY) and he blushed sweetly and laughingly said, "What happens at church camp, stays at church camp." All righty then! I asked Chaos great, big, open-ended questions about camp in general and got great, big, meaningless answers back, "It was fine." I was patient and he was stuck running errands with me for the next two hours so I eventually got a lot more out of him. He even enjoyed telling me. I think sometimes teenagers want to make sure you really want to listen before they're willing to invest energy in really talking to you. I think it takes them a lot of work to sort out what they're thinking and feeling about whatever they've just experienced and they aren't going to open that up only to be shut down. It means the world to me that my 15 year old is still willing to do that work to talk to me. Here's what I learned about church camp -

-Sunscreen works differently there. Chaos put it on five or six times a day (ask anyone in his group!), even on rainy days, and still got majorly sunburned. (I did explain to him that even with sunscreen on - a pale, red-headed boy like himself who spends 10 hours outside in the sun is going to get lobsterfied.)

-Chaos played football, ultimate frisbee, and soccer everyday, had Bible study and worship, and "partied" every night. ("Partied" meaning "talked to girls while there was music playing" - I am sooooo okay with this definition of partying and hope it lasts a lot longer than it is likely to!)

-Chaos is not born again. He learned a lot but doesn't agree with everything he was told. Also? He prefers being Catholic because they don't make him sing. He did ask if I would take him to Bluegrass Baptist Church next time it's "my" Sunday. He said he wants to hang out with Nate. I suspect he also wants to hang out with Kelsey.

Chaos told me at seven o'clock that he needed the phone around 8:40. I asked why and he said, "You know. Remember that girl that you saw me hug?" Yeah. I remember. I told him absolutely he could use the phone but he couldn't call her after nine and he couldn't stay on the phone later than nine-thirty. He called her. This is an historic event as it is the first time that a boy from our household has called a girl. My boys have, up until now, been too "Warhammer 40K" focused to have girlfriends! I was at the other end of the house but I know he didn't call her until after 8:50 because the kids were finishing up a movie. He was off the phone and horsing around with Bug in the kitchen not much after nine. I didn't ask about it. He was in a good mood and I hadn't had to pry him off the phone. Good enough. Small steps for as long as possible. The longer it takes us to get up to cruising speed for this part of the journey, the better in my book. Perhaps now would be a good time to buckle my seatbelt?

Peace.

Tri Fever

My studio is packed up. My books are packed up. My bike is packed (and shipped!) to NC already. Pretty much all I have left are my running shoes. Pretty much that's all you need to run. But did I run this morning? Noooooo. And why not? Because I didn't feel like it. And now that I do feel like it, it's raining. Yay for the rain. We needed it! Sad for me not to have run this morning when I had the chance.

In spite of not running, I haven't been completely useless today. I got myself fired up about the triathlon again. I plan on being one of the first to register for next year's event! I also found a great online workout tracker. I'm a logbook junkie. I can't train without a good log to write it down in. This time I'm training with friends from all over though - so an online workout log is ideal. It is interesting to me that very few of the athletes use the blog feature of the online log.

I also found two quilt guilds - one in Raleigh and one in Durham. Even more exciting than that, I discovered many art quilters in the area. Of course my favorite art quilter EVER is Hollis Chatelain and she is only about 15 or 20 miles from me (as best I can read the map!) Surely at some point, I'll find a way to take a class from her. (Rapture!)

Something Old, Something New

Remember how I was all "Behold! I am doing something new!"? Apparently the newness wore off yesterday and we were back to the old. I could NOT get myself on track with packing and painting and purging. Instead I threw an internal temper tantrum and went for a pedicure. It was lovely to pamper myself. It was part of my Mother's Day present. (As much fun as it was, it was not my favorite part of my Mother's Day present. My favorite part is the handmade card and weird little wind up Carmen Miranda-like bunny thing the kids gave me.)

What was not part of my original Mother's Day present at all was a trip to the bookstore. Yet, on the phone with me as I left the nail shop yesterday, Sweet Hubby said, "Go buy a book! Take yourself to lunch! Re-rax." See why I love that man?

I hied me hither to yon book shoppe. Did I buy a book? No, I did not. I tried. I tried real hard. In the end, though, I could not bring myself to buy a single book. Not me. I, addict that I am, bought books. Plural. As in multiple. More than two. (More than three, if you must know. And you must. That is the point of me being all confessiony on the internet here.) I did save the receipt so that I could take some of them back if need be. (Which is a complete joke really. If I had the willpower to take them back, then I would have had the willpower (in spades!) to resist buying them in the first place. I mean, I suck at returns I HAVE to make. I cannot for the life of me imagine that I would be better at returns I don't want to make. Still. That receipt is emotional insurance.)

I about panicked on the way home as I realized I had no where to "hide" my books. (I mentioned the addiction part of all this, right?) It's not that I hide books from Sweet Hubby. I promise you, he's not judgmental like that. He won't lecture me about $ or natter on about someone giving inches and someone else taking miles. He won't wonder where I'm going to find the time to read them all while still getting done what needs to be done. He's a prince. (Or a really cute enabler. You decide.) He might be slightly disappointed that my book binge is all chick lit. He likes sci-fi. No, my pattern of hiding books is all about hiding them from myself. The old me would squirrel them away, a few here on this bookshelf, a few on that. I would pick one to gobble up right away and the rest would be scattered to be re-discovered later. That way I didn't have a pile of books beside the bed demanding attention all at the same time. The hiding process keeps a book buying binge from turning into an all out book reading binge. Only it is quite a bit harder to tuck books away on this shelf and that when you have no shelves! Or if the few built in ones you have are absolutely bare except for your new books. You know what I did? I put the new books under my bed. Do you think that helped? No, it did not.

I read my allotted one book of immediate gratification last night: Watermelon by Marian Keys. Now I must spend all of today and the rest of this week resisting the rest of the stack even though I know exactly where it is. I've never done that before. Behold! I am doing something new! (I hope.)
Peace.

The Talk

This post may be incomprehensible because my nephew Thrasher is staying with me for the day. You'd think with the herd of children I have that I'd remember how impossible it is to complete anything - even a thought - with a toddler around. Apparently I have the long term memory of a gnat, because I keep looking at the clock wondering how another hour has passed when I've still only managed to write half of an email! For a little guy who spent his entire day yesterday flying from Paris to Boston to Philadelphia to here - Thrasher's remarkably well behaved. Very snuggly. I may not have gotten caught up on my email but I'm making progress on getting caught up on hugs and kisses!

So...Monday night...The Talk
Have you ever tried to wedge a family talk into a schedule of karate and cub scouts and chorus concerts and math contests? There was no "good" night for it. Once we decided that sooner was better for the kids than later, we realized that the only relatively free night in the next two weeks was Monday. Maybe it's good we didn't have more than a few hours to stress about it. I had a hurried, but helpful and encouraging phone conversation with VBGF and then took a walk around the block with Sweet Hubby. Mr. Tapioca Head and I had talked twice already and he said he'd be available for the kids to call him after we finished talking. All set.

We took the kids out for ice cream after the concert to celebrate the Princessa's solo and Mayhem's making the math team. We got home and instead of chasing them off to bed, sat them around the table. We said we had big news we needed to talk to them about.
"You're pregnant?!" asked the Princessa.
Er, no. We explained we were moving. Chaos immediately asked, "Will I still get to go to HHS?"
"No, we're moving to North Carolina."
"Oh man!" he said and put his head down on his arms. The Princessa burst into tears. She sobbed. She was almost hysterical for a while. It was not going particularly well. We reminded them about the job situation here and told them about the job opportunities there. We told them we had weighed many factors once we knew that we needed to move. We told them there were other opportunities in other places, but we'd decided on North Carolina because we already had some family and friends there and that all the kids had liked it when we'd visited. We told them that we were making the best choice for our family that we could. Of course they wanted to know where else. I said, "There are some great opportunities in places like San Francisco and Dallas and Atlanta." Chaos cracked me up when he said, "Dallas? Dallas, Texas? Gee, what else is in Texas? Cowboys, prickly cactuses, and, oh the Bush family. No thank you!" I assured him there was a lot more in Texas but that I agreed with him, it would NOT be a good place for us.

We told them about the schools and some of the activities that were available. We assured the boys they wouldn't miss time with their dad because he was going to move close by. We told the Princessa that it wouldn't affect her time with her mom. The only change would be that she'd fly from RDU instead of from BNA. Havoc tried first to find the bright side and started listing the people we knew there. But then it hit him that he'd be leaving his Grandmothers and friends and he got a little tearful. His response was pretty amazing for an 8 year old. He said, "I feel worried and stressed and a little bit angry and excited, too. Would it be alright if I got a piece of paper and a bright red crayon and scribbled while you keep talking?" I praised him for being able to name all of his feelings and told him of course he could scribble if that made him feel better. Mayhem was completely cool with it all. He wanted to call his best friend - but since they see each other more on Runescape than they do in real life, I don't think he sees it as impacting his friendships too much. Mayhem is also easily the most outgoing of the kids. He makes new friends everywhere.

Mayhem, never one to be still for very long - and being more upset by the Princessa's sadness than the actual news, I think - had to get up and move around. He started practicing his karate moves. Chaos was quiet. He also got up but he started wandering around the table and pacing. Havoc snuggled and the Princessa leaned against me as she continued to sniffle. Havoc wanted to know if he could go talk to the guidance counselor at school. Isn't that great?! I love that he thought of other resources to help him deal. We let the kids ask all of their questions and then let them up to go figure things out the way they wanted to. The Ninja Princessa immediately texted all of her friends and Havoc called his dad. Chaos wanted to go sit in the driveway and look at the moon and think. Mayhem and Wasabi went around checking on everyone. Once the big talk broke up, we got to have smaller conversations with the kids in shifting groups. I went to talk to Chaos in the driveway and Mayhem joined us. SH and the NP cuddled on our bed and talked and pretty soon Havoc and Mayhem and Wasabi joined them. Later I had all the boys in the studio. Chaos said he was "fine" with it. I asked him what he felt. "Nothing." I told them that everyone would have a different pattern for processing and a different time schedule. The boys were worried about the Princessa. The Princessa was worried about the boys - especially because she couldn't understand how Chaos could feel nothing. I told her that it was hard for some people to know what they were feeling immediately. I told all of them that there would be more and different feelings everyday for a while. We emphasized that everyone's reactions were valid. There isn't just one way to do big transitions. We tried to make them understand that there were many, many healthy patterns for dealing with things like this. We did talk about some of the unhealthy ways that we wanted to avoid - but mostly we talked about the positives.

It was hard but such a good process! The kids all had to go away to cope for a bit - but they all came back! Each of them came back and added more to the discussion. They each came back to ask more and to talk more about how they felt. Even Chaos, in his own way. He came in and wanted to snuggle and have me scratch his back. I told him I could only scratch his back for a minute and he said, "After what you just did, you better scratch my back for TEN minutes." He also let me know that part of the price for his cooperation with the move is to get his ear pierced the minute school is out. It was sweet bargaining. It was, "This sucks and I'm trying to be a good sport." I know that Monday was only the first stage but it was a great first step. The kids were all honest and present and turned in towards the family. I had been sure Chaos' first reaction would be a huge surge of anger. I hadn't anticipated the Ninja Princessa's intense sadness. I think it likely that there will be more anger from Chaos and less sadness and more resignation from the Princessa as the days move on. I know that everyone is going to cycle up and down through all kinds of feelings. It is a grieving process. It just felt so good to be doing all of that together. It's been hard to try to be juggling details and worry about slipping up and having the kids find out in a backwards way. I like the directness and clarity and I want to keep moving in that direction.

We've already started packing up our books. Remember our beautiful library? Now it looks like this!

There is so much to do in such a short time but now I'm enjoying the process more.
Naptime is over! Thrasher and I are going to have some lunch and pack some more boxes.
Peace.

Quiet Commotion

We've had quite the emotion commotion this week. The job market is not exciting here and it looks like we really may move. Out of state. Like pack up all the kids, sell the house and schlep a bit east.

It is exciting. And scary. And energizing. And paralyzing.

The conversation with Mr. Tapioca Head about the possibility of taking the boys out of state went well. Really well. Surprisingly well. (Which, of course, scares the crud out of me waiting for the other shoe to drop - but I'm not going to borrow trouble from tomorrow by dwelling on it.) He understands the professional situation here (having had something like 5 jobs in 6 years) and he was realistic about the fact that he could delay us or make it harder but that it was unlikely he could legally prevent it. He doesn't want to be away from his kids (which makes sense to me - I don't want to be away from them either!) so depending on what the actual offers are, he's going to try to work with me. Truly I couldn't possibly have asked for anything more.

I'm ready for the fantastic job offers from points eastward to start rolling in. (Universe, are you listening?) I'm cleaning the house like a fiend (OH MY GOD I HAVE TO HAVE MY HOUSE READY TO PUT ON THE MARKET!) and I'm trying to keep the energy level on as even a keel as possible. For many, many reasons we're not telling the kids any time soon. Firstly, we have to have a much more concrete plan (starting with a signed offer - a fantastic in all ways kind of signed offer - oh universe, do you hear me?) And also? The kids have their end of the year, standardized state exams this week. This. Week.

I've decided that my new affirmation is "I continue to make good and healthy choices during times of stress. I easily navigate flux and change. I have fun." That sounds good doesn't it? The dog likes it. I say my affirmations outloud while I sit on the floor and stretch. He tries to lick my face each time I start talking. It's sweet in a distracting way. I laugh but haven't figured out how to shoo him without feeling like I'm shooing away all the goodness I'm trying so hard to attract! This talking to the universe can be very tricky!
Peace.

Behold!

I love the word "behold". It is commanding. And sassy. There is a Bible verse from Isaiah (the exact chapter/verse are tattooed on the back of my friend St. Ann's neck but I still don't remember the numbers) that says, "Behold, I am doing a new thing!" (In spite of the fact that I could probably find it with two minutes of internet research, I'm not going to link to it - because I am Ms. Distracto on an adrenaline high today and those two minutes could easily become two hours. I would get sucked into the internet and NEVER finish this blog post.)
The point is "Behold!" And "I'm doing a new thing!"
It's like "Stand back!" And "Something's happening here!"
Recently I created and have been saying some affirmations about change and strength and newness.
Guess what happened? NEW THINGS!
The problem is, they're not exactly the new things I was going for.

• *Like VBGF moving here - which is a new thing I totally wanted to happen but which turned instead into a new job for her back there - which is great but unexpected. Her principal, in an effort to keep her on staff, offered her the job she's always wanted - teaching Algebra I and Geometry. Not only that, but she'd "move up" with the class she's teaching now - and they are the best class she's ever had. Not only that, but she'd also get to leave behind a co-worker that has made life miserable for years and she'd get a chance to publish some of the work she's been doing this year and present it at next year's state math conference. How fun is it to have your best friend offered a job so great on all levels that she can't pass it up?!!! Behold!
  
• *Like Mr. Tapioca Head and child support issues - which, if you've read this blog at all, you realize is nothing new but which I decided to let go of completely from the outset. That's new. Usually I hold on, dig my heels in, and show how right I am. Letting go before I've even had my say is not fun. It's not great for my kids not to get $$ that should be providing for them - but it's a one-time thing and letting go of this wrangle is WAY less stressful (for all of us) than an audit of my bank statements and his for the past six years. And oh yeah, the state seems to think that we've only been divorced for one year. Hmmm - since he got remarried in 2003 and I got remarried in 2004 - that would make us both bigamists. That would be new - but, again, not what I was going for. (Can a woman be a bigamist? I know there's polyandry and there's polygamy - but does bigamy cover both? Hmmmm. I'd look that up too if not for the distracto factor again.)
  
• *Like Sweet Hubby's company imploding during an internal board battle. It pretty much sucks to be affiliated with the CEO who's losing the battle. The board hired a "turnaround specialist" to "save the company" - but as it's a new company on the (provable) verge of success - the whole thing is crazy. The "consultant" they hired first suggested firing two employees to save money. If you combine both of their annual salaries, it doesn't equal what the board is paying this consultant - not to mention the fact that there was no suggestion as to who would do the job these two people currently do. As it's a company of about 15 folks - losing two - any two would probably be hard - but these two are absolutely required to launch the product. Mr. Consultant then suggested that he, himself, be given a seat on the board. His next suggestion was that the CEO be replaced. His idea of a replacement? Himself. Two years this team has been working together - heart and soul poured into this company. Sweet Hubby shepherded the product through the FDA approval process under budget and in record time - a full six weeks earlier than the best guess first estimate of when it would be possible - and yet? The board wants to shatter the team and "save" the company. It is a whole lot like setting a house on fire and then getting an award for being the first on the scene and putting it out. Never mind the collateral damage and the destruction of irreplaceable photos - he saved the house!!
  Bite me. That's how I feel about it.
  
• *Like going from having a contractor out next week to give us an estimate and schedule us for some remodeling to thinking, perhaps, we might have to move! Eeeek.
  

New jobs, new plans, new budgets - possibly new home and new schools?! I feel like a monkey who was swinging merrily from limb to limb (carefully not looking down at the alligators in the river below) who suddenly realizes the limb he thought was next is nowhere to be seen. And here I am swinging back and forth, back and forth - looking desperately for a new branch - maybe a new tree (and still carefully avoiding noticing those alligators!) It's possible that all these new things would have come about even if I hadn't started saying affirmations, but just the same, I think I'm going to reword what I say each morning - just a bit.

So... How was your Spring Break?

Armageddon As Family Fun Night

We have this tradition of "Family Fun Night" where we do something fun all together - like play a board game or go for a walk or go to the arcade etc. It doesn't have to be a big thing. The point is to be together and be playful. It was much easier to pull off when the kids were little because pretty much any night could be family fun night. Now (because of chorus and wrestling and karate and scouts and game) we're limited to Monday nights or the one Friday a month when we have everyone. And those nights often get preempted by homework or the kids wanting to go out with friends instead of hanging out with the family. Once in a while, I wonder to myself if maybe I should let go of family fun night - let it slip away the way other early childhood traditions have done. After all, we eat dinner together regularly, we talk to our kids and they talk to us. We know their friends and their friends parents, at least by sight if not to have over for cocktails. <-- Um, I meant the parents there, not the kids. We're somewhat non-conformist but not to the point that we'd invite teenagers over for drinks for heaven's sake! But even if family fun night doesn't happen every week, I have been reluctant to let it go. After this past Monday, I realized I was silly to even think about letting it go.

Very Best Girl Friend (VBGF) was here for the Superbowl and it was our weekend to have the kids - so in a sense we'd had family fun for days and days. As much fun as we'd had though, the activities had been in smaller groups: me taking Havoc to the wrestling meet, Sweet Hubby (SH) and the bigger kids meeting us later and then them going out to eat while I went to check on VBGF; Nurse Nice coming out to hang with us for the afternoon; VBGF taking Chaos to a memorial service for the father of one of his friends; the kids playing miniatures; VBGF, Havoc and I watching the Superbowl with SH wandering in and out (the other kids weren't interested because their teams weren't in it). We hadn't done anything all together. VBGF didn't have to go back until Tuesday so on Monday, she and I ended up making a terrific hamburger soup. The house smelled good and we all sat down for supper together. I think SH is the one who suggested a movie for FFN and the kids jumped on it. Granted, they originally wanted to watch "The Pacifier" and had to be talked into "Armageddon" instead - but they were excited about it in the end. "Armageddon" was new on our HD movie list - and I voted for it because I remembered liking it more than I had expected to in the theater years ago. Until it started, I did not remember exactly how many years ago it had been! One of the opening scenes showed the New York City skyline - with the twin towers. What a gut punch. I gulped and VBGF and SH both said, "Wow" at the same time. We paused the movie for a second and talked about it. Havoc didn't quite understand until we explained to him what those two buildings were - after all, he wasn't quite three on September 11th, 2001. A few minutes later, when small pieces of asteroid are streaking through the city there is a scene in a cab with some tourists who want to go shopping and don't know why the taxi has stopped. The cabbie shouts back that they're in a traffic jam and no one is going anywhere. He explains that this is New York City - it could be a terrorist attack or a something or a something. I'm sorry I can't remember what the something's were because my mind was completely stuck on the fact that the first thing he said was it could be a terrorist attack. It is not uncommon for NYC or at least parts of it to get obliterated in disaster movies - but it was HARD to see the towers both burning - one with a chunk out of the side of it a few minutes later. To be fair, the top of the Empire State building comes crashing to the ground too - and that had little or no impact on me. Clearly the first time I saw the movie, the images of the towers had so little impact on me that I didn't even remember that happening at all - but man, oh man it brought tears to my eyes this time.

The rest of the movie played out and we all enjoyed it. We talked a little about disaster movies with tornadoes and volcanoes and how this one had come out to counter "Deep Impact". We talked a bit about the theme of everyday people being the ones called up to save the world. We chatted about Bruce Willis and "Fifth Element" (a family favorite) and "Lucky Number Slevin" (a grownups only family favorite). We chased the kids to bed (with Mayhem already coming down with a fever - yikes). It was a great FFN and each one of the kids said thank you and gave out extra hugs.

That, in and of itself, would have recommitted me to keeping this family tradition alive - but it's been the smaller conversations later this week that have clenched it for me. Havoc wanted me to tell him more about the morning of September 11th - about how a friend had called and I'd turned on the news a minute before the second tower was struck. He wanted to hear about how I held him and cried and then went to get the other kids from school. He wanted to hear about how his Aunt Deb had looked out of her window in the Newsweek publishing building and saw it all. He wanted to hear about how when I was 11, I'd taken a tour and gone to the top of the one of the World Trade Towers. The Ninja Princessa had wandered in - and she commented that I'd done that when I was exactly her age now. Havoc slipped off to play with Legos in his room, but the Princessa and I talked about how the world changes and what it might be like when she has kids that are 11. When all the other kids were at school on Tuesday, Mayhem - all pathetic and pale in his bed - asked me about what we'd do if an asteroid really was headed for the earth. I asked him if he worried about that. He said no, but then he also said that it would be better probably for all life to end because of an asteroid that we couldn't help than because of people hurting each other with nuclear bombs. I sat with him for quite a while as he told me about the kinds of things he does worry about. I don't quite know what to say in those situations. He's thinks about some big things for a little guy - although at 12, almost 13, I suppose he's not that little anymore. I did reassure him about the things I could - and he ended up reassuring himself about some things just by talking about them out loud. He told me he liked talking to me and also, could he have an extra big lunch because he was really hungry. We had lunch and the conversation morphed into things he's looking forward to. Later, Chaos talked to me about third grade. He didn't quite talk about September 11th - but he started in that time frame for himself and he ended up asking me about military things. He wants to get his ears pierced but he also knows that he can't have that in the military. He wanted to know if he would just have to take the jewelry out while in uniform or if he would have to let the holes close all the way up. Then, he asked about North Korea and where I saw things in Iraq being in 5 years. He asked if I thought the world would be around by the time he grew up. Wow. That ended up being a great conversation - we talked about how people had felt that sense of doom at different times in history. We talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis and about eclipses and tsunamis. I told him that I had great faith in humanity. He told me he wanted to be part of the group that made things better. I had to squash (hard) the urge to tell him that I didn't think the military would be that group - having joined the Navy myself, 20 years ago for the same reasons he was telling me about now. I did let myself say that I thought there were lots and lots of groups working for solutions - scientists, pastors, health care providers, volunteers of all sorts all over the world, not just here in the States. Then he started naming some groups he thought were working hard too that I'd left off the list - teachers and the Red Cross and even film makers who made people think. Yeah, all in all, I have to say that Family Fun Night is here to stay.

Peace.