I don't need more "stuff" and with the Lord I don't need to worry about tomorrow. I would like a security blanket made of cold hard cash, but I also am trying mightily just to put my trust in God. Climb up into his lap and let him wrap his arms around me. Tomorrow will take care of itself. And daily my familiy's needs continue to be met one way or another. We have a roof over our heads and plenty of food in the freezer. I force myself to keep counting my blessings and to keep giving to others from my abundant "stuff". I've found more things to go to the Salvation Army and am taking my home down to the basic. Clutter is my enemy today, since I didn't have a Sub call this morning. I am combating my feelings of "being poor" with faith, love, garbage bags and hot soapy water.
They all work.
Since the party itself was my major birthday gift to my daughter, I was happy that she was made so happy by the plastic gee gaws and more practical art supply gifts of her friends. The Grammas made up the bulk of the gift giving on Sunday with a winter coat, boots, a Wii game (that forced her father to share his Wii), and a robotic dog, The Wii game did produce hours of quiet Nate and Anya bonding time as Nate patiently taught Anya how to navigate the world of Disney Princesses and video games in general. However, the gift hit of the entire birthday weekend was the Barbie dog that eats magnetic dog food pellets and then poops magnetic poop pellets which it can then eat as magnetic dog food pellets in a ironically accurate representation of real canine eating habits (I'm not making this up). The mortified gramma that gave it too her swore up and down that she didn't know it did such a thing! Thankfully we all just found this hilarious and allowed Anya to enjoy the purile potty humor inherent in the dog toy. And I was happy when the whole long weekend tapered down to a quiet and routine evening.
Largely though over the last week I've discovered, perhaps for the first time in my life, that I'm really a welcomed member of a larger community beyond my family. I mean I've have friends, but not connected friends. Not friends that welcome you with open arms just out of you common association with a common Church. A true community in Christ. Not friends that drop everything to come to the aide of others in their community in whatever way possible. I'm so impressed by the rallying power of my church family as it acts as a true community and wraps it heart in prayer around those in need of comfort. I'm also blown away by how insignificant my little problems are in contrast to the greater need of my community. I don't have money, but I have a wealth of time. I don't have a job, but my family is blessed in health right now. God is faithful and our needs have been met day to day as they come up. I'm still an outsider, but I know surely that I won't be for long. What a blessing is a Church!
The party is Saturday, October 18th, from 2pm until 4pm.
See you there!!
So for now I'm once again over feeling sorry for myself and am moving on to what I have learned from poverty. The first lesson is to laugh at yourself--a lot. And when I can't do that myself, Rod takes over and laughs at me for me. He's pretty good at that.
So Poor Skill Lesson # 1:
What to do if your diswasher breaks and you can't afford to repair or replace it:
- Fill up two plastic dish pans. One with hot soapy water and the other with hot rinse water.
- Enlist the BSAB (big smelly adolescent boy--otherwise known by his Indian name "He who Pisses and Moans" ) to help and thus hopefully learn the process so mom doesn't have to.
- Start washing to the tune of "This is the job that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend, someone started washing the dishes long ago and started singing this is the job that never ends..." until the BSAB pisses and moans that it is one thing to have to do dishes and quite another to have to do listen to mom sing WHILE having to do dishes.
- Change both the soapy water and the rinse water at least twice and try not to dump the water all over the kitchen floor in the process and then have to put down every towel in the house so that both sarcastic mother and BSAB don't slip and fall. Although doing so does seem to eliminate the hassle of mopping...
- Relish not having to wait for clean dishes until you notice a faint soapy after taste to every thing you drink the next day.
- Start the whole process over again, but this time skip enlisting the help of the BSAB so that no one complains when you start singing.
Five things to do with a broken dishwasher:
- Use as a giant dish drainer
- Keep cleaning supplies in your new "cupboard"
- Paint with chalk board paint and let your Kindergardener color on it while you are cooking.
- Take out your frustrations on the dishwaster by kicking it multiple times.
- Raise bread dough or incubate yogurt in it while putting it on the drying function which ironically still works on the "dishWASHER".
What to do with an empty refrigerator;
- Clean the convienently bare shelves with a dish rag and HSW (hot soapy water).
- Mix up a couple of quarts of powdered milk
- Make Kool Aid for the kids
- Make HM yogurt
- Make HM pudding snacks
- Defrost something from the freezer
- Harvest something from the garden
- Pick apples or berries from around the yard depending on season.
- Stand back and admire your full fridge until BSAB comes home and eats everything and you have to start the whole process over again.
What to do with an empty cupboard:
- Clean the convienently bare shelves with a dish rag and HSW.
- Bake bread in the bread machine or by hand if you don't have sutures in one or more hands.
- Bake cookies with whatever is on hand (I once made a batch of flax seed and oatmeal sugar cookies becasue I didn't have any regular flour--quite tasty too).
- Bake muffins and freeze half.
- Admire the full cupboards until BSAB and LSK (Loud Screaming Kindergartener) come home and empty them again.
- Start over.
What to do with a discouraged heart and too much free time:
- Pray
- Love
- Laugh
- Clean
- Complete projects
My father, who was never a man of faith, used to joke that "Things could be worse and sure enough things got worse." I have to hope now that we have already seen the worse. God has gifted me with such wonderful new friendships, He has filled my world with beauty, He has showered His Love on me daily, He has quelled my "Desire to Acquire," --How can I fail to be grateful?
Today I fixed my toilet with twist ties, created more space in my husband's office, and produced a gourmet veggie pasta dish with my mother. We also had a fantabulous chocolate bread pudding with a cinnamon sauce for dessert which we ate first--since life is short.
I guess it's really hard to feel poor when surrounded by family and eating food fit for royalty.
As long as my toilet flushes, life is good. Thank God for twist ties and mothers.
What I didn't realized was that it was going to be more than just a material process, but a spiritual one as well. I continue to marvel that my father hasn't left my heart, that sometimes my grief can strike as painfully today as it did on November 6th, 1999 when we all stood beside my father's hospital bed, turned off life support, and let him go. I try to organize these photos of my grinning father adoring me, adoring my then toddler son, of the joy in his smile and the love that shone laughing from his happy eyes. I'm having a hard time of it. His pictures have a box of their own and I've tried to put them aside for now as I move onto more recent events like my wedding eight years ago, but I can't.
His absence from the post-November 6, 1999 pictures are just as painful as his presence in the ones before. I don't just have a pile of photos, but a visual record of the life events and milestones that my father has missed. He never met my husband. He missed my wedding. He missed seeing me graduate with my MA. He missed seeing me set up a home of my own. He has missed seven Christmases. He wasn't there when I needed him when Rod and I struggled with our infertility, with job hunts, with financial hardship, with all of the pain and difficulty of settling into married life. He wasn't there to share our joy when God blessed us with a pregancy. He missed the birth of my precious daughter.He wasn't there when I spent a month in the hospital with pancreatitis. He wasn't there to see God heal me in time to advert a surgery. He who was so concerned about Nate's not talking at three isn't here to see what a brilliant and VERY talkative boy Nate has become at twelve. He wasn't there when the teaching career I thought I wanted came crashing down around me in 2002. He wasn't there when I needed him to proofread my cover letters and resumes and now blog entries. He wasn't there when I left another job and journeyed further down his same financial path. He wasn't there when I started my first garden and discovered that I loved gardening. He wasn't there on Anya's first day of Kindergarten or Nate' s first day of Jr. High. He isn't here to come do my dishes and clean my house during my recovery from Carpel Tunnel surgery--and he would be if he was still alive.
He hasn't been here for eight years and sometimes the hole he left is simply unbearable. And I never got to tell him about Jesus and I don't knew if the old heathen ever accepted my Lord. And perhaps that's the worst pain of all.
The pictures still need to find their way into the albums I bought years ago when I gave up the thought that the boxes of pictures and scrapbooking supplies would somehow miraculously blend themselves together into perfect scrapbook pages.
I think I can do it now by loving the memories that were and accepting the holes in the memories that are. I can't photo edit my father into my wedding pictures to pretend the hole isn't there. It is. But I still loved that day and all the ones that followed. As much as I still anguish over the day I lost my old man.
The UU church I grew up in and memorialized my father in had a saying for death, "To live in a heart that loves is not to die." I pray daily that Love alone can make it so.
When we first moved in across the street from Rod's parents we were gifted with their old Baldwin Upright. Since it was a former school house piano the thing seemed utterly indistructable and therefore a perfect fit for our household. The only problem was that neither Rod nor I knew how to play. Rod took some lessons as a kid and even came back to it as an adult, but still didn't play. The other problem was that the beast had NEVER been tuned. At first we were going to get Nathan lessons, but never found an instructor and the years flew past and I had a baby and life got crazy and Nathan took trumpet lessons at school and then dropped out of band and well now it seems the boy is as musically impaired as his mother. So now that Anya is in Kindergarten we decided that we really shouldn't drop the ball with her. And low and behold we were in Sunday School with Krista and she's a former music teacher now doing lessons and she's really affordable and well now Anya is doing piano! Krista is young, funny, and excellent with Anya. Krista found a music professor at the college who tunes pianos on the side for cheap. Krista puts the sterotype of the dry and dusty old piano teacher to final rest. Anya soaked up her every word and remembers EVERYTHING taught to her yesterday. And I will find the money for these lessons every week even if I have to go through the sofa cushions for loose change (although hopefully I will be employed soon and my mother will help). The Directv will go off again after the elections for another six months and Krista will get the proceeds. I feel so blessed that we can give Anya this opportunity. I feel blessed that our lives that once seemed emply, diminished and dull are now filled with our new church family. I feel blessed that God has put us in this wonderful community and that even piano lessons aren't out of His reach.
Perhaps this is a luxury we shouldn't be trying to afford during my unemployment, but it seems so right and Anya is so eager so we will not let this opportunity slip us by. I never mastered an instrument, but it wasn't for a lack of trying, rather a lack of will on my part. I was not disciplined and I was not talented and I didn't practice. And thusly got nowhere fast. My mother's frequent moves didn't help either. Eventually I just gave up. In high school though I was surrounded with musically talented people. I often joked that I wasn't a band geek, just the band's mascot. By the end of high school I really regreted not having learned an instrument, but by this point I was sure I had no musical talent whatsoever. After all I had been kicked out of Jr. High Chorus. So as is often the case, what the parent didn't learn is foisted off onto the next generation. I know, I know if I wanted to learn how to play the piano so badly I should be the one taking piano lessons! But I really don't want to learn how to play the piano at this late date, I just want my child (who does seem musically inclined, that remembers the tune and lyrics to dozens of songs, who even memorized the song from her favorite anime movie in Japanese) to have the opportunities I didn't. I feel I must nurture the talents I see rising in her. So by God's grace, may I be guided with the wisdom to raise her up in Christ's image and let her live Abundantly!
When I was a kid I loved amusement parks. I loved everything about them. I loved the greasy, gut-wringing food. I loved upside down roller coasters. In fact I loved every ride, the scarier the better. I loved water slides and sunburns and noise and crowds. My best friend Brenda Carson and I would stay up all night the night before planning our day at Darien Lake or Seabreeze to the last minute detail. We would wear our swimsuits under our clothing with little regard to looks or comfort. We would plan to attack the roller coasters first in order to ensure the shortest lines followed by our favorite dry rides. Last before the water park would be the log ride since that would get us wet too. The last agenda was my highlight: the water park. I loved wooshing down the slides and running up the wooden steps again. After the water park we would ride the swings "to dry off" and then finally meet up with our parents at the designated time and place (or at least within 10 minutes of the same). We would be exhausted and happy at the end of the day, but full and content with our day of excitement. Such a trip would be a once a year EVENT and would be the high point of a summer also filled with day camps, swimming, and just plain hanging out. Yup, I loved amusement parks.
When I had Nate I couldn't wait to take the kid amusement parks. I took him to Canada's Wonderland when he was two and for several years after until 9/11 curtailed our yearly pilgrimage. One year I even bought a season pass to Darien Lake and we went almost every other weekend. However, my enthusiasm dimmed the year I was pregnant with Anya and has went down hill ever since. First to go was the roller coasters. High blood pressure headaches and nausea made even the Jack Rabbit a miserable experience. Next was anything that went upside down. Then all water park activities with the exception of wave pools and lazy rivers.
I always wondered how my mother could just sit and wait for Brenda and I instead of riding the rides. I wondered that until I found myself bringing a book to an amusement park with Nate and his friend one year. I realized that I HAD become my stodgy mother, but instead of giving in to that stodgieness I still find myself compeled to bring my children on a yearly pilgrimage to an amusement park. Such compulsion seems inconsistant wtih my new commitment to simple living, but I find I can't let it go. The trips are imbedded as part of childhood for me and my journey into more simple amusements in my yard and garden are part of growing up for me. So I took Anya to Seabreeze last Saturday (Nate will be going to Darien Lake with his Youth Group) for an Anya and Me day. For the first time in years I enjoyed my day at the park for the sheer joy on Anya's face. Like her brother, she has no self-preserving fear, and wanted to ride everything she could, standing on tip-toes at the height line poles until the attendent would wave her away. I loved riding the old carosel with her and giggling with her on the tea cups. I loved watching her grin on the gravity tower. I loved her williness to try everything. My kid. Our day.
Intellectually, I know that amusement parks are the antithesis of Walden. They are a product of our post-industrial complex and materialistic society. Capitalism declaring that even happiness can be bought for 41.00 (the current price of an adult and child pass to Seabreeze). I know that the energy wasted in the daily operation of a small amusement park could power my house for a year. I even feel the surrrealness of the artificial environment as we go through our day in the crowd of strangers. I know that these experiences teach children to expect happiness to be something external and man-made that can be purchased rather than internal and a gift of God.
I know all these things, yet I still enjoy sweeping the tree tops with my feet as I fly around on the Yo-Yo with my children. I still enjoy seeing my kids have so much fun. And I sense that these experiences are as fleeting as the internal compustion engine. Someday we will all give into reason instead of fantasy and Seabreezes will cease to be. So I let my kids eat cake while it's still there.
Rod and I have been married for eight years today. I know other couples make big deals of their anniversary and mark it with trinkets. Rod and I have always been much more quiet about our celebrations. We don't buy presents or spend money we don't have on dinners out.
We exchange love letters. I have quite the file of them now. All of which are more precious to me than any amount of diamonds or roses (flowers are much better still growing in our yard than dead in a vase) or anything else our commercial society has decided we need to BUY in order to celebrate an occaision. So tonight we will quietly exchange our letters and our affections. We will pray together for many more years of happiness and thank God for the years He has already given us. Yet I will still take the children swimming and Rod will still spend his evening off in quiet. Nothing changes in routine, but we do know that quite simply another year of love has begun.
I do realize that if I'm just patient time will provide me with plenty of dead leaves in just a few months, but I want compost now! Yep, I've lost it...
On the side of legacy however, I've produced children who now effortly say "Don't throw that out, it's compost!" I guess there's hope for us all after all.
I've stepped up my job search efforts recently as the summer nears its midpoint. It's wonderful to be unemployed during the summer, but money is becoming an issue. We've burnt through our reserves and are functioning on the most basic of basics--which of course includes internet. Although this is a terrific excercise in self-sufficiency and my new "Less is More" philosophy it makes for cranky children and just a little bit of stress. However, in the end we have a roof over our heads, clothing on our backs, food in our bellies, and our bills are paid. I do worry about little things like the propane bill this winter, but I find comfort in the Lord. The contentment of faith does put employment woes in persepective.
"Therefore do not worry about tommorrow, for tomorrow will worry aobut itself. Each day has enought trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34 NIV
LOVE. HOPE. FAITH.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. for everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:7-8 NIV
Anya is rubbing sleepy eyes and cuddling on my lap as I type around her. I'm thinking of what needs to be done today and ruminating on my garbage. I have an intimate relationship with refuse that I never imagined possible when living in suburban Fairport. In suburbia my contact with garbage was limited to getting the cans out at the specified time on the specified day once weekly. In rural America garbage is much more complicated.
When we first moved down here I treated our household waste in much the same fashion I always had. I separated out the recycleables and threw out everything else. I double bagged the cat litter. I threw out kitchen scraps. However when you have to haul your own garbage to the dump in the trunk of your car such suburban garbage habits soon became very, well, gross. From pure distance I don't go to the dump weekly. Not going to the dump weekly produces interesting results all wrapped up in plastic. Like my first experience with maggots. And the most interesting fragrances known to man. Over the last year we've mastered the garbage game and reduced our weekly garbage output from 6 bags to 1.
The number one improvement was giving our cat litter the latrine treatment. We dug a large hole and dump the biodegradable litter in it for a few months. We then cover the "latrine" and start a new hole. A shovel of lime every once in awhile keeps the smell down and the holes are off on the edge of our property. The second one involved eliminating paper waste. We no longer use paper towels, paper napkins, paper plates etc. I've invested in a large collection of dish towels and cloth napkins. And the third improvement was the addition of the compost heap. All kitchen scraps are composted: coffee grinds, banana peels, egg shells, veggie trimmings. Meat scraps don't go to the compost heap and in our household I eliminated them altogether by going vegetarian. I love my compost heap and am very proud of its nicely degrading contents. And of course the last change we made was the most simple of all: we mash our garbage down mercilessly and then add all other waste cans to the kitchen one. Thus in the end producing just one not particularly disgusting bag of garbage a week.
I can now go to the dump once monthly with my trunk closed around 4 bags of garbage. Small victories, make happy Kirstens.
- Mood:
chipper
Rod brought home various volumes of Looney Tunes cartoons on DVD for Anya, who seems to enjoy watching them on the commentary track. I am being slowly driven insane while I clean the house and drink my coffee. Working at home always seems like such a good idea, until summer. And TV. And, well, Looney Tunes as background noise. I know I should just bite the bullet and set TV limits like I did with Nate at this age, but she screams so much more shrilly... At least the TV goes off when we go outside. Today I'm taking her to the Houghton Pool and tonight is Family Fun night. As well as our usual hours in the yard.
Yellow beans, sugar snap peas, and zucchini are coming out in the veggie patch. Salad tonight.
Thank you God for
cast iron pans
fresh yellow beans
Anya's smile
Nate's independence
Sailor's head in my lap
Rod's laughter
boiled new potatos with butter
morning glorys in bloom
for the small round black stones on my shelf
Inevitably they are going to grow up. Seems so fast. Time sprinting along and never even waiting for me to catch up. And he wouldn't let me kiss him goodbye. Made a point of leaving his clinging mother behind. Independent. Fierce. Cool and tall. Confident. Unafraid of new peers, of the unknown, of adventure, of casting off, of letting go. So like me, but not at 12. At twelve I didn't who I was yet. I was afraid of being judged, teased, rediculed by everyone, my head down as walked down the hall or firmly set in a book to avoid eye contact with those around me. At 12 every glance and word hurt like a lash. Stung. Burned. Lunches spent alone in bathroom stalls. At 12 I didn't know I was strong, talented, beautiful.
Nate knows.
He's been going to camp for five years, but always before he's said goodbye. Told me I love you. Was still my baby. Now he's as tall as me.
Laughing into the unknown.
- Mood: content
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