IV Adventures

Not a whole lot of time to post--I just prevented Nathan from unloading the entire bin of plastic food here at Grandma's because "I'm almost done, and then we'll need to clean up so we can go bye-bye."

I think the crash I just heard from the vicinity of the living room had the unmistakable sound of lots of toys (be it food or toy kitchen pans, etc.) cascading onto the floor... It amazes me how finely-tuned one's hearing can become as a result of motherhood.

Anyway... I wanted to share this weekend's frustration. Sunday morning began with abdominal pain when I woke up, and it only increased over the next several hours. The three of us traipsed into the urgent care clinic so I could be poked and prodded. The gallstones I have were giving me problems. Since the pain continued and I didn't have the energy to care for Nathan on my own, I was admitted to the hospital and stayed overnight Sunday night in order to talk with the surgeon the following day. Silly me: I took only one book with me, which I (of course) finished Sunday night. All day Monday I felt extremely bored. TV... sleep... wander the halls (because of course I didn't sleep well on Sunday night due to restless legs syndrome kicking in)... feel frustrated with the hassles of having an IV in my left arm. By the time I talked with the surgeon around 4, I either wanted to head into surgery to have my gallbladder taken out or just go home. Argh.

On the humor front, I managed to create some problems for myself, even alone in the hospital. I went to get ready for bed Sunday night, casually assured the nurse that I would be fine and didn't need help, and started to undress.

Only after I started removing my top did it occur to me: the IV in my left arm would effectively prevent me from removing anything on top.

I ran down my list of options:
1- Sleep in the clothes I'd worn all day
2- Remove clothing as best I could and just let it hang on the IV line for the night
3- Try to detach the IV line from the machine myself so I could get undressed

If you know me, you can guess which option I chose! I examined the machine first, to see if it would be easier to detach the line there, but quickly decided just to unscrew the port from the line in my arm. No problem; it came off without any problem. I removed the necessary clothing, got ready for bed, went to reattach the IV line... and ran into my brick wall.

Trying to attach a bracelet one-handed is simplistic compared to trying to screw an IV line back onto a port inserted in your arm with just one hand. My shoulders slumped as I realized I would have to call a nurse in to "confess" what I had done.

Anna, the nurse, was gracious enough to laugh with me about my predicament once she came in and I explained what I'd done. She asked me what I do for a living; I told her I had a degree in biomed engineering, and she said, "Oh, so you must know how these machines work."

"Um, no..." I said, "I just lack all appropriate sense of fear when it comes to trying something new."

"Apparently you do; most patients are hesitant to do anything involving an IV machine!"

Well, I don't fall into that category. I'm more the sort whose husband tells her before leaving for the night that she isn't allowed to take a screwdriver and remove the back of the IV machine (which, I must say, is exactly what Trent did that night before leaving for home).

So... the moral of the story is that one should not attempt to attach (or insert, for that matter) IVs one-handed. Got it?

The really sad part in all of this is that I don't know if I'd choose differently if presented with the same choice today! God certainly does protect the stupid--I'm living proof!

Coming to Life

I finally have a reason for the nausea and general malaise that has plagued me throughout this pregnancy: an ultrasound revealed I have gallstones. How odd that such news would provide some relief... it's nice to have a reason for feeling so cruddy--even though there's nothing they'll do about it now. Usually they would remove the gallbladder, but they're understandably hesitant to perform any surgery that isn't absolutely necessary during pregnancy! I'll probably go in six weeks or so after our baby girl is delivered via c-section so they can remove my gallbladder using a laparoscopic procedure. The relief of at least knowing what's wrong means I can focus on other things, like dragging myself through the personal struggles of writing again! I received notice of another devotional collection that's soliciting manuscripts. My bargain with God is that I'll submit at least one piece for every solicitation that comes my way. There have been times I regret promising that. What is it about writing--about doing anything that is a true offering--that brings all negative internal criticism, every self-doubt you've ever had, and every negative memory of things not working out to the surface? I wrote one piece that fell short of the minimum length, then procrastinated for a month. Through force of will, I made myself finish the first piece and write a second one yesterday. I did some final polishing and sent them off just now--with a dreary voice in my head saying it's just a pointless exercise and I'm sure I'll receive a "thanks, but it didn't quite fit with what we wanted" in response. Argh. Why is it that something you're passionate about (language, writing, expressing thought and emotion) can become something you face with intense dread?

If you'll permit me some shameless self-promotion, at least I know I've been published twice already! Yay... Maybe there's more somewhere in the future.

More Surrender

My internet access is now sporadic at best (witness the near year between posts), but reading a friend's blog lit the desire to write a bit again.

Baby #2 is on the way--I'm 27 weeks, due November 12th. This pregnancy was difficult verging on impossible in the first trimester, but things were helped a couple weeks ago by learning that I apparently have gallstones. I no longer feel bad about feeling bad. Even people who aren't pregnant would agree that gallstones can leave you feeling miserable.

For now, I'm in the stage of, "I just want to feel like me again." I know my body will continue to resemble a stranger's and show me (yet again) that I cannot predict what it will do; I'd settle for feeling like myself a bit internally--energy-wise, attitude-wise, something me-wise.

It's easy as a stay-at-home mom to feel like you exist as nothing more than a response to the lives around you: take care of laundry, meals, daily discipline, cleaning, pet care and a motley host of other tasks. Somewhere in the midst of the melee, it's harder to care for yourself. I accept that, but what's harder is sometimes not even knowing what my dreams or fears are anymore. Dreams and fears for your family edge their way in until it's easy to discount yourself as a valued person with a unique worth in God's eyes--just as valued as any of your family members.

I guess it's another opportunity to think of the verse that talks about Christ "entrusting himself to the one who judges justly"--I need to trust that even when I forget who I am, God has not. He'll remind me when the time is right. Surrendering means confronting the fear that you'll never get back what was surrendered, after all.

John MacDonald on Writing

I am indebted to John MacDonald for his following introduction to Stephen King's collection of short stories entitled, Night Shift. As MacDonald himself writes of Stephen King, "I am entitled to hate him a little bit for this"; I wish I had written these words myself. Bless the man for finding words to many of writers' struggles and insecurities and frustrations when those battles are brushed off as being an easy way to make a living. Grrr.

"I am often given the big smiling handshake at parties (which I avoid attending whever possible) by someone who then, with an air of gleeful conspiracy, will say, 'You know, I've always wanted to write.'

I used to try to be polite.

These days I reply with the same jubilant excitement, 'You know, I've always wanted to be a brain surgeon.'

They look puzzled. It doesn't matter. There are a lot of puzzled people wandering around lately.

If you want to write, you write.

The only way to learn to write is by writing. And that would not be a useful approach to brain surgery.

Stephen King always wanted to write and he writes.

So he wrote Carrie and 'Salem's Lot and The Shining, and the good short stories you can read in this book, and a stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassifiable things, most of them too wrteched to ever publish.

Because that is the way it is done.

Because there is no other way to do it. Not one other way.

Compulsive diligence is almost enough. But not quite. You have to have a taste for words. Gluttony. You have to want to roll in them. You have to read millions of them written by other people.

You read everything with grinding envy or a weary contempt.

You save the most contempt for the people who conceal ineptitude with long words, Germanic sentence structure, obtrusive symbols, and no sense of story, pace, or character.

Then you have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can ever meet.

Okay, then. Stupendous diligence, plus word-love, plus empathy, and out of that can come, painfully, some objectivity.

Never total objectivity.

At this frangible moment in time I am typing these words on my blue machine, seven lines down from the top of my page two of this introduction, knowing clearly the flavor and meaning I am hunting for, but not at all certain I am getting it.

Having been around twice as long as Stephen King, I have a little more objectivity about my work than he has about his.

It comes so painfully and so slowly.

You send books out into the world and it is very hard to shuck them out of the spirit. They are tangled children, trying to make their way in spite of the handicaps you have imposed on them. I would give a pretty to get them all back home and take one last good swing at every one of them. Page by page. Digging and cleaning, brushing and furbishing. Tidying up.

Stephen King is a far, far better writer at thirty than I was at thirty, or at forty.

I am entitled to hate him a little bit for this.

And I think I know of a dozen demons hiding in the bushes where his path leads, and even if I had a way to warn him, it would do no good. He whips them or they whip him.

It is exactly that simple.

Are we all together so far?

Diligence, word-lust, empathy equal growing objectivity and then what?

Story. Story. Dammit, story!

Story is something happening to someone you have been led to care about. It can happen in any dimension--physical, mental, spiritual--and in combinations of those dimensions.

Without author intrusion.

Author intrusion is: 'My God, Mama, look how nice I'm writing!'

Another kind of intrusion is grotesquerie. Here is one of my favorite, culled from a Big Best Seller of yesteryear: 'His eyes slid down the front of her dress.'

Author intrusion is a phrase so inept the reader suddenly realizes he is reading, and he back out of the story. He is shocked back out of the story.

Another author intrusion is a mini-lecture embedded in the story. This is one of my most grievous failing.

An image can be neatly done, be unexpected, and not break the spell. In a story in this book called 'Trucks,' Stephen King is writing about a tense scene of waiting in a truck stop, describing the people: 'He was a salesman and he kept his display bag close to him, like a pet dog that had gone to sleep.

I find that neat.

In another story he demonstrates his good ear, the ring of exactness and truth he can give dialogue. A man and his wife are on a long trip. They are traveling a back road. She says: 'Yes, Burt, I know we're in Nebraska, Burt. But where the hell are we?' He says: 'You've got the road atlas. Look it up. Or can't you read?'

Nice. It looks so simple. Just like brain surgery. The knife has an edge. You hold it so. And cut.

Now at risk of being an iconoclast I will say that I do not give a diddly-whoop what Stephen King chooses as an area in which to write. The fact that he presently enjoys writing in the field of spooks and spells and slitherings in the cellar is to me the least important and useful fact about the man anyone can relate.

There are a lot of slitherings in here, and there is a maddened pressing machine that haunts me, as it will you, and there are enough persuasively evil children to fill Disney World on any Sunday in February, but the main thing is story.

In Trouble from Reading

My reading, once again, got me into trouble this morning.

I took Nathan to a nearby town to run some errands, and we stopped at their library. Nathan loves this stop due to the children's room complete with train table, crayons, stuffed animals, computer games, etc. Usually I can just walk him through the front door and he heads for the children's room like a carrier pigeon.

There were only a few things I wanted to look for, but (wonder of wonders) I got side-tracked by a historical fiction book about Helen of Troy. I stood by the shelf for 15-20 minutes before I finally came to my senses and remembered I was a mom with a toddler on the loose.

Nathan, thankfully, was still in the children's room. Unhappily, there was evidence that he hadn't been in the children's room the whole time: a couple aisles in the children's book section had 20+ books pulled out of the stacks and spread on the floor.

When Nathan came to see what I was doing on the floor (revisiting my ability to alphabetize books by authors' last names), I told him to sit next to me. Bad idea #2 - he immediately started wailing without giving any thought to the pervasive silence around him.

The books did get re-shelved (I hope I shelved them close enough to where they were supposed to be), Nathan's crying quit, and we got back out to our vehicle in one piece and (miraculously) no further crying.

-Now I must go. I just heard a sound from my parents' front room that had the unmistakable sound of a bin full of matchbox cars being emptied onto carpet. Amazing how your ability to distinguish sounds improves when you become a parent...

Service with a Smile

As Trent said this evening, no one tells you that having a child will provide you with an indentured servant--Nathan happily (nay, proudly) set hot pads, bread and utensils on the table for me, put the phone back in its cradle, then helped clear the table after dinner--brought me the salt and pepper, then put the hot pads and pot holders away in their drawer and closed the drawer. (This was with requests on my part, but still...)

I made a quick run to Wal-Mart for some yarn, and he carried one skein of it up to the counter for me, pushed it onto the counter, and then carried the bag of purchases out to the car for me.

It's pretty darn stinkin' cute to see a 2-yr-old trying to hoist a bag up high enough to keep it off the ground, making his slow way across the parking lot with the aforementioned bag banging into his knees.

He was so pleased with himself and seems to love the concept of "helping."

I wonder if I could somehow get him to scrub the floors...

Reading

Ah, the joy of books... I was warned while pregnant that I should read as much as I could before the baby was born, because I wouldn't have time to read after that.

Amateurs.

I have since come to believe that we find time for the things we want to do most. Is exercise your thing? You'll get up at 5 a.m. to go walking (and other people, myself among them, will consider you demented). Cooking? You'll somehow manage to juggle any insane schedule and still perform culinary experiments. For me, that priority is reading. I'm assisted in this pursuit by Nathan being relatively low maintenance. I can read in the living room and Nathan will play happily by himself for an hour or so. I can read when he naps (from 1:30/2 until 4:30 p.m.) and again after he goes to bed (7/7:30 p.m.).

Recent books I've been reading run the gamut from autobiography to fiction to mystery to spiritual growth stuff. I read Nicole Baart's first book that comes out in a few weeks and was happily surprised by quality fiction that happens to be written by a Christian; she's sacrificed no iota of craft for the sake of selling tripe. Since Nikki's a friend of mine, it was a huge relief to tell her honestly how much I loved the book and that I want to purchase a copy to have on my shelves for the quality of the writing all by itself. -Even better: I know how to get my hands on the sequel before it's released from the published, unlike having to wait another year as most of you commoners. Mua-ha-ha...


Next up - Ravi Zacharias' memoirs, Walking from East to West. I've seen this out for a while, just hadn't purchased it yet. I finally bought it and devoured it, journaling much, thinking even more, and feeling challenged on every page. Ravi's words, manner and very life present a call to me to be who God made me to be. Not a "better" Christian, a greater financial success, a "better" homemaker or any other area of my life; but fully surrendered in every area of my life. Highly, highly recommended.



Just for fun - Jasper Fforde's books--any of them. Literary references and light humor prevails, but for all the thought and original plot work in his fiction, every single one of them has been a treat to read from start to finish. Can't wait for the most recent Thursday Next book to come out in paperback so I can add it to my collection!


Aside from reading, I'll be honest--I've been battling. Shortly after Nathan was born, my mood did a fairly steep nosedive. I don't know if it was post-partum depression or not; doesn't that eventually go away? I went on anti-depressants during that first year, and I'm still on them. Anytime I go more than a few days without them, my thoughts spiral downward. It isn't that I have suicidal thoughts or anything like that; I just lack the energy to do anything--or even care that I'm not doing anything. My thoughts turn all circumstances into something that's my responsibility or my fault, and trying to turn off obsessive thought patterns exhausts me.


I hate being dependent on medication. My background is a can-do mentality, the whole "suck it up and get it done" attitude. If only I'd try harder, I could make myself get over this and not have to take meds. I mentioned this to my mom, and she responded, "That's right, and all those people with diabetes should just try a little harder and they wouldn't have insulin problems." Her point is valid. It's just that physical ailments seem so much more objective than a serotonin level deficit.

-For now, at least, I'm caught up on my meds and am able to function at normal levels. Hooray for the little things in life!

Night Owl

Here I am in the wee sma's, having succumbed to the temptation of web surfing, when I should be home sleeping. I need to be up and coherent enough to awaken, change, clothe and feed a toddler in order for his grandmother to pick him up at 8 a.m. Once he leaves, I get to assemble the four corners of the globe that comprise the Stanley household and pack it for a Labor Day trip to my in-laws' in Arkansas.

My anti-depressants have been out since Monday morning, and I'm starting to feel it, mood-wise. Emotional margins are getting worn thin--just seeing that a high school classmate's wife was the Iowa delegate for the Mrs. America pageant engendered the thought that I'll look extremely dumpy and Midwestern when our next class reunion rolls around.

Me. Home. Bed. Now.

Re-educating a Poseur

We had friends over for dinner last night. These are intelligent friends, academic friends, well-read friends, friends who can crack jokes about faux book titles written in the style of P.G. Wodehouse.

P.G. Wodehouse?

I consider myself an intelligent, well-read individual. I have never read any P.G. Wodehouse. I funk it (and quite badly, I might add) when I play the booklovers' edition of Trivial Pursuit. One would think I had never heard of a classic or read any book written since the mid-20th century.

Last night also brought me a new lesson about myself: in the company of intellectual friends, I turn into a poseur.

Much of my thought process revolved around frantically trying to think of erudite authors I could introduce into the conversation. I dropped more $5 words last night in casual conversation than I have in the preceding year. I think I was still myself, but I tried too hard to project myself beyond my humble Midwest surroundings. I didn't want a bland meat-n-potatoes meal that relied on salt as the sole seasoning, so I made pasta with a puttanesca sauce and a raspberry trifle. We drank white and red wine with the meal, had a long and intense conversation about wines, teas (full-leafed, if you please; no humble tea bags for us) and talked for several hours about topics ranging from the Greek scholarly interpretations of the gospel of John to incredible books (e.g. Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, Leif Enger's Peace Like a River) to any number of topics.

I enjoyed the time and talking immensely. My feeling of out-of-place-ness is that it feels so far away from who I am now. It wasn't until after we went to bed after midnight that I realized... I missed Nathan, who went to bed shortly after our friends arrived. He wouldn't have contributed anything to our conversation, but it was the first time in months (years?) that he wasn't any part of the conversation topics, either. So many of my friends these days are friends in life stages similar to my own.

Conversations with moms can be disconcerting: "I couldn't believe that this thought was articulated - No, we don't lick the dog back... I don't care if he licked you first - so beautifully in language - Because I said no! No licking - and leave his tongue alone while you're at it - that felt like it could have been my words. He put my thoughts on that page, and it was wonderful to read it." Schizophrenia seems like it is often peeking around the corner.

My life focus has changed as a mom. I had many people say I should enjoy reading before Nathan was born, because I'd never have time to read afterward. I saw friends unable to converse about anything other than safety studies, development stages or the latest toy recall and how their adorable Squizzle-bug was now in tears that a beloved whizz-gig had to be taken away.

For those without kids, be not afraid. I read just as much now as I ever did before Nathan was born. -He is a compliant child, but it's also that reading is that important to me. My husband and I still have deeply satisfying conversations about French cuisine, compare Russian authors, or discuss my feelings on Rosetta Stone's ability to teach Arabic effectively. We are still the same intellectual, multi-dimensional people we always were.

The difference for us now is that Nathan is as much a factor of life as Trent & I are. A trip to the grocery store is dependent on Nathan's naps, his eating schedule or other factors I cannot completely control.

Yes, it's a struggle to relinquish more control in my life. It's also been an immense blessing to have the excuse of my son to set aside tasks I once considered imperative (clean this, organize that, finish this, check the list entry off) to sit and watch. I never remembered until this week that there was a time in my life that I, too, was frustrated that I couldn't fit a large toy through a small hole. Sometime in my life I learned that magnets don't stick to wood and books don't stick to walls.

I only remember these things if I'm willing to set aside the busyness of my life to watch Nathan discover his. Watching Nathan learn about this world is helping me remember it, too. This year has been good in so many ways, yet I always hope the new year will prove to be even better.

Monday on a Sunday

This week my Monday came on a Sunday.

I fully intended to go to church this morning, but everything imaginable conspired to get me frustrated and distracted from hearing and learning anything.

After bathing & dressing Nathan, loading him and his stuff - and my stuff - in the car (already running late), I couldn't find my keys. I dug through my purse two or three times, then dashed back in the house to ransack every place I thought they might be. No keys.

In an interesting juggle, I moved the dog from the garage to the house (to prevent him running away) and opened the garage door so I could get out my bike and hook the Burley to it. I got it hooked up, the garage door closed, all our stuff transferred from car to Burley, inhaled the rest of my coffee, and took off for church.

On the way there, the safety flag fell off the Burley. When I turned around and got off my bike to retrieve the flag, the wind blew my bike over. I reattached the flag, righted my bike and calmed Nathan down, and (finally) got to church. When I got there, I realized Nathan's diaper needing changing before I dropped him off at nursery. Once I got the diaper changed, Nathan deposited at nursery, and grabbed my stuff for the service, I needed to hurry and write out the check for the offering. I had finished the check and was putting the checkbook back in my purse when - lo and behold: my keys. In my purse. The whole time.

I still don't know what all the distractions were supposed to distract me from. Maybe it was a time for me to see how much I've grown spiritually - I felt frustrated and even tired, but there wasn't any anger in any of this morning's activities for me. There wasn't a time in there where I felt almost hysterical that so many things were going wrong. My peace was ruffled, but not ruined.

Maybe it was so I could listen to a vision of the church as the body of Christ, each member serving and building each other up. I know what my spiritual gifts are; I've focused quite a while on using them and being a wise steward of them. Maybe this morning it was that I needed to hear that they aren't "my" spiritual gifts, but "ours." Maybe I needed to hear that I don't have the option of withholding them from being used in my community. My role is to offer what I have, even if I don't know where or how it will be used, believing that it is better to start dancing in my own way, singing my heart's song to God instead of waiting for the event to be organized and tickets to be sold and rehearsals held so that my dance, my song, can have a definite impact.

I've thought so often that, "Lord, I'm trying..." So much of my life has been a wrestling to quit trying to please or pacify God and instead respond to him. I rarely "try" to respond - I just respond.

First Birthday

Nathan's birthday was almost two weeks ago, but as you can tell from the pictures, a good time was had by all... especially the birthday boy!

Opening and playing with birthday presents...

Introduction to sugar, via cake and frosting...
Testing...

Why didn't someone tell me about this stuff before now?!

Garcon! More, s'il vous plait!

The Ecstasy

Despite the dog's help in licking chocolate frosting off some of Nathan's skin, the boy still needed two baths to clean him up for bed. Bath #1 in the utility sink in the laundry room to remove the chunks of cake and frosting; Bath #2 was in the bathtub with soap, etc. to get to that "clean baby" smell again. He left chocolate rings around both tubs.

As for us? We're trying to keep up with his increased walking, increased babbling, greater curiosity, and still keep pace with the other events in life. I'm involved in three semi-weekly activities plus the usual house/boy care that our family needs. Trent is works from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday until the middle of next month; he's also trying to finish off the chain-link fence around our back yard, finish the trim in our bathroom, help with a scheduled Network seminar next month and (as of last night) replace our roof in his spare time. We thought we could wait to re-roof until next spring, but recent rainstorms gave us water spotting on several ceilings. Sometime in the next month we'll be reshingling.

Bright spot #1: Trent's dad is in the roofing business, so materials will be inexpensive for us.

Bright spot #2: We don't have shake shingles underneath the top layer of asphalt on this house - faster tear-off time.

Bright spot #3: We shouldn't have to replace all of the plywood sheeting under the shingles, unlike last time.

Bright spot #4: The pitch on this roof isn't nearly as bad as our last house; we can walk on it, rather than rapelling over the peak with ropes tied off to our front porch.

I'm trying to be upbeat, but this definitely wasn't anywhere on our radar for now.

-One last thought: I don't miss having the internet until I try to play catch up. Dealing with email and blogs and such in one shot is a long session! : )

Internet Deprivation

Egads... Four days after my last post, we moved the bulk of our belongings from storage into our house. Five days after that post, we spent the first night in our new home.

The following two weeks are a blur of cleaning, unpacking, organizing, arranging, decorating, flattening cardboard boxes and playing swap shop with my parents ("Here, these are yours..." "I found these in the bathroom you were using here and thought you might need them...").

One week after we moved out, my sister-in-law-to-be's parents arrived to stay with my parents prior to the last wedding of the Jongewaard kids. One week after that, Trent started a new job with another electrical company in town and relatives from both families from all corners of the globe arrived for the wedding itself. Having been warned ahead of time by my sister-in-law (not the one who just joined the family; the other one) that family members like to trek through the latest family property, I set that week as my goal for being completely unpacked.

As I said, it was a blur, but somehow I actually met the goal. -Ok, the basement is still pretty cluttered and messy, but still: no cardboard boxes left on the main floor. Considering our library of books is somewhere between 1200 and 1400 books now, that's a HUGE accomplishment!

We're still working on projects here and there. Tonight I touched up places in the laundry room and back hallway that got paint scraped off in the moving process; Trent's digging the post holes for the chain-link fence he's putting around our back yard.

Nathan's first birthday is this Friday, and it'll be a family dinner: eight adults and the three grandkids. I'm hoping to have the basement done before then (in the midst of meetings and making applesauce for the freezer and cleaning and caring for Nathan and...).

This post is meant to bring you up-to-date in a rush, but also as an apology. We don't currently have Internet access at our house, and don't know when we'll have it. My access to Blogger is entirely dependent on a trip back to my parents' (like now). I have no way of knowing how long it'll be between posts. My apologies, and I will try to keep up with email and this when I can.

Back to the basement!

Activities

Saturday, August 5th: 17 hours of tiling my first job - our new shower. Talk about a learning curve... I got home after midnight with my fingertips throbbing from all the thinset cement contact.

Sunday (6th): helped with set-up and take-down at church (8 a.m. to around noon), then hosted small group at night (5:30-8:30)

Monday (7th): up at 5, over to the house to mark lines for the faux finish painted stripes in the living room. Home by 6:30 a.m. to talk with Trent before he left for work, went through the morning routine with Nathan (up, change, feed, read, play, feed) and back to the house with Nathan and my mom. Nathan napped, I tiled and Mom taped in the living room. Home to do laundry, tried to cut the one remaining tile I needed cut, back to the house to paint a bit in the living room, home for supper and back to the house to continue tiling until just after 10.

Tuesday (8th): up to talk with Trent, morning routine with Nathan, then back over to the house to (finally) finish tiling. Cleared space in the living room for carpet to be delivered, then home to spend the afternoon with Nathan. Friends came over for supper, and Trent & I went to the house after supper to check over things and make lists for a (hopefully) last trip to Menards, etc.

Wednesday: During Nathan's morning nap, I'll be painting at our house; after Nathan's in bed at night, I'll be over at the house grouting the shower tile.

Thursday: carpet can be laid, and Trent & I drive 45 miles with Nathan to get things from Menards, etc.

Friday: carpet laying finished, items moved from my parents' front room and some of Nathan's room into our house.

Saturday: a crew of unknown size will be at our house at 8 a.m. to help us move all of our items from storage (where they've been since a year ago last May) into our new house.

I have no idea if I'll be able to find sheets for us to use to sleep at our house Saturday night or not. Why is it that no matter how much planning you try to do, everything lands at the last minute?

Last-Minute Renovating

This last week has been a slew of home renovation-related tasks, and I suspect it will continue to be this way up through the 16th of August. We need to move in to our house before the 17th/18th of August - as in, two weeks from tomorrow.

As of 11:00 this morning, no flooring material was permanently installed in any of the rooms, only the microwave/fumehood is installed of the sundry appliances destined for kitchen or laundry room, no furniture is anywhere in the vicinity of the house, and the garage is a confused labyrinth of cardboard boxes (some empty, some not) and torn-out counters and old housing paraphanalia.

Two. Weeks. From. Tomorrow.

This week? Two trips (~1 hr's drive each way) to Home Depot and/or Menard's for various supplies, vinyl flooring being laid in three of the rooms, ceiling fans and other electrical fixtures installed, furnace vents being cleaned of their foot-deep accumulation of dust, rooms being painted, plumbing hooked up, and (still to come this week) tile installed in the shower, new circuitry being run and laminate being laid in three more areas. Carpet, the last bit of painting and moving are all supposed to happen next week. -Oh, and my mom's helping me refinish the dining room set in the meantime. Plus figure out window treatments. Plus watch Nathan.

Did I mention that I'm the one who will be laying the tile in the shower? I volunteered in a moment of bravery that I might later regret. Neither Trent nor I have laid tile before, so we're starting at the same skill level. He's got so much to do and so few Saturdays to do it... This seemed like a big job I might be able to do instead of him. I've purchased my materials, read up on techniques and do's and don'ts, and have invited two girlfriends over for moral support on Saturday.

If you read a news story this weekend of a woman in the Midwest who tried to slit her wrists with a shard of tile, it might be me.

Killing Superwoman

From Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis:

I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head. They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it's like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear.

Bell goes on to say that they only way to avoid being killed by this superimage is to kill it first.

I realize this is true for me. However grisly and macabre it might sound:

Supermom, you who never let your child utter a second wail before you are crib-side with comforting words and an always adequate milk supply, who always sets aside any task from clipping toenails to disarming a nuclear bomb in order to play with your tot in mind-building activities - I place my determined hands firmly around your throat and happily, gleefully choke off all rivulets of air making their way to your lungs.

Superwife, you who can still wear every perfectly-mended item of clothing from your size-4 days in college, who looks alluring enough to draw other manly gazes yet never the slightest bit indecent, who answers sweetly to every request and never, ever, ever refuses to fill any perceived need of your husband's if it can be accomplished within the laws of physics, who knows intuitively when to speak and when to be quiet, who never manipulates to get her own way and lives only to serve others - I have a gorgeous hollow-head bullet with your name on it. I savor the clicks as I lock and load the gun, then pull the trigger without hesitation, aiming right between your eyes.

Superhomemaker, you who maintain a spotless domicile with glossy floors that never see more than a week between in-depth cleanings, who has perfectly matched furniture sets and costly, coordinated decorations in each room, who always stays within budget for groceries and makes even breakfast a well-balanced, home-cooked meal - I gladly entwine my fingers in your hair and embed my fingernails in your scalp as I push your perfect head under ice-cold water and hold you there until the bubbles stop coming to the surface.

My superimages have been killing me.

Afternoon Delight

With Nathan down for his afternoon nap, I thought I'd get on the stick about finally painting the rest of the dining room set I'm redoing.

Immersed in my task, I suddenly heard baby chortles over the baby monitor.

Funny... he was silent just a moment ago.

Silence again.

More baby chuckles.

-This continued for several minutes, until my curiosity was piqued. I trekked upstairs quietly, brush in hand, to see if it was a stuffed animal, ceiling fan or something else that had him so amused.

None of the above. He apparently had the hiccups and that sensation was what was making him laugh.

[Hiccup] baby belly giggle

I love those laughs.

Carpe Vita

Somewhere in the craziness of pulling long hours for the sake of home renovation this last week, I realized something.

I've been thinking, If I can just get these rooms painted, the flooring in, furniture moved in, family settled - then I can focus on what's important again.

There isn't much I can do about my canine buddy Jasper sleeping alone outside in my parents' shed right now. I can't even say I'd love to have him indoors with us; I'd be too paranoid that something would happen - it's not our house, after all.

Spending time with Nathan and Trent, though, that's a different story. All too often this week I've tried to push through the task at hand with Nathan - c'mon... eat faster! - or put him down for naps early, get him up later. I'm trying to get through this list of tasks at hand so I can get back to living my life.

That's my problem. There will always be tasks. There is always something else begging to be done, to take priority over what I tell myself is most important to me. Every moment like this that I have is an opportunity to set aside the task and live my life.

Nathan won't always be eager to spend time with me.

Blog School

And here I thought I was somewhat cool because I have a blog and didn't require the further explanation from long-suffering individuals that it meant "web log".

Once again, I am humbled.

I have no way of knowing if anyone even reads what I write. The chances of someone just happening to come across it are small to none. I've considered putting a counter on the site just to see, but that could just confirm to me that no one but myself and my husband read these posts. If I don't try to find out, I can convince myself that many people wander through the witty verbiage of my phrases, marveling over this or that well-turned word.

Nah... I'm what Electric Venom would call an iso-blogger.

-If the numbers of readers were just about this site, it wouldn't matter quite as much. Writing is primarily for me; it's a safety release. That purpose is accomplished just by thwacking keys on a keyboard.

Trent and I want to generate some income if we can through reference-type sites, though, and let's be honest: building a better web site doesn't make the world beat a path to your door. I'd love to believe we'd hit the Truth-Laid Bear's list, but I don't see it happening in this lifetime.

Wonder how long it would take me to become proficient in Perl or PHP...

Out-standing

Nathan stood up for himself for the first time yesterday!

He's been working his way up to it for a while. He'll play with toys on the floor, then push up to a legs-extended crawling position reminiscent of Mowgli in the Jungle Book. Yesterday he pushed himself up to a standing position, legs spread wide enough that we could slide a small dog under him, and arms wavering back and forth in mid-air to maintain his balance.

He's been practicing his new skill regularly ever since. He gets such an excited and pleased grin when he succeeds. It's "I never knew I could be this tall!" crossing over into "I can see my house from here!"

Ten months old. I'm sure walking isn't far behind...

George

I was upstairs sleeping when I heard someone at the garage door. By the time I got downstairs, our neighbor across the street was halfway back to his house. I called after him, and George asked if he could use our phone, since they don't have long distance service.

George is the epitome of a Midwestern American farmer. His kids and grandkids are everywhere in this town. This man taught me how to walk beans the summer I was 14. I was riding in his pickup truck over bumpy country gravel roads when the news came over the radio that United Flight 232 had crash-landed 45 miles away in Sioux City, IA.

More than a decade later, this man still helps out on the farm that was his for many years. It's his pickup truck my family borrows when we have hauling to do. He's the one who uses his snowblower to clear neighbors' driveways, edges their lawns for them (he's out there anyway, he figures; why shouldn't he do it?) and helps pull out stubborn bushes or trees with a chain hooked to his truck. I don't know how old he is, but he must be in his 80s by now - and his energy level puts my generation to shame.

He came over this morning to call a family member; he wanted his wife home, but he didn't want her driving at an unsafe speed. He got the news this morning that the brother he was closest to was killed this morning. Pete was 10 years younger than George. Though he gave the farm over to his boys last year, Pete said he'd still come back and help them out. He was there this morning driving a tractor when he got too close to a ledge. The tractor rolled backwards on top of him. It's possible that he had a heart attack and was already gone when the tractor rolled, but it's still an unexpected shock for his family.

It hit me hard because of how it hit George.

Don't ever make the mistake of thinking farmers are dumb hicks. They're among the smartest, most hard-working, and most reserved and controlled people I know. They think long and hard about things, and most of them have huge amounts of determination and capability.

This morning was the first time I've ever seen George cry. It wasn't sobbing, just tears making tracks down his cheeks and a slight quaver in his voice as told the person on the other end of the phone that his brother was dead.

We talked for a very brief bit, and he went back to his house to wait for his wife to get home. I went over later with Nathan to see if he wanted company while he waited, but he said he was fine and could take care of himself. He was courteous, but there was steel and decades of reserve behind the courtesy. He's a wonderful man, the sort that not only fought in WWII but managed land and family after coming home.

I'm glad I was home this morning, even if there was little I could do.