Of a Certain Age

I've been adjusting to being the mother of older children; there are no babies in my house, no babies to come either. There are no toddlers. All of my children are potty trained (Thank you Lord!). I only have school aged children. In fact, I'm only two years away from having a teenager, which, in parenting years, is really only a heartbeat.

But I'm growing and accepting and I'm even finding glorious benefits.

Not only can they each pee independently and wipe their own butts, they can get their own snacks and even make a few simple meals.

They can answer questions about their day (occasionally even more than just a grunt - boys start training so young!).

Last week Q and Eliza came home from church talking about their lesson, which had been all about prayer and fasting. Their were both quite excited about this new power particularly since it seemed to be something that was in their power to affect.

Q has requested that we fast next week for their dad and his bad back. He also wants us to fast and pray for people with breast cancer and that "they" find a cure. (I'm not sure what all the lesson talked about, but Q has been obsessed with helping people with breast cancer and he includes them in all of his prayers that he offers.)

One of our dear neighbors got sick and Eliza requested that we fast this past Sunday for her. And for dad. It was a wonderful thing to see. Living out their ideals was a bit harder than they imagined (we fasted for one meal) and there were quite a few discussions as to what we would be eating after church, but overall it was a good start: child led and everyone wants to do it again.

Of course, added to these wonderful, spiritual breakthroughs are also the ever extending length my boys take in the bathroom; does 8 seem a bit young to be primping and worrying over hair?

The Obligatory Post

I am thankful for glazed ham and other fine smoked pork products.

I am grateful for my Chevy Astro van with AWD. Mostly I am grateful for the fact that my deep and abiding love for my van has rekindled a long dead relationship with snow; I am coming to appreciate the winter wonderland of the north.

I am thankful for tampons and all sorts of modern feminine hygiene products.

I am grateful for the wide variety of food available, even in Alaska, even in the dead of winter. I'm sure my ancestors could not have made a chocolate haupia pie for Thanksgiving even if they had wanted to.

I am grateful for bedtimes and that every day ends.

I am grateful for Facebook and the easy way I can now breeze in and out of friends' lives with just a few keystrokes.

I am thankful that my husband loves bright sunny yellow (you'll never guess the color of the new flooring at the shop....) and I'm equally grateful that we currently have no home of our own to paint.

I love the rain. I love the fact that rain melts snow.

I love watching the winter storms, knowing I am warm and inside and dry and safe from all the fury of the outside.

I am thankful for family and for the joys of family living blocks away or hundreds of miles away. I am grateful for phones, computers and other technologies that make moves to Alaska less isolating than they were 50 years ago.

I am grateful that the power of the sun can now come in a small, convenient to carry box.

I am equally thankful for happy meds and pain killers, without with, I might just be single.

I am grateful for God and the fact that He has more patience for me than I do for myself.

I am grateful for blogging and for comments from random strangers. (ahem. hint. NUDGE.)

And I am grateful for tryptophan (although I wonder if they make it in pill form yet....).

Routine is Good

Do you ever find yourself thinking that your life is routine and boring? Do you ever wish for more excitement?

May I tell you to get down on your knees and pray that said excitement never arrives?!

Tuesday morning my father woke me up at 4am. Apparently, someone had broken into our home. The kids were fine and not much was disturbed. They had used a votive candle downstairs and turned of the power in my father's side; the breakers that control his power are hidden inside an old, unused apartment downstairs. Then the burglar crept upstairs, managing not to disturb the two dogs nor myself, rifled through my purse (not taking the whole purse), took my wallet, coin purse and digital camera and left.

It was all very odd.

There were no wet footprints which meant that either s/he (I'm trying not to presume the sex) waited, dried her/his shoes or it had happened earlier.

S/He must have been looking around the downstairs area of the house (essentially unused - the kids store their bikes there) and the extra apartment to have known that there was a breaker box there. I'm also curious how s/he knew that the downstairs breaker would control power up here. Was s/he just lucky?

Additionally creepy is the fact that I was sleeping just 10-15 feet away from where this person entered our home (I sleep on the front room floor).

The good news is that so little was touched and that, most importantly, we were all safe. My dad installed locks on the downstairs apartment door and on our door at the top of the stairs; previously, these doors had not been locked over the last 28 years.

The only real residual affect (other than having money issues as we wait for debit and credit cards and new checks to arrive) is that my children are a bit leery. Eliza and I had a conversation last night as she was scared someone would break in again.

I just have to laugh - probably to keep from being freaked out - because the situation was so odd - the breakers thrown, only the wallet taken, the dogs not barking, blah, blah, blah.

The thing that freaked me out the most was after we had reported the break-in, a police officer called me back to say that he would be arriving in about 15-20 min. He called from the local hospital. I had a moment's pause when I saw the hospital on caller ID and thought the worst (bad things always coming in threes and all that). When the officer was here, I told him he really should call from a cell phone or some other phone than the hospitals; it's not good to further traumatize people who are already on edge.

Verbal Irony

(or maybe it's just coincidence. I get the two mixed up at times.)

One of my miracles for last year was to watch my tongue and be more mindful of what I say.

This year I am taking a class on the Book of Revelation and the teacher made a connection that I had never made before. He mentioned the iron rod, which via Lehi’s vision we know to be the word of God. But then he further connected that using John 1:1 from which we know that the “word” is Jesus.

Today I was pondering on this connection along with an idea from The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. One of his agreements is to be impeccable with my words.

Connecting this with Jesus, it came to me that He was so impeccable with His words and who He was, that He literally was the word of God. If I think of myself as a composite of the words I have spoken and thought, I'm saddened by the image; certainly my words do not always portray the woman I wish to be.

Having been pondering this and vowing to begin again and be "impeccable with my words," (I love that turn of phrase) I then learned that I had deeply offended one of my Laurels. It was an unintentional thing on my part: we were discussing as a class a gospel topic and I joked around, as I am want to do; it was one of those "just kidding" jokes. And while there was no malicious intent on my end, from all accounts I couldn't have hurt her more if I had sucker punched her.

I hate having my feelings hurt and I hate knowing that I have caused this dear girl pain. I am currently trying to rectify the situation.

I'm not sure what I wanted to say in this post. Perhaps merely that I have such a long way to go in becoming my word. I think this situation, though, may result in a blessing; it is hard to correct a problem that I do not know exists. Today, I am more aware than ever.

Awaiting the Resurrection

I'm feeling old.

I know. I'm only 34 and, unless you're my 10yo son, that's still a summer chicken. But yesterday I got my first ever crown and, for some reason, I associate that process with being old.

I went to the dentist with a complaint of discomfort on one molar whenever I ate things that were hard - like carrots. (No gutter thinking people!) I've had this complaint for the last year but my dentist in Cottage Grove, while one of the kindest people I know (he did some dental work for free when we were poor), was not a very good dentist. So, since he couldn't find anything wrong, I didn't push it.

My new dentist (the one I grew up with) thought the filling in the tooth was poorly done and also thought that the pain may have been caused by a fracture in the tooth which the filling was covering. So I went in hoping that we would merely be replacing a filling and left, 1.5 hours later, with a temporary crown. (Apparently, I clench my teeth. And apparently, clenching is not good for teeth. In fact, apparently it causes said teeth to fracture.)

First, let me whine that holding your mouth open for an hour and a half HURTS, yes it does. I think my joints are still feeling pain.

Second, let me further whine that I cannot stand the sound and smell of the drill and when you're getting a crown, the drill goes on and on for.ev.er.

Third, the point of this whole post, is that my tooth was gone. G.O.N.E. Okay, the roots are still there and there is a small post to hold the crown but without the crown there is a large gap between my second bicuspid and my second molar. And that made me sad.

Really sad.

And all I could think of, and yes I KNOW I'm being melodramatic, was, "Well, I guess that's another reason to look forward to the resurrection: I'll be getting my tooth back."

Of course my other thought was, "One down, 27 more to go."

Life After Death

Ironically, my children's school, while failing to make "adequate yearly progress" for the last two years, still manages to have guitar classes during music period and rollerblading for PE class, complete with helmets, elbow and knee pads and wrist guards. I know. This would be unheard of at my children's old school.

Today I was off to help Q's class with the rollerblading (it takes awhile to put all that equipment on 20+ kids). One of the girls was complaining about having to wear all the gear. The PE teacher was telling her how important it was to wear it and that he hoped she would still wear all this gear even in college.

I said, "Well, you should at least always wear a helmet; it's hard to live without a head."

Cassandra replied, "Oh, I could live without a head. I'd just be a zombie."

Wow. Hmmm..

"But," I countered, "Zombies don't get to eat chocolate and ice cream."

She laughed, "That's okay."

"Really? You'd want to eat human flesh?! Blech."

Anna joined the conversation, "When I'm dead, I'm going to be a vegetarian."

But apparently not now. Life is not to be wasted on eating vegetables.

Kids.

Born Again

This week has been unusually hard. I'm prone to drama - I know, I recognize but I also must admit: I can't stop it. I try and breathe. I try and think. But ultimately, the emotions well up and I act from pure emotion.

I do try and apologize or fix things after wards, but frankly, I think New Orleans would have been better if Katrina had never hit rather than all this slow moving fixing going on.

Rob and I had a . . . moment, for lack of a better word. I think it was the first time I ever really felt crushed and heart broken - not bad for 12 years of marriage. But the madness and sadness descended and I started pulling in - I deleted the blog, I canceled Facebook, I refused to go to my Thursday night class and dinner was made, on time, every night this week and the dishes promptly done. I kept the kids with me all the time rather than relegating them to their father's care. In short, I tried to become the perfect wife.

Of course, like all my dramatic moments, the moment passed. I haven't talked about it all with Robert yet - I'm not sure how to do so. Sometimes, I think the hardest part about my marriage is feeling like the other person really hears what I have to say; that he see ME and not the image of me he holds in his head.

So, I'm starting my blog again. Reopened my Facebook account and am going to choir today despite telling myself that I wouldn't (Robert doesn't like me going to choir).

At the end of the day, I am me, beauties, curses and all, and my marriage will never work unless I am me.

So.

Breathe.

Turn the page.

And start the next chapter. (But NOT as a Stepford wife.)