Leap of Faith

Vashti Speer 1907

2011-08-11T13:52:00.003-05:00

I just spent the morning with Vashti Speer.

All I know of her are snippets of her experiences from the year 1907. I happened on to her diary from that year online through the Cherokee Strip Museum (Perry, Oklahoma) and I have read the entire thing this morning. She writes in almost my grandmother's handwriting and almost my grandmother's voice.

Vashti Speer was born September 12, 1877, a contemporary of my great grandmothers: Nona, Augusta, Montree, Georgianna. I treasure the inside view into Vashti's life and, indirectly, into the lives of my foremothers as well.

Many things intrigue me about Vashti.

First, how does one born in Kansas in 1877 come to be named Vashti -- especially with siblings named William, Judith, and Belle? I'm sure there's quite a story there.

Vashti speaks of her husband, Lawrence, primarily in terms of his comings and goings, of his work in the fields planting corn, oats, wheat, and cotton, and, occasionally, of his help around the house. He bought her a new stove. He helped her pare apples. He helped her take up the carpet to clean it. She does not speak of him in any intimate, loving way.

Lawrence was often away -- travelling to nearby towns for business or at "the lodge" or the Farmer's Union. On one occasion, she says he came home sober. Does that mean often he didn't? In one entry, she said that if Lawrence had come home as "happy" as the "darkies" hired to pick cotton that she wouldn't be able to say so even in her little book. Hmmm...

There is also no reference to how long Vashti and Lawrence have been married. Vashti is celebrates her 30th birthday during the year of her diary. Her only child, a daughter named Gertrude (nicknamed Gertie or "Girlie") is of the age of dolls and stick horses (probably the same age as my grandfather who was born in 1902). I wonder if Vashti and Lawrence married at age 18 or 20 as was typical at that time. I wonder why they have no other children. I wonder what their relationship was really like. I wish she had written some of the private details. Such a voyeur am I!

Much of Vashti's diary is a chronicle of the weather and of visits with family and friends. Amazingly, she almost never complains about being hot or cold. More often, rain, or the lack thereof, interferes with visiting and with farm life. Of her husband she said he is "always lost when it rains", not knowing what to do with himself when he can't be out working.

Vashti talks of selling butter, hens, and eggs. She talks of "pie plant pie" which is, apparently, rhubarb pie. She talks of frying chicken, canning peaches, beets, and apple butter. She talks of laundry and sewing and ironing. Three times she says she has made a dress for Gertie. Once she says her father has brought her a new dress. And once she reports that her father has brought her the pattern to make a dress for her mother.

She also talks of building a chicken coop. I can relate! I'm still working on mine. I think she made hers in just a few days.

I was amazed (after having spent much of last weekend in cemeteries!) that in the course of a whole year, Vasti never mentions a death. On the contrary, they celebrate her grandfather's 91st birthday and she comments on how fit and healthy he is.

I was amused on a couple of occasions at Vashti's humor in the midst of struggle. Once she said she'd never owned a rolling pin and, if she had, she'd have had to use it to make dinner -- not to cook with but to burn for heat. Secondly, she says the wheat crop is so bad that all the wheat on the farm might not amount to one biscuit. She also speaks of making a sofa pillow and then , the next day, laments that her sofa is homemade. At Christmas, Gertie asks Santa for a doll with real hair and "eyes that sleep" (close). Vashti reports that, because of finances, only the doll's head and hands can be store bought. The rest must be homemade.

Holiday commemorations are of interest to me in Vashti's diary. They worked on the 4th of July and celebrated only with cake and ice cream with friends at the end of the day. For Thanksgiving, no turkey was to be had so they cooked "an old hen". At Christmas, Gertie received a doll, a little broom, a Mother Goose book, mittens, and candy. Vashti does not report receiving any gifts herself for either her birthday or Christmas. She never even mentioned Gertie's birthday or Lawrence's. She did, however, mention her own only to report feeling old at turning 30 and saying that she and Lawrence were getting to old to dance.

I was very disappointed when, early in December, Vashti writes that she has decided not to continue with her diary for another year. She says:

"Well, this year will soon be gone and this little book soon be finished. I think this will be my last attempt at keeping a diary. My life has not been an unhappy one but a very uneventful one. Too practical and not enough sentiment and romance to make good reading."

I thought it was good reading!

I was quite impressed that she never missed a day of writing in her diary until the middle of December. Her last entry was on Christmas. I wish someone had given her another diary for Christmas as someone had the year before which is what got her to chronicle the year 1907. If she only knew that her diary would be in a museum 104 years in the future! (I hope that knowledge would have encouraged to her write more rather than to be too intimidated to write at all.) I would have loved to have heard more. A couple of times she writes what are essentially "hashtags". If only she'd known how ahead of her time she was she might have had more confidence in her writing!

I have googled the name and found no other information on Vashti Speer. No photo. No obituary. No genealogical records. I feel as if I know her now. But I don't even know what she looked like.

I owe her a debt of gratitude for sharing her life with me. And for inspiring me. Perhaps I will jot down a brief page per day in a diary of my own. Only I will put in all the juicy stuff and try to document what's really important! Vashti gave me a glimpse of her life. Beyond that, what I would really like to know about is what was on her heart.

Whew! That was Scary!: Life on the Rowdy Oklahoma Plains

2011-08-10T11:16:00.005-05:00

(I kind of feel like a whiner posting this but it WAS an amazing experience!)

Mark is an amazing meteorologist. I can recognize weather when I see it. He can tell you it's coming before it shows up. He talks about "mare's tails" (a type of cloud) and high pressure domes and he can see a faint something on the horizon that means we shouldn't bother to wash the car.

Yesterday, as we were poking around town trying to sqeeze the most out of our long anniversary weekend (and pouting that I had to leave ON our anniversary), he spotted some clues: It was 101 in Enid but, up the road in Wichita, it was cool. "This is going to be bad", he declared confident of his conclusion. He eyed the clouds and told me I'd better get on the road before the storm came. I sulked a bit but I left. It was almost time to go anyway.

As the Western sky grew an ever-deepening shade of steely blue-gray, I drove out of town headed East. Ahead, to the Northeast, I could see a rain shower. It didn't look like much: puffy white clouds on top of long quenching streams of rain falling from the sky to the parched, thirsty ground. I felt confident that I could get past it before it disrupted the freshly-washed finish Mark had put on my car.

The "wet" pavement ahead kept turning out to be mirages as I drove on, confident.

About 20 miles outside of town, right before the Garfield/Noble county line, the rain caught me. Then the wind gusts started lashing out and I felt like I was riding on roller skates with a sail. Bits of paper and debris blasted across the road in front of the car as the strong gust front took hold. I felt lucky that there were no other cars near me as an unexpected gust could have put anyone in another lane in the blink of an eye.

I slowed way down and finally turned South on the county line road out of a true concern that the wind could roll my car off the road. Even with my back to the wind, the car rocked and heaved upward. I remembered all the cars we saw in the rubble in Joplin after the F5 tornado hit there. Many had been launched into the air and thrown violently back down to Earth. They said that a lot of the cars laying smashed on the ground had bodies in them. This must have been how those people felt at the beginning.

I surveyed the flat terrain in all directions and drove on a little further down the gravel road looking for shelter. I grew up in Oklahoma, I know that a car is not safe shelter beyond a certain windspeed. In every direction were flat fields. The ditch beside the road, a mere depression, wouldn't really help me much.

Within a quarter of a mile I found my hidey hole: A 36" diameter drain pipe that went under the road. I parked with my driver's door right above the culvert and planned to dive into the pipe if need be -- fully willing to share the space with any raccoon or other creature that might already inhabit it (hoping that snakes didn't figure into the equation). I kept scanning all around me for the tornado I felt must be near. It felt as if I was in the the vicinity of a couple of them.

My hidey hole.

I watched the trees and the tall grass bend as the fierce wind beat them. More bits and pieces of things blew by at rapid speed. Lightning flashed regularly. My cell phone threatened to die. Ugh (my car charger takes almost an hour to revive it if it goes completely dead). I called Mark to tell him where I was so he would know where to start looking for me if I blew away. He said the storm I had originally been trying to avoid had just blown forcefully through Enid.

To the Southeast, I could see the clouds get caught in a downdraft, be dragged downward, flow along the ground, and then start to rise with an updraft. Two fields to the West of me, a whole field of dust swirled upward into a funnel shape that died down and then reformed several times. I've seen enough tornado footage on the Discovery Channel to know that tornados start from the ground and go up -- or at least, you can't see them until they start to pick up debris. It looked like a funnel TO ME.

What I saw was bigger than this stock meteorology photo.

Then the wind shifted and started blowing strongly from the East. Soon after, the wind died down. Mark encouraged me to get on down the road ahead of the storm that had gone through Enid but hadn't reached me yet. So I headed East again.

Three miles down the road I came over a slight hill and found myself gazing across an amazing scene. Three tractor-trailer trucks were overturned and laying in the road at what must have been the point of the strongest winds. Two had blown over from where they were parked on the north shoulder. The third had apparently turned off to the South on a gravel road like I had. It had been toppled by the wind from the East that came at the end. One of the truck drivers was trying to retrieve belongings from his smashed cab, another held an ice-pack made from a plaid shirt to his head, the third had been laid in the back of an SUV that had stopped to help, his feet sticking out of the open back, his legs wrapped in plastic for warmth.

Not one of this trucks I saw. This is a stock photo. But this is the gist of it -- times three.

I stopped to take pictures of the semis (alas, the pictures got erased by a little tantrum my phone threw) and then continued East. Within two miles, I caught up with the storm. The same strong wind gusts and rain started to beat against my car again. Still shaking from my first encounter with the storm, I decided that I was too shaken up to endure any more wind and rain. How stupid would it be to drive back into the storm I had just come out of? I turned around and headed back to Enid. This turned out to be a good decision as I would have been driving through severe thunderstorms for the next three hours if I'd continued toward home.

On the way back to Enid I saw two cars with their side windows blown in. They were also limping back to Enid (I know they had turned back toward Enid because it was their driver side windows that were broken so they must have been going East for the wind from the North to have broken the windows). Most of the road signs were blown down. Pieces of corrogated tin barn roofs were strewn along the side of the road. No barns were in sight to indicate where this material had come from. I passed two ambulances and half a dozen emergency vehicles from the local rural fire departments as they headed out to where the semis were.

Someone's barn roof.

Break-away highway sign.

I have tried to research the windspeed at which car windows break. To no avail. I did, however, learn that windows in houses start to break in winds around 80 mph. The severe thunderstorm warning for the area I was in warned of 75 mph winds. Winds in Lahoma, on the other side of Enid, were clocked at 96 mph. I'm also not sure at what windspeed highway signs are designed to collapse (they have break-away latches on the posts). Let's just say it was windy.

When I got to the hotel (where Mark was waiting for me), the hotel manager tried to tell me that, if the weather got bad, I should go to the middle of the first floor. "Thanks," I told him, "I know. I grew up here." Which doesn't make me immune to shaking for a couple of hours afterward!

I know the signs well enough to have recognized "tornado green" in Southern California. In 1990, when I was living in Irvine, California, I looked out my window into a rain storm and noticed that the sky was that shade of green that means "tornado" in Oklahoma. "Nah," I thought to myself, "Couldn't be. There aren't tornados in California." Turns out there was a very rare tornado about a mile and a half away. I had recognized the color.

Another Enid girl, Mark's cousin Ann, was driving North to South on I-35 (6 or 7 miles East of where I was) during the same storm I was in. She felt confident that she saw a funnel in the direction of where I was. She would know. She's an Oklahoma girl!

In retrospect, I'm proud to be an Oklahoma girl and proud to have acquired enough knowledge to have done the right things. I have always told my girls, as each of them has gone through a childhood phase of being terrified of storms, that they don't have to worry, that I know what to look for, and that I will tell them when to worry and I will keep them safe if things get bad. I am confident that I know what I need to know to do so. I also know that you have to be below ground level to survive an F5. May I never have to use that knowledge!

That is definitely the last time I try to outrun a storm on my way out of Enid!

Coincidence

2011-07-15T15:04:00.001-05:00

This has been a week full of coincidences for me. The cosmos has been working overtime. There have been amazing coincidences galore. Enough to make me think I should take notice. So I have.

It started with a puppy head. Don't worry -- it was still attached to the rest of the puppy. I remember somewhere in alpha dreamland, a puppy head being thrust through my cracked-open bedroom door and Emily saying, "Don't worry -- it's not staying." Famous last words.

The next morning, I got up, met the puppy more formally, and heard the whole story about how Emily confiscated him from a guy she knows who, after the puppy romance of a mere month had worn off, was going to dump the poor little guy in the woods. Or his mother was going to shoot it (I'm assured that she really would do it despite my deep desire to think that no such cruel people exist). So I now commend Emily for her actions.

I put cute little-puppy-guy's photo on Facebook as a wild stab in the dark of a first attempt. Emily tried to put an ad on Craigslist but it wouldn't load. Ugh.

It took exactly 11 minutes for my friend and co-worker, Christy, to offer to take the puppy. That was miraculously FAST!

I was a little worried. He's rottweiler and pit bull (even though the best dog I ever had was a pit bull, I know people have their fears and prejudices) and ALL mischievious puppy -- complete with all the trappings of rampant teething, inevitable "gift" leaving, clumsy feet that are WAY too big for him, and tendency to get bored and come up with something you'd never have thought of. In the space of half an hour he wrestled the curtains, attached himself to the dust mop so as to make cleaning the floor a mere dream, and was utterly unsuccessful at convincing the cats to be his playmates. He did finally find friends: a plastic Easter egg, an ice cube, and a soda can.

Despite my worries, Christy now reports that he is the "best and cutest pup ever". Whew!

He couldn't have gone to a better home. Christy is smart and responsible, has the hugest heart for animals, and lives on her own little 8-acre horse farm with dogs and cats and, of course... horses.

I was curious about what Christy would name this puppy who had the previous and very unfortunate name of "Axel". Emily and I dubbed him "Chomper" for Facebook purposes but we knew he had yet to find his true name.

The following day, Christy texted me that she had settled on a name: "Roscoe". She said, "I just kept calling him 'Roscoe'. I don't know why."

"Maybe because that's his name!" I replied.

I texted Emily that his new name was Roscoe. She texted me right back saying, "I almost named him the exact same thing!" How amazingly uncanny! Of all the possible names... Guess that really WAS his name!

****

Next came my step-son's 11th birthday. Noah was born on 7/14 at 7:14 and weighed, yes, 7lbs 14oz. I'm not sure about the formal numberological implications of that but I do know it's something special. Mark had some mathematician friend figure up that the odds of such a thing are one in 96 million (or something mind-stretching like that). At the very least, Noah is special and his run on the number 7/14 serves to remind us of that if nothing else.

Noah Christian Coppock

****

The next incidence of coincidence came as I drove diagonally across the outer regions of the grocery store parking lot. I was talking with Mark on my cell phone and we were just saying that we haven't been to church in forever and we need to start going again when I had to jam on the breaks to keep from hitting another car. The driver of that car, of course, was the pastor of that church that we haven't been to in forever! Again, uncanny! {Check out http://www.vintagefellowship.org/ if you have even the slightest interest in a hip young church where is ok to ask questions and not have all the answers.}

Robb Ryerse, Vintage Fellowship

****

One day the pastor at the church I work for mentioned that the ice maker in the church kitchen made really great ice. I didn't think much of it at the time but the comment stuck in my head.

Ice

A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to figure out how I'd EVER break my two-a-day diet Dr. Pepper habit. I lived for them. It turns out that, when I did quit the diet DP and was searching for a replacement, that ice came into play in a very important way. Now I am almost two weeks diet DP free and, instead, every day at work I have a couple of glasses of ice water with that wonderful ice from the church kitchen.

Seems like God was trying to give the the answer via the pastor!

****

Mark was telling me a story he'd heard about a man who's father was struck and killed by lightning. And then, 45 years later, the son was struck and killed by lightning TOO!

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/father-son-die-lightning-strikes-48-years/story?id=14080318

****

I'm hoping that coincidences are enough and that God doesn't have to strike me with a bolt of lightning to get my attention! Coincidences DO tend to get my attention better than most things. If I was God and had to make an impression without being just plain obvious, I'd be a little heavy-handed with the coincidences too.

You can always wonder if you're just reading something into nothing. You can always explain it away somehow. But why? As humans, we tend to seek meaning. At least, I know I do. And I'll take meaning and the grace that accompanies it in any way I can get it. At the very least, coincidences encourage me to take a closer look at something that I might easily have glossed over. They can trigger decisions. They can bring on a smile. They can highlight what's really important. Or not. But I prefer to take them at full intensity. To me, they have God's fingerprints all over them.

****

My Lifelong Cosmic Lesson in First Impressions

2011-06-14T11:24:00.002-05:00

Do you ever look at someone and just dislike them on sight? It's not a very kind way of approaching the world but sometimes it just happens. Whenever I feel this way I remember a lesson that I keep finding myself being taught -- over and over and over again.

Jocelyn

The first cosmic lesson of this sort that I remember was Jocelyn Wolfe. It was the week before 7th grade. The air was hot and muggy in the low-slung cafeteria building. Flies pestered the hot and intimidated and generally lost incoming middle school students as we waited in several lines to get our schedules for the school year from the advisors sitting behind lined-up lunch tables. The girl in the line next to me annoyed me on sight. We kept eyeing each other in an unfriendly way. Her teeth were a little on the buck side. She wore glasses and an unfriendly smirk. I seriously disliked her on sight. I got the impression that she didn't think too highly of me either. Guess who ended up becoming my best friend? Jocelyn and I survived some of those awkward early pubescent terrors together -- you know, like boys and impending boobs and periods. Kind of like combat buddies!

Marty

Years later, in my early 20's, I was involved in an adoption search and support group. The monthly meetings were held in a large church meeting hall. We pulled chairs in to a large circle -- sometimes 50-60 people around -- and shared the joys and sorrows and frustrations of our searches as we got closer and closer to finding and reuniting with our birthfamilies or children relinquished for adoption. It was always an amazing process of blindly embracing strangers/newcomers who gradually became friends with whom we shared our hearts and souls and our common goal of finding our parents and our children -- and the side effect of finding ourselves in the process. I loved to here these people tell their stories. I loved that they listened to mine.

At one large meeting, I found myself seated across the circle from two women in their 40's. I couldn't help but look at them a lot because they were in my direct eyeshot. I think I ended up staring a lot. Particularly at one of them. Something about her fascinated me. Was it her short, whispy ash-blonde hair? The mischeivious. twinkle in her blue eyes? Her nervous mannerisms? I ended up focusing on her perfectly manicured, long, red finger nails. She was the definition of good grooming. I loved that she took such good care of herself. But she made me uncomfortable for some reason. I decided that I didn't like her and had no desire to be around her. Again, guess who turned out to be my best friend? Guess who knows me better than I know myself, who pushes me to face sometimes uncomforable truths, who shines a light on the really deep issues. That's my beloved Marty Smith. She has been "family of choice" to me for the last twenty years. She has enriched my life in many deep and magical ways.

Dave

I have a little side business called Upstage. I stage houses. This means that I optimize them with furniture and accessories to look their best so they will sell faster and for more money. Before I became a realtor, I had staged a house for a builder. The house was listed with a realtor, Dave Bevis. I saw his name on the sign many times as I worked on the house but I did not meet him until much later. When I got my real estate license and started working at Bassett Mix, I finally crossed paths with Dave. I introduced myself and he gave me a brief, gruff hello. I decided I didn't like him much. He seemed gruff and unpleasant. What I didn't realize until later was that most of my issue with Dave was my own jealousy that he had the listing on the house I staged. I guess I had gotten a little territorial about the house and, in my wanting and working to become a realtor, I envied how far ahead of me he was. That "gruff and unpleasant" man that I thought I didn't like turned out to be a warm, funny, kinda-shy-at-first kind soul who has, out of the goodness of his heart, given me lots of opportunities in real estate and has become the first person I turn to for real estate advice. I owe him a lot.

I've been given enough of these cosmic lessons that I have finally learned. Now, whenever I meet or encounter someone new that I don't like, I remind myself and I get a little excited -- I may have just met my new best friend! At the very least, I treat them with more kindness and compassion because I have learned that you never know what wonders might lie behind a bad first impression!

Healthy Cookie Experiment #1

2011-05-20T11:24:00.002-05:00

These are my first stab at trying to capitalize on my cookie addiction by filling cookies with all the healthy things I SHOULD be eating. These came out a little gummy, quite heavy, and tasting, well... healthy. But Tessa liked them and they're kind of growing on me. Everyone says they need more sugar. Must work on texture next time -- hard to accomplish with only 2 tablespoons of olive oil!

Model #1 contains:

1 grated zucchini

2 grated carrots

1/2 cup raisins

1 diced Granny Smith apple
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups oats

1 /2 cup ground flax seed

1/2 cup sorghum

1 cup of the pear juice that my canned peaches were packed in

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Next time I think I'll add applesauce, banana, canned pumpkin, honey and baking soda (instead of baking powder). Maybe walnuts too!

Any suggestions?

I'm kind of glad you can't taste them!

The World's Healthiest Cookies

2011-05-06T10:53:00.002-05:00

Hi, my name is Annie and I'm an addict.

I have a serious milk and cookie habit. I could live on milk and cookies. Often, I do.

I'm pretty sure my youngest daughter was formed almost entirely out of milk and cookies because that's largely what I ate for the nine months I was cooking her. Forget "bun in the oven" -- she was my "cookie in the oven"! "Cookie" is one of her nicknames.

I remember lovingly a little friend who's first word was "cookie". The word served Hilary well in that it also meant "Daddy" and "Katie". We often interrogated her to determine which she meant. She had the right idea: all things cookie!

When I was in high school I came across a recipe for Breakfast Cookies. They had oatmeal and apples and raisins and cheddar cheese. They were great and carried a lesser load of guilty than regular cookies. For some reason, I only made them once. But they have remained in my mind for the couple of decades since -- always with the thought that I could improve on them in terms of healthiness.

Yesterday, I bought two packs of Oreos (actually, the Walmart Great Value generic called "Twist and Shout" which are just as good). One package is for the church office (keep in mind that I'm often the only one there!) and one goes in the top drawer of my night stand next to my bed (I must have milk and cookies and bedtime, of course, and sometimes for breakfast too).

The Oreos made me think though: I don't need decadent cookies. Really, I just need the carb hit. So I could stick some healthy things on the carbs and be much better off while still indulging my weakness. Why not make it work for me? I was telling my daughter yesterday that the good thing about addictions in that you can make yourself become addicted to something that is good for you! So here's my new strategy: I will devise the healthiest cookie recipe possible and then hope the resulting cookies go as well with V8 juice as they do with milk (because I should only have so much milk). And then I will cultivate the proper addiction.

A few years ago I got curious and did some independent research on alternative cures for cancer. I'm not sure I discovered the cure for cancer but I did learn about nitrilosides, Vitamin B17, amygdaline, and laetrile. Basically, these three substances are different versions of the same thing -- all of which can potentially prevent or destroy cancer cells. The theory is that cancer is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin B17 just as scurvy is a deficiency of Vitamin C. I'm not saying that this is 100% fact, but adding some healthy foods into my diet isn't going to hurt anything. (Here's one reference to an article on the subject: http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james53.htm though I don't vouch for this author or agree with some of this other topics).

Foods that are high in vitamin B17 tend to be traditional foods that have largely fallen out of our diets. In the modern American diet, sugar cane has largely replaced sorghum and wheat has replaced millet. In the past, our ancestors regularly ate many B17-leaden foods that we no longer eat such as quince, choke cherry, elderberry, huckleberry, gooseberry, alfalfa, cassava, watercress, lentils, beet tops, lima beans. Thus we seem to be getting much less Vitamin B17 than people did in the past.

Other foods that contain B17 are fava beans, garbanzo beans (chick peas), mung beans (often used as bean sprouts), black-eyed peas, black beans, squash seeds, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, flax seed, buckwheat, millet, sorghum, maize, grasses, linseed, and bitter almonds (http://www.vitaminb17.org/foods.htm).

Always one to go for prevention, I have tried to add Vitamin B17-containing foods into my diet where ever possible. I start most days with 12-grain toast (containing millet, flax, and buckwheat) with sorghum. I try to snack on hummus (made from garbanzo beans). I serve lentils and sweet potatoes more often than most people do. I add spinach to recipes whenever possible. Buckwheat pancakes are still pancakes and will be willingly consumed by most children. And I ADORE gooseberry pie! It is my very favorite kind of pie. It's just hard to find goose berries these days! Have you ever had gooseberry pie? I'm willing to bet you haven't!

I have worked dilgently at cramming as many healthy things as possible into my cookie recipe. I'll let you know after I have destroyed my kitchen in a grand endeavor to figure out the proper proportions of the ingredients. Here's what I have so far:

The World's Healthiest Cookie Recipe Ingredients

oatmeal
walnuts
flax seed
millet
olive oil
applesauce
raisins
honey or sorghum
carrots
zucchini
apples
egg white
whole wheat flour or buckwheat flour

In the course of looking for healthy cookie recipes, I found a really wonderful blog called Sweet Potato Soul (http://www.sweetpotatosoul.com/). It has wonderful, healthy, colorful recipes that just make me want run to the farmer's market and then to go home and cook until I can't find the counter anymore and there are no more clean dishes in the kitchen!

For now, I have bottle of milk and a piece of multi-berry pie which I almost completely justified above so...

Bon Appetit!

Hairnets and Halos: The Fairy-Godmother Lunch Ladies

2011-05-05T10:14:00.003-05:00

My second daughter, Tesakiah (sounds like "Hezakiah" from the Bible in case you need a little help with the pronounciation), is an 8th grader at Ramay Junior High School. Yesterday, as I was giving her lunch money for the cafeteria on the way to school, she started telling me about the lunch ladies.

I remember lunch ladies. Hair nets and grumpy attitudes are the stereotype. During my school years, I'm not sure I ever overcame the stereotype indoctrination enough to flesh out the true humanity of the hard-working women who were behind both the stereotype and the lunch counter.

Tessa began to tell me about her lunch ladies (actually, one is a "lunch man" but, for the sake of poetic simplicity, I will lump him in with the ladies -- sorry Sir). It turns out that my daughter's lunch ladies are angels in hair nets instead of halos. I was so touched as Tessa (short for Tesakiah) told me that these 7 or 8 ladies pass out daily complements like cookies to the kids as they come through the lunch line. Daily! Tessa says she receives a compliment EVERY day. They all do.

Tessa says she is known as "pretty necklace girl" as she often receives compliments on her jewelrey. This is particularly special to Tessa because she often uses her jewelry to clarify her racial identity and communicate that her heritage is Native American.

The lunch ladies even remembered my first daughter, Emily, noticed the resemblance in Tessa, and remember that Emily ate mostly rolls and cookies during her junior high lunches. That's an amazing personal touch.

Tessa recounted to me that many times the lunch ladies and their compliments have made her day. "Even on your worst day...", she explained, the lunch ladies provide a loving boost.

I could just go hug each and every one of the lunch ladies. In fact, I just might! The gift they give my daughter in particular and the whole student body in general is priceless! And the piece of mind they give me, as a mother, that my child is in loving hands during her school day is priceless as well.

The more I think about it, the more impressed and intrigued I become. These ladies could just sling peas and glob mashed potatoes on plastic trays and shove them at the kids, get their modest paycheck at the end of the week, and be done with it. Instead, they make a difference. That can't just be an accidental convergence of natural complimenters. I would be willing to wager that this is a conscious effort -- a ministry of sorts. These ladies must have pointedly chosen to distribute a little love with lunch.

Those of us over 15 can remember how emotionally fragile we all were in junior high. We were insecure, unsure, scared and fragile, raw nerves with our guts hanging out -- just trying to figure out, on a minute-by-minute basis, who we were and how we fit into the world. With our changing bodies and voices, we navigated the social minefield while the world around us became increasingly complex with every increase in maturity. Not an easy time.

A compliment is a silly little thing. "I like your shirt" is just a superficial opinion. But, oh, how it can make one's day! Ever been trudging through a challenging day or a negative mood and been given a complement only to have it completely spin you in a positive direction? It can be magic! There's a lot more to my Tessa than her pretty necklaces but most compliments are more about lifting up the person than about mere ojects and fashions.
I wonder how the lunch ladies' ministry began? I'm willing to bet that one of them sat through a sermon at church in which the congregation was encouraged to minister to those around them on a daily basis. Perhaps a light bulb went on above one hair-netted head! Serving lunch at a junior high is not glamourous work, but what an opportunity it presents for ministry when several hundred fragile adolescent egos file past you on a daily basis and you figure out a little something you can do to make a difference! These ladies touch more lives in the course of a week from behind the green beans than most ministers can touch from behind the pulpit on a Sunday morning.

The lunch ladies may never know exactly how they helped or see the full reach of the impact they had on young lives but their touch is undoubtably precious and far-reaching. I still remember and cherish the daily positive regard I received from my junior high bus driver (God bless you Dan Dunn!). He got me off to a good start in the morning and put a salve on the end of some bad days. I'm sure he has no idea.

This is ordinary magic -- that is, magic found in the ordinary. I try very hard to remember that God is in every moment and that, in each moment, there is an opportunity to give or to receive the grace of God. Here is a wonderful example. God bless the lunch ladies! The grace of God flows through them.

Looking Forward To The Retirement Home!

2011-01-13T09:36:00.002-06:00

When I was 18, I went away to college (Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas). I was given a dorm room and a "Vali-dine" card (Oh! And a whole bunch of pesky books!).

A Vali-dine card was a wonderful and miraculous thing -- I could just walk into the dining hall, get whatever food I wanted, slide the Vali-dine card through the machine at the checkout, and go eat with all my friends. It was that simple. Like magic!

In my adulthood I've come to appreciate even more than I did back then the concept of a central, commercial kitchen where someone other than ME, plans the menu, procures the food, cooks the meals, and does the dishes! It takes me back to my childhood where food just APPEARED!

The girls in my dorm and the boys in the dorm across the courtyard quickly came to the collective concensus that Vali-Dine cards were really great. We also concluded that college would be really great if only we didn't have those pesky classes to go to! We had our dorm rooms, our roommates, our suitemates, our friends, plenty of members of the opposite gender nearby, and regular mixers. We had a game room, a gym, a track, and courts for tennis, basketball, and raquetball. We had cars, the neighborhood bar (The Bombay Bicycle Club), and all of colorful San Antonio to play in. It was just those darn classes and all the studying that spoiled the fun.

Then we figured out that the college set-up without the classes is what retirement homes are! You get the equivalent of a Vali-dine card, someone else does the cooking and cleaning and maintenance and manages all those other annoyimg details, and the residents are free to just PLAY! Except for wrinkles, illness, arthritis, Alzheimer's, impotence, and a few other downfalls of old age it's just about the perfect world in my eyes! At this point in my multi-wicked (as in, I burn my candle at MANY ends) adulthood, if classes were all I had to worry about, I'd be tickled to death (though not literally -- because one must watch out for things that end in death because they cut back on time in the retirement home!).

I would LOVE to spend about 30 years (from say 82 to 112) living in the retirement home! I would read and write ALL DAY EVERY DAY! And, if I needed a break or new topics or plot twists, I could have play dates with my friends until the writing inspiration returns!

All this makes aging sound so much better to me! And, if I ever get bored, Mark and I can pretend we're batty and have great fun hitting people with our canes, dressing each other up in funny mismatched outfits, and talking in wacky circles about ridiculous things, repeatedly.

I know for sure that Mark, whether in his right mind or not, can be counted on to give regular reports on the daily antics of the local squirrel population! By way of a current example: most recently, he reported to me that he witnessed the bully squirrel from across the street run across the street, beat up a poor, unsuspecting squirrel in our yard, and then retreat back to his own yard! Only Mark would notice this -- and delight in it!

We have also been known, during a long wait in the doctor's office waiting room, to catch imaginary butterflies out of the air and feed them to each other! I definitely think we could manage to keep ourselves entertained in the retirement home!

I'd better start taking better care of myself because I have BIG plans for the retirement home and I want to be healthy enough to spend several fruitful and frolicking decades playing there! In the meantime, I must be very, very careful to stay out of the paths of buses!

Mark and I have been practicing for our senior years! We have photographic evidence but I can't get the photos to upload at the moment so check back later to see them!

Update

2010-06-11T16:12:00.002-05:00

I just read my friend Vanessa's blog and found myself missing my blog SO MUCH! I'm on phone duty at work and there's no time for anything well thought-out but I just wanted to stop in and say hello!

Life has been wall-to-wall 16 hour days for the last couple of weeks. I've calculated that I'll be able to come up for air on June 18th -- unless something else comes up!

So, here's a brief summary of June so far: Sara-Grace turned 9 on the 9th and had a big day, we're preparing for her pool/cookout/slumber party which is tomorrow (the 12th), Matt was bitten by a baby water moccasin but it didn't occur to him to mention if for three days so I think he'll live, I've been emptying two houses and staging two more (half of which are in the next county so lots of driving and long hours away), I have two closings next week -- my first every buyer client and a town house I own myself, the sale of the town house will break the financial log jam we've been in for months (Praise God!), the girls FINALLY got out of school on Monday (June 7th) but I've scarcely laid eyes on them I've been so busy, I got to spend two weekends in Enid which I love, I had an open house last Sunday and another one this Sunday, I have an out-of-state buyer client coming in from South Dakota next week which has required lots of prep work, Mark and I are going to Fort Worth on the 24th for the RV auction on the 25th (maybe even ALONE!), and I'm living for the day (maybe June 19th?) when I can run away to Enid for a stretch and play summer in my little vintage house, start too many projects, write daily on this blog, and maybe even launch my Freesourcefull blog! Whew!

People always ask what I'm doing for the summer. My answer for the last decade has always been "as little as possible". That gets harder and harder to accomplish! But I still want to try!

Happy Summer and stay tuned!

Closet Desires

2010-05-14T08:17:00.007-05:00

It's silly how little things can be so big.

I cleaned my closet. And now I am IN LOVE!

Last Saturday held an event that I wait for all year every year. No, not Christmas. Not Mother's Day. Not my birthday. It was the Washington Elementary Home Tour! The annual fund raiser for my daughter's school has taken on monumental meaning in my life. (Scroll back in my blog and you'll find photos from last year's home tour -- don't miss the flying monkey!).

This year, somehow, I became enamoured with closets. Maybe this was because there was only one house on the tour that I truly adored. Or it could be that, as a home tour volunteer for the first half of the day, I was stationed for a time in the "His" part of the his and hers closet/bath in a remodelled 1891 two-story. But don't feel too sorry for me -- this closet had bay windows, a marble shower and vanity, an antique desk, a handsome masculine armchair, and a flat screen tv! I marvelled at the tidiness. I counted the clothing (44 shirts, 8 suits, 3 pair of jeans, 12 pair of slacks, 22 tshirts). I pondered the livestyle. I soaked it all in.

How do people live so meticulously? I have clothes strewn everywhere. I have laundry coming and going and stalled out. I have "outta here" boxes loitering in my tv room. I have outfit considerations hanging around my bedroom like ghosts. And these people have all their clothes lined up in their closets with space between the hangers and not one single lost or hooky-playing shirt anywhere. Granted, they did probably clean like mad for weeks in preparation for the masses of the home tour trampling through their home. Or not. But, regardless, they both inspired and shamed me into spending the bulk of a perfectly good Saturday evening digging in my closet like a prarie dog adding on a bonus room!

Now my closet is CLEAN! And, oh, the wonder! I am in love. I gravitate to it. I stand in the door and soak it in whenever I pass. I revel in it as I dress. I made everyone in the house come up and admire and repeat scripted lines about the beauty of it. Mark seems to understand too -- yesterday he took me into the closet to show and tell me that he has so much respect for what I have done in there that he didn't dare fall short of maintaining it and that I should notice how there were no clothes overflowing the hamper and even his shoes were all lined up!

The joy my closet now gives me is exponentially greater than the sum of it's parts and completely disproportionate to reality. My world could easily revolve around that small room tucked upstairs where my joy now resides.

Skirts now hang at attention in their own shamelessly segregated section. Dresses are grouped by type with all four black dresses united in their own little cocktail party. Jeans do not carelessly mingle with slacks. The back corner holds a glorious profusion of formals including my green taffeta prom dress and the delicious chocolate brown satin dress that I wore to our wedding rehearsal dinner. In the corner of the top shelf is a stack of my grandmother's hat boxes. In a stack of matching plastic shoe boxes are, among others, the shoes I wore to my sister's wedding and the ones that I wore to my high school graduation. Belts have their own basket. As do scarves, socks, purses, and sweaters. Nine matching canvas bins hold sleepwear, lingerie, leggings, swimsuits, and sweatshirts. Tshirts and tank tops all have their assigned places. Luggage fits neatly on the top shelf. Shoes neatly line the rack on the back of the door.

Oh! And the lighting. I replaced the pathetic single bulb "builder basic" light fixture with what I like to call an "antler" fixture. I has four heads that each spotlight their own assigned section of the closet. The room looks like a high-end clothing store due to this exceptional lighting! This is particularly wonderful after a recent spell of NO lighting in the closet due to a sudden, deadly lightbulb epidemic that swept through in the course of a few days leaving no survivors (replacements, being costly, did not materialize immediately)!

A couple of years ago, my darling Tessa (then about 11) asked one day if she could organize my closet. Of course I said yes! She proceeded to color coortinate all my shirts! I loved it so much I have maintained the system and converted Mark's side of the closet as well. I've come to love knowing just where to focus when I wake up in a pink mood or a green phase!

I now delight in hanging up stray shirts --neatly inserting them into their slot in their color section with an almost-audible, satisfying "CLICK". I diligently move empty hangers to the empty hanger section. I even got rid of a bunch of clothes so everything would fit better. Granted, there are still no spaces between my hangers, but at least all the hangers fit! And all the hangers are white plastic and MATCHING! Because wire hangers and mismatched colors are just too imperfect. You knew that, I'm sure.

And now I wonder: why is it such a big deal to me?

At the moment, I have three jobs. I drive children for three and a half hours a day to school and basketball and home -- more on days with appointments or other events. I put in 16+ hour days most of the time. My husband is away on business 85% of the time lately. I'm afraid of my bank account. My dogs still think my commands are mere suggestions. The cats have their own household government. I feel overwhelmed and helpless and stressed out of my mind and, oh, did I mention OVERWHELMED?

And then there's my closet, my little island of serenity. Proof that I can master SOMETHING. Proof that order and peace DO still exist in the world are ARE potentially attainable.

I can now walk around out in the world with the warm, sustaining knowledge that my closet, a thing of beauty and order and deep, deep meaning, awaits at home ready to reassure me that I am, indeed, a success at SOMETHING!

Christine's House

2010-03-14T14:26:00.003-05:00

Mark and I have a running debate. We often spar over whether or not selling houses is actually selling -- as in requiring sales skills.

Mark is a natural-born salesman. He could sell ice in the Arctic. I, on the other hand, want to go hide in the house at my own garage sales. I could fail miserably at selling ice in the desert. So, if selling houses really IS sales, I am getting into the wrong business!

I say that you can't sell someone a house -- in terms of being the force that convinces the buyer to purchase. A house isn't an impulse buy. A house is our largest material necessity. No one is going to buy a house on impulse like they buy those shoes or those golf clubs that they end up smuggling into some hiding place in the closet.

A person must find THEIR HOME. They must find the place they want to wake up in the morning and go to sleep in at night and be the backdrop for all the scense that go on in the middle. They must find the place that FEELS RIGHT. My job is just to come up with a list of possibilities and open the doors.

Similarly, you can't go out and find a buyer for a house you're trying to sell. You can try to pull as many people as possible into the house to see it and make the house look as optimal as possible (hence my staging business). But, for the most part, you have to wait for the right person to walk into "their" house.

This week I spent several days with my first buyers: an incoming History professor from Virginia, his wife, and one of their three young sons. They had three days to learn Fayetteville, choose their favorite area, and find a house they wanted.

The first day was a whirwind! We looked at 12 or 14 houses in many different parts of town. They honed in on their preferred area and then we tried to find the most optimal house in that region.

I'll never forget the look on Christine's face the first time we left the house they would end up choosing. She looked like she was in love! I never saw that look on her face in any other house. The love affair was clear enough that I even said to her, "It looks like you've found your house!" Her reply was: "Ssssshhhhh!"

Over the next two days, I watched this couple weigh their options, wrangle over their differences, and wrestle with the financial practicalities of it all. I also watched them make the same decision at least four times over. Christine knew her house.

I just openned the door!

Never Mind...

2010-03-03T12:20:00.003-06:00

I was going to write something sparkling and witty and brilliant for the blog this morning -- especially after being rather (ok, VERY) depressing lately with "As She Lay Dying" and all that.

But then I read Heather's blog post for today www.dooce.com and now I'm completely intimidated. She makes it look so easy. Maybe that's why she's #22 on the 2009 list of Best Blogs! That would make sense.

My writing is something I do for myself (I remind that same self). But it would be nice to be semi-decent at it (kinda like semi-sweet chocolate is really, massively spectacular despite the disclaimer-like use of the word "semi", you know?).

Oh well. Yawn...

The Anything and Everything Principle

2010-03-01T11:48:00.002-06:00

File this under "Things I've Learned"!

I have learned that, when I don't know what to do about a problem, the best solution is to do anything and everything I can think of -- simultaneously. This usually combines exercise with vitamins with Googling with seeking wisdom from others with prayer with brainstorming with whatever else I can think of. Basically, it's throwing the whole tool box at the problem!

The really neat thing it that it almost always works! You may never know what exactly it was that worked, but something DOES work! It may be one thing. It may be a combination of things. It may be the whole dynamic or just taking an attitude of action. But something usually works! And I love the comfort of knowing that something WILL work. To go from a place of despair to a place of confidence and hope is a wonderful thing! There's something about pulling yourself out of the mire and crawling up onto a rock like a frog out of a swamp that grows our legs and frees us to jump!

My favorite example of how this method worked for me came in response to a medical diagnosis: hypothyroidism. Me? HYPOthroid? It didn't feel like MY body they were talking about. It just felt WRONG. I had the lab re-run the test. Same result.

The doctor wanted to put me on synthetic thyroid hormones FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! I balked at the very thought.

I begged the doctor for time and took to my computer. In the course of researching the thyroid, I happened onto a little phrase that said that the thyroid gland is a calcium receptor. Hmmm...

When I thought about it, I realize that I was drinking a LOT of calcium fortified orange juice every day and some milk on top of that. I calculated that I was getting 4-5 times the recommended daily allowance of calcuim. What if I'm overloading my thyroid with too much calcium, I wondered. I switched to regular OJ and focused my mind on the number I wanted to see on my next thyroid test.

A month later the test came back at the exact number I had envisioned! Problem solved!

A few years later my thyroid levels were off again. I realized that I was drinking LOTS of milk. I cut back on the milk and my thyroid levels went right back to normal again! Like magic!

If you have used the "anything and everything" method or do so in the future, let me know how it went/goes. I want to hear stories!

Perspective

2010-02-28T20:07:00.004-06:00

(Warning: This post relates heavily to previous posts so, if it makes no sense to you, that's why! Sorry it's not a literary masterpiece but I'm just where I am today!)

Another important lesson I learned from my mother's death is this: if no one is actually, physically, immediately DEAD or DYING, how bad can it really be?

I spent today estranged from the whole fairy dust principle. I cried my way through church and then wrestled all afternoon with hopelessness and some pretty staunch bitterness at God (among others) about circumstances in my present situation.

I finished my open house, went home, and took to my bed. Turns out God had a correspondence course waiting for me on TV. I don't really know how it happened, but I found myself watching a show about two young college women who were involved in an horrific car wreck. One died. The other suffered a brain injury and significant facial swelling. Their identities were switched at the scene of the accident and their families mourned/nursed the wrong person for over a month.

Who can watch such a thing without trying to imagine how all the parties involved might feel and what it would be like to get a second chance like that? In the course of this mental process of empathy, I was walked, step-by-step to the conclusion I've come to before, to the lesson I've learned before but that is easy to forget:

Really now -- no one is dying here!

Next up: the "anything and everything" principle

As She Lay Dying

2010-02-24T18:29:00.014-06:00

The summer I was 23 my mother was busy dying. It's an intricate thing, this prolonged method of dying. The demon in our midst was cancer. Cancer of liver or pancreatic origin. No one ever decided for sure. It didn't matter anyway because it was far-flung and out of control by the time they found it.

To harbor hope or to dissolve into despair? To live or to die? To make a big deal out of every moment or just live in an ordinary day? Those were the existenialities we wrestled with that summer. Every moment, waking or sleeping, was steeped in a surreal kind of terror. We walked a tightrope of agony.

But you soon learn the necessity of just going on with the ordinary. To try to infuse every pregnant moment with importance and meaning is just plain exhausting. Mother wasn't into resolving issues, reconciling relationships, or making moments. She was just trying not to throw up and wishing that something would make the pain subside. It was hell and none of us wanted to live in our hell. We all just wanted to find a way to pass through it.

But we, the onlookers, the family, suffered only emotional agony. Mother's emotional agony was compounded by her impending doom and by the cruelty of her physcial agony.

It had started with digestive problems over the course of a year and a half or so. She knew something was very wrong but could get no diagnosis. Then one day she awoke with a circle of burning skin on the side of her ribcage. It burned like fire, felt like sunburn only worse, she told me. Turns out it was a spot of wayward cancer trying to eat itself out from the inside.

There were other spots too: on her lung, on her liver, in her spine. Silly little "spots". They sound so innoncent. But they aren't. They mean there's very little hope to be had. They mean the cancer has taken over. But you fight it anyway. Even Mother, who always swore (in theory) that she would never do chemotherapy, did chemotherapy.

The first day of chemo felt strangely exciting -- like the first day of kindergarten or something. I guess it allowed us to feel like there was something we could do. We could march into the hospital all smiles and joviality and fight back. It was the most active attack we could launch.

They weighed her (114 that would drop to maybe 80 by the end) and took her blood pressure (having blood pressure meant that some things were still in working order, right?). And then they sat her in a high-backed turquoise vinyl recliner across from a soap opera on tv and started filling out forms.

She had to sign papers to promise not to sue the hospital if they spilled any of the chemotherapy drugs on her skin. They would burn her skin on contact. And they were cheerfully about to pump this poison into my mother's frail body. That's when the bottom fell out for me.

I wanted to run away. I wanted to call in the adults to handle this. Oh wait -- we were the only adults there were. Twenty-three counts as adult. But twenty-three is still WAY to young to have to think about pumping poison in to your beloved mother to try to kill the evil thing inside her that is even stronger than burn-on-contact poison.

She threw up for a week. Sleep. Throw-up. Sleep. Throw-up. The cycle just repeated itself. Day and night. Every day we hoped it would be over. Every day it just continued. I had to shut off the empathy function of my brain. I couldn't bear to think how she must feel.

It was early afternoon on Thursday when I took the grocery list and drove 25 minutes into town to the store. The small-town Oklahoma grocery store was dim and dank. Focusing on the products lined neatly on the shelves was difficult. I had to push aside the shroud of despair that enveloped me and fight back tears at times to concentrate on the task. Peaches. Cottage cheese.Monterrey Jack cheese. Brisket. Most of the food wasn't for mother. It was for the rest of us -- those who had to keep up our strength to take care of her. Those of us who got to be normal but felt crushing guilt for being so. Pudding cups (for mother). Pedialyte (to try to keep her hydrated). Toilet paper. For normality. Even though I couldn't have felt more detached from normality, swirling as I was in a surreal place where life and death clash,while walking among people who were existing in the presence of life, blissfully detached from of death, consumed by their trivial day-to-day concerns.

About halfway though the store I came to the end of an aisle. Parked at the end of the aisle, two women in their late 20's stood talking over their carts.

"MY mother is driving me crazy!" one of them bitched to the other. "She blah blah blah."

"Oh, MINE is worse!" the other countered, "She blah blah blah.

They laughed and shook their heads at the burden of the mothers involved in their lives, healthy enough to be irritating.

I made a wide circle around them, annoyed, gave them an bit of an evil eye, listened to their continued complaining about the women who had give birth to and raised them as I worked my way down the next aisle, forming a speech to them in my head. It began with, "MY mother is at home in bed on chemo" and ended with "You ought to appreciate that your mother is alive!" In between was the crazed rant that kept me from saying anything to them. I didn't want to shame them and I didn't want to unload my heavy baggage on their blessed, ordinary day.

In rhetrospect, I should have said something to them. My words, my situation, the message I had for them was important. I did them a disservice by not delivering the lesson. In the two decades since, I have tried to make up for my omission by telling this story anytime it was applicable. I hope it's proven important to some. It's a lesson you can never truly absorb until you've lived it. But I hope today I can give someone a new appreciation.

My mother died on October 15, 1989. Five months after her diagnosis. Two years after her symptoms began. She was 48 years old.

I still miss my mother desperately. Even the passage of twenty years has not dulled the cruel agony of that time or the depth of the loss. My daughters never got to meet the grandmother who had SO looked forward to having grandchildren, who saved a big basket of building blocks from my childhood for them, who had envisioned summers full of grandkids at her house on the lake. We all lost SO much.

Now, go call your mother if you can! Or make your kids read this!

To see a photo of my mother, Carol Baker Cromwell, scroll down to the end of the previous post "Mortality in a Box"

Footnote: Today, February 25th would have been Mother's 69th birthday. Happy Birthday Mother!

Socks and Dust Bunnies vs. Alpha Cat

2010-02-21T23:55:00.007-06:00

If you read my previous post "Fairy Dust" then you know that snow sprinkled and sparkled onto my car. And that God has given me His divine blessing. Now my socks have confirmed it!

You know all those missing socks that we accuse the poor, innocent dryer of eating? Sure you do! (Especially you, my dear cousin who reads my blog -- you seem particularly obsessed with it!)

I was REALLY starting to wonder if the secret sock society hated me because I have a whole basket full of single socks. A big basket, I might add. Most sane people would have thrown them all out and bought more by now but it was the principle of the thing for me (and perhaps I'm not a sane person anyway!). I knew that all those socks were in this house SOMEWHERE! And I was going to find them (ok, wait for them to turn up eventually -- but it's idealogically the same process)!

TODAY I FOUND THE MISSING SOCKS! TWICE, actually!

I spent most of the day cleaning (read: unearthing) Sara-Grace's room. Under her chair I found a dozen socks! I recognized them as the runaways because I have futilely tried to match up their lonely mates many times and had thus developed an uneasy familiarity with them. I think the missing faction had formed an alliance with the dust bunnies there under the chair and I suspect they were plotting to overthrow the Alpha cat in the house and launch a hostile takeover of the game cabinet -- just for something to do.

And then, as if finding one batch of missing socks weren't joy enough, I came across ANOTHER batch! Twenty or so socks were camped out in the bottom of a basket of laundry that an eight-year-old (who shall remain nameless) had never put away. Why she had my socks in her basket I can't say, but who cares? Now I can wear a DIFFERENT pair of socks EVERY day! Oh JOY!

So, as you can see. Great, miraculous things are beginning to happen to me. I have God and the socks on my side (and maybe the dust bunnies too -- no, I swept them all up. Too bad!)

To find your own missing socks, go to the most cluttered, neglected, procrastinated spot in your house. If you listen carefully, you can probably hear them laughing at you and giggling like a bunch of six-year-olds playing hide-and-seek! Good luck!

And now I must go conquer the world!

Delicacies for Monsters

2010-02-21T09:49:00.013-06:00

This is one of my favorite stories! This is how I traumatize my children!

One night, a year or so ago, Sara-Grace (then 7) appeared, sheepish and wide-eyed at the side of my bed, spooked (probably from watching "A Haunting" on TV with one of her sisters!) and insisting on sleeping with the big people.

Clearly, blessed sleep would be a long way off if I tried to force her to sleep alone in her obviously haunted, possessed, erie, and just plain EVIL bedroom (cute and pink-laden though it was). So, without even openning my eyes, I relented. "Get in", I said, pulling back the covers beside me.

Little heels dug into the wooden floor beside the bed. That wouldn't do. She wanted to sleep BETWEEN us (because grown-ups make very excellent protective barriers, you know).

But Mark is warm and all, well, you-know, Mark-like, so I told her she had to sleep on the outside. At this, her fear-widened little eyes just got wider and her hands clenched tighter around the stuffed dolphin she carried with her for protection.
On one side of the bed was the big scary window and on the other was the big scary door to the bathroom. Her little head ping-ponged back and forth between the greater evils, looking for a lesser one.

"WHY do I have to sleep on the outside?", she queried. This was followed by WAY too many logical reasonings about marital rights, parental omniscience, the duties of children from her over-explaining mother.

Undaunted and un-swayed, Sara-Grace repeated, "WHY do I have to sleep on the outside?"

I was fresh out of logic on the subject at this point but I guess the usually-elusive "funny switch" in my brain was still awakeand tripped, because, already tickled by my comic genius, I blurted out, in a burst of great humor and unconscionable parental insensitivity, "BECAUSE WE WANT THE MONSTER TO EAT YOU FIRST!"

Mark (who had been watching quietly to see if I would protect the sanctity of our marital spoon) and I dissolved into uncontrolable laughter. Sara-Grace, on the other hand, to this day does not think this was the least bit funny (though I suspect that mature perspective and family lore will combine to bring about the use of this line on her own poor, defenseless children someday).

By the way, she settled for sleeping on the window side (because a window offers slightly less accsessiblity to monsters than an easily-openable door, you know).

Sara-Grace's "Scary" Room!

Brown

2010-02-19T18:41:00.019-06:00

I have a curious relationship with the color brown. For years -- ok DECADES -- I HATED it.

To me, brown was the color of dog poop and the naugahyde on a Lazy-Boy and ugly panelling and DIRT. Brown is the color you get when you get carried away and mix too many other, colorful colors together -- the color of the water you rinse your brush in while painting rainbows and butterflies. It is the color of mud. And old stations wagons. We had a brown station wagon when I was a kid. With fake wood panels on the sides. Actually, we had TWO of them!

My aversion to brown was so ingrained that my husband (Matt, the first one) always joked that he was going to buy me a brown dually truck (also something I detest) -- with brown interior, of course.

I'm completely oblivious to when the courtship started. Insidious little gestures in unexpected places, I suppose. I'm not sure what year it was that deep dark brown was voted "the color of the year" but I remember being aghast about it. But then I saw it used, and used well, here and there. In catalogs. In decorating magazines. In retail decor and products.

There's something delicious and alluring about shades called "chocolate" and "expresso" and "sable". Maybe it's all in the presentation. There's a lot of persuasion in nuance and association. If they came up with a name that made the color of dog poop attractive, what might we be won over by next?

Those luxurious shades of brown... they lured me. They charmed and romanced me. Their bold drama. Their sophistication. Their deliciousness.

Maybe I just finally climbed onto the bandwagon. I'm like that. I'm usually the last one to come around to a trend. But come around I did. In a big way. When I finally hoist myself onto the bandwagon, I can suddenly see very plainly that everyone else was right.

If you had told me anytime in the 40 years before 2006 that my wedding colors would be pink and white AND BROWN I would probably have fainted dead away. But, indeed, brown was the dominant color at my 2008 wedding. Pink and white were just the accent colors. And all that brown was GORGEOUS, if I do say so myself! (Pictured are my girls and I getting ready to walk down the aisle.)

And I painted my master bathroom an exquisite shade called "chocolate truffle". And there are photos to prove it! Every time I walk into that bathroom I LOVE it. The sparkle still hasn't worn off. I've had to restrain myself from painting the rest of the walls in the house brown as well. I painted our master sunporch bedroom in our little house in Enid "chocolate truffle" too. One room per house -- that's what I'm allowing myself.

When I think back, I remember that my mother hired a decorator once, long ago, to re-do our dining room and the adjacent tv room. The walls were deep, chocolate brown with white trim and white wainscotting. The furniture and curtains were in shades of creme and tan and the accent fabric was a plaid of black, brown, tan, and creme. It was gorgeous. I was very proud to have it be seen by my friends when I brought them home with me from school. I would have the exact same decor today if given the option -- and that was 1977! What else in 1977, stylewise, would I gladly embrace today? Not much!

Now I have to be very careful not to have the all-brown wardrobe. I could wear brown every day. It's the new neutral. It even matches my hair. And I LOVE it. Recently I bought three new tops at my favorite thrift store (for $3 each, I might add). Two of them were brown. One was a designer that I totally covet -- a long-sleeved, brown velvet, v-neck, button-down shirt by Eileen Fisher. For THREE DOLLARS! It probably would have sold new for about $129.00. The other was also orignally expensive -- Banana Republic. I made myself buy a gorgeous green cableknit cardigan too -- just for a little variety in my closest.

So I'm a complete (yes, COMPLETE!) convert to brown. A traitor to my previous staunch position. What really worries me though, is that, lately, I have REALLY come to hate burgundy. Will burgundy come to be my new favorite? Will it overtake my closet? Will I drive a burgundy car? Or maybe even a burgundy DUALLY TRUCK!

P.S. I just read this to Emily (who, by the way, is wearing a burgundy Hollister t-shirt at this very moment). She says that burgundy -- and another of my least favorite colors, navy blue -- are THE new colors! I should have known. I already drive a navy blue car. I guess I'm on my way! Maybe this time I won't be the last one on the bandwagon!

Fairy Dust

2010-02-18T20:22:00.014-06:00

Launching a career in real estate in the midst of our present economic condition (won't I be glad to retire THAT overused phrase as soon as possible?) may not be the most optimal timing possible. Skip the champagne and the big send-off and just get the ship in the water, captain! Ya know?

A few friends have been more concerned than supportive. One, in particular, basically told me (in so many words) that I'm just plain stupid -- TWICE! I'm pretty sure my dad has decided there's no hope for me and what he sees as my constant stream of "unwise" decisions!

But I've done enough soul searching to know I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Houses are just "my thing"! Besides, it's intriguing, sanctioned, voyeuristic trespassing! Too fun! And it doesn't even clutter up the house like my beloved decorating magazines do!

I've been reading quite a bit lately -- hyping myself up on lots of personal success and real estate strategy books. Trying to keep the right attitude. Trying to do it all "right". Trying to be as successful at real estate as are my idols and mentors who have demonstrated for me that it can be done -- even now, in this recession.

Wrapped in a swarm of enthusiastic thoughts, I drove home from work one day last week, sort of communing with and talking along the way to God (such a tiny word for such a HUGE, awesome, ungraspable concept, isn't it?).

"Ok God, like I really need this to go well. I'm doing everything I can think of to bring about my own success but a little divine guidance or a Godly tip or two would go a long way." That sort of thing. I guess I'm a little confrontational and not too terribly reverent with God. But that's just me. I've concluded that He probably understands that (cuz I am the way he made me, right?).

This long miserable winter has been a very overdone production, in my opinion. Snow that loiters for days on end is a rare occurance around here. But the white(turning to gray and black!) stuff has persistently lingered -- like the smell of ripe sneakers! And then every few days (and sometimes several times a day) the flakes start to swirl down again -- just for extra seasoning I suppose! I've even forgotten what that big fireball in the sky is called. But I do believe that, even as we suffer and shiver, God is up to something, conjuring up blessings for us. "All things work together for good..." and all that variety of unfathomable grace!

On this particular day, that yellow thing up above had made a brief appearance and there was even blue stuff up there with it! As I drove along in the winter-drab landscape, communing with the Higher Power on the subject of real estate success, I flung out to the universe something of a challenge. "Ok... so what's the magic formula that can make this all work?"

The instant the thought germinated in my mind, faster than an answer could have been spoken, a cloud of sparkling, shimmering, "fairy dust" the size of a small swarm of bees flittered down onto my windshield. Woosh! God's glitter! I froze, looked around, and waited hopefully to see if anything else would happen. Nothing did, but the fairy dust had been enough.

I know that a gust of wind came along and blew the snow off a tree branch and it settled down toward my car with sunshine illuminating the sparkle factor, but the timing was too perfect NOT to just KNOW that it was an answer to my thought. I believe that, while capable of dramatic miracles, God tends to work quietly within the systems He created most of the time. Why wouldn't he use snow and wind and sunlight to encourage us?

Simply, subtly, I had been granted the magic I requested -- by God, by the trees, by the snow and the wind and the sunshine. I was shown, in a magical moment words really can't capture, that benevolent cosmic forces want good for me. I was granted confirmation that my "foolish" path is really the RIGHT path. God endorsed me. I know it.

Now, all you naysayers, GET OUT OF MY WAY! YOU JUST WATCH ME!

Formatting

2010-02-17T23:01:00.002-06:00

Just in case you were wondering why I'm REALLY lousy at formatting, I want you to know that Blogger has REALLY weird formatting defaults. I have re-spaced and indented every paragraph in "Making Ends Meat" several times to no avail. Funny, it used to ADD spaces. Now it subtracts them. ARGH!

Making Ends Meat

2010-02-17T12:55:00.015-06:00

I spent much of my childhood with an awareness that there was a dish that I had never tasted. Like paella and ratatouille, my family never made this recipe. But then, there were lots of dishes I'd heard of that we never ate, so this type of dietary omission wasn't unusual.

Now and then and here and there I would hear people say they "couldn't make ends meat". I always wondered exactly what "ends meat" was.

To my best estimation, it sounded like some type of meat loaf to me. Or maybe it had something to do with rump roast (that's just a horrible term, isn't it)? Or was it what one did with the end of the meat, the dregs -- I pictured the last of the ground beef clinging to the sausage grinder.

I wondered what could be in "ends meat" that was so costly or difficult to make that people couldn't make it and why they valued it so much that they pouted and complained, world-weary, at the deprivation.

I remembered a few of my mother's specialty dishes -- cheese gritz souffle, homemade baked macaroni and cheese, and "Thelma's" (we've long since lost track of who Thelma was!) special oatmeal chocolate chip cookies -- that were only made on rare occasions due to labor-intensity.

Then one day (probably well into my 30's!) it dawned on me... "ends MEET"! Oh.

An image of a large, intertwined segment of thick, heavy rope with it's cut ends touching came to mind. I get it!

Aren't "kid-isms" cute (even in one's 30's!)? Around here we still say "girl cheese sandwich" (grilled cheese sandwich) (unless there are boys around!), "robin noodles" (raman noodles), and "strawbabies" (strawberries). We like these so much that we have chosen them over the correct term!

In an effort to save face, I have decided to call my turkey meat loaf recipe "Ends Meat" from now on. Here's the recipe:

Ends Meat

2 lbs. ground turkey (best, for texture purposes, if it comes frozen in a tube rather than fresh in a tray)
1 small zuchini

1-3 carrots
3/4 cup frozen (thawed) spinach (be sure to remove as much liquid as possible before adding)

4-8 mushrooms

1/4-1/2 onion

1/4 cup sour cream

1-2 eggs

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup cheddar cheese

bread crumbs (completely optional)

garlic to taste

salt and pepper to taste

season to taste with oregano, basil, tarragon, or Italian seasoning or a combination (about 1 teaspoon total)

top with:

ketchup

grated cheddar cheese

Grate zuchini, carrots, onion, mushrooms, and cheese. Dump all ingredients into a big bowl and smoosh it up with your hands until mixed. Move to a loaf pan (or two -- usually two). Top with ketchup and cheddar cheese. Bake at 375 for about an hour. Be sure to take it out every 20 minutes or so and pour off the excess liquid (created by the vegetables).

This is a good way to use up random vegetables that are languishing in the veggie drawer. You can alter the quantities and types of the veggies as needed.

I created this recipe to smuggle vegetables into little veggie-haters, so it's a wonderful way to hide veggies so the kids don't know they're eating them (I always explain any perceived spinach as "parsley" or "spices"). No one knows they just ate four vegetables (or five, if onions count as a vegetable)!

Enjoy!

Mortality in a Box

2009-10-26T17:10:00.004-05:00

Yikes! I hadn't realized it's been THREE MONTHS since I last posted! My apologies! I'll spare you the excuses. Suffice it to say: I'm in a good place when I'm writing. And I'm not when I'm not. Bear with me!

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I was not an ordinary kid. I was always a grown-up in a kid's body. Later I got a grown-up body and reduced the dissonance a bit. I have always been very serious. During my early years I worried about things that should be excluded by the stereotypic ideal of a "carefree childhood".

I had that startling moment of realization of my own mortality at the age of ten! This has always seemed cruelly early to me -- especially in light of some people I know who didn't have that dark, existential experience until they were in their 40's!

I remember the day. Double sets of bunk beds in "the bunk room" at our lake house. Barbequed chicken on the patio for dinner. With corn on the cob. And Dr. Pepper in a can. The hum of motorboats in the distance. A happy, light-hearted setting. Yet somehow, around twilight, I wandered into the bunkroom where one thought led to another and then another and another and then my mind conjured up the thought: "SOMEDAY I'M GOING TO DIE!" The entire atmosphere of the earth seemed to reverberate with the shock of this thought. Me. Anne. This body. This mind. This life. Will one day DIE! And be no more. And then what? Darkness? Oblivion? A heaven that I could not imagine? My delicate ego could not grasp the end of ME. A tsunami of panic swept through my body. My vision shut down to a tunnel for a minute. Darkness closed in on me.

Somehow I got ahold of myself and managed to go on with existence among the living. But I think I've wrestled with my fear of mortality ever since in the form of anxiety, depression, spirituality, related studies, and a fascination with the paranormal that, if I had been informed of it as a kid, would have had my youngster self hiding under the bed for the rest of my childhood!

Maybe I needed the early preparation. My mother died when I was 23. She was just 48. Not fair. Cruel. Very, VERY cruel, in fact!

I've buried many, many loved ones since. Sometimes I feel like Matt and I spent most of our 15 years together burying people. My house is full of relics of those I love who have gone on.

Two weeks ago Mark and I buried his father. I actually enjoyed the time I got to hang out with his body at the funeral home. I added roses to the floral sprays and just relished the last of my time with his physical presence. Not scary anymore. But still profoundly confusing.

When I think back on that summer evening at the lake when I was 10 and realized my own mortality, an image comes to mind. On the dresser in that bedroom was a box that was my beloved grandmother's. The size, a circumference adult hands could encircle. Gold laquer. Half base, half lid. Just a trinket from my grandparents exotic travels, I'm sure. A black Scotch tape scar across the top where the lid was taped down as it was transported from one place to another.

I don't know why I remember that it was in that room. I don't know why the box was in the room in the first place or why my grandmother had put it there when there was little else of her personal effects in this house that had been furnished by the previous owners. I don't know why that box has became associated with the realization of mortality for me. I do know one thing though: there's God in it all. Because, inside that gold laquered box, if you lift the lid, is the painted inky blackness of its interior (another symbolic reference to oblivion somehow?) and, painted on the bottom of the box, hidden away, deep in this symbol of mortality, is a BUTTERFLY! Of all things! A butterfly! That glorious creature that transcends lowly life on earth by sinking into the virtual death of cocooned dormancy only to emerge anew, transformed, and with the gift of flight!

I don't know about you, but, for me, that's God telling a terrified little girl that there are glorious wonders beyond this life that we won't know until we open the box or until we emerge from apparent death into the other side! It just took me until I was 35 to realized the message contained in my grandmother's box. The comfort, the promise, had been there all along!

I keep the butterfly box on a shelf in my library. Next to a black and white photo of my mother. Near all my books on sprituality, reincarnation, near-death experiences, ghosts, and various religions. It clearly belongs in the company of these tomes that help me wrestle with my mortality ponderings. Beside a ceramic box shaped like a miniature vintage telephone (for communicating with the beyond, perhaps?). And next to it is an oval box, made of brass. When my birthgrandmother died many years ago, my birthmother chose that box for me from her mother's belongings. She wanted me to have something of Granny's. It is the only thing I have that was hers (I didn't get to know her very well). Inside of it I keep the only gift she ever gave me -- a string of blue and white china beads that she sent me for my college graduation (I was deeply touched by the gift at the time). And on the lid of the box, affixed to yet another shiny, circular, gold-toned box belonging to one of my dear grandmothers, is a silver BUTTERFLY! It seems that God is in cahoots with my grandmothers (and my mother!) to give me comfort and promises of something wonderful beyond!

Peace and blessings to you all!

Feline Hospitiality

2009-07-21T09:39:00.004-05:00

Tessa's cat, Stormy, has an appetite for bugs. He always seems to have in his mouth some buzzing insect that had the poor judgement to happen through our yard. Tessa, ever the diligent kitty-mama, keeps telling him, "Stormy, it's NOT polite to eat your guests!" But he stubbornly maintains his entemological menu. Tessa says this is why he can't have parties!

At right: As I wrote this, Stormy was having a small june bug as a light snack!

Crocheted Toilet Paper Covers

2009-07-21T06:00:00.001-05:00

My ex-husband is getting re-married soon. I'm happy for him. I wish him every happiness. Part of why I divorced him was that I wanted a happiness for him that I couldn't give him. He's a good guy. He deserves happiness. We all do.

My oldest daughter, Emily, who is 15 and all full of vim and vinegar, lives with her father. He's got a longer fuse and a stronger hand with her. That and the fact is that she hates me.

What didn't occur to me when I first heard of Matt's marriage plans was that, when Matt moves in with "Betty", Emily would be moving there too! My child will be living in another woman's house.

And then it started to really freak me out: My baby will be living in a house I can't even picture. I don't know where it is. I couldn't get there in an emergency. I won't know where she sleeps, what her room looks like, what her experience is, what her LIFE is like.

And then the spiral deepened: what if SHE ("Betty") has a crocheted toilet paper cover? Gasp! You know the kind, don't you, a lacy, hand-made-by-an-old-lady, multi-sherbet colored, "hat" for the spare roll of toilet paper, the height of silly and tacky to my mind. This imaginary yarn confection became the metaphor for my fears.

Visions of episodes of the TV show "Roseanne" swam through my head. Upholstered furniture on front porches. Cars parked in the front yard. Car parts strewn around. Ashtrays full of "coffin nails". Bar brawl scars and stories. A pantry full of giant, economy-sized cans of "WhoopAss"!...

Ok, wait a minute!

The crocheted toilet paper cover that I envision when I think of them belonged to Matt's aunt Honey (short for Henrietta, in case you were wondering). I loved Honey. She stood in for her departed sister as my daughters' doting grandmother. When the girls were little and went through that stage where they want to talk on the phone all the time but couldn't really quite talk yet and defiinitely couldn't carry on an interesting conversation, Honey would take their calls (long distance) and listen to them for hours -- always with a smile on her face and a sweet word on her lips, like she was in on the greatest thing ever. And Honey's crocheted toilet paper cover was made by another family member whom I also love. And she made it as an act of love and as a gift for our sweet Honey.

And I loved "Roseanne". That show was all about showing the humanity and the best qualities of the people whose economic challenges put them in the midst of the tackiness the comes of necessity. It was a lesson in not judging a book by its cover and not being a snob. My children could learn some valuable lessons in that house.

At the moment there's an armchair on my front porch. It's not a permanent fixture, mind you -- it's there to protect if from the elements for a few days in transition from one staging project to the next -- but it IS there now. So I guess I qualify.

There's not a car parked in my front yard but there is a car parked in my side yard. My 1989 Honda Prelude with the 4-wheel steering and the sun/moon roof was a 40th birthday present from Matt -- replacing my 1988 Prelude that my mother had bought new and that I drove during my graduate school days when I lived in Laguna Beach, California. It was my favorite car off all time. It was SO much fun to drive (and I spent 3 hours a day commuting back then). And then Matt totalled it (it wasn't his fault). So he surprised me with a new one when I turned 40. And I was able to say "I'm 40 and I have the mid-life-crisis sports car to prove it!"

There are some Prelude rotors and a starter and some something-brackets on the bench under the front arbor over the gate in my white picket fence right now (there's some really warped stereotype and metaphor clashing going on there!). They were on their way from my minivan to the trunk of the Prelude when they got heavy and I was waiting to have Mark help me move them. Ok, so I'm guilty there too.

And "coffin nails"? My mother smoked. And it killed her in an indirect but definitely-related way. I loved her dearly. After 20 years I still miss her desperately. She was trapped in the grips of nicotine addiction. She wasn't strong enough to break out of it.

Don't have any experience with bar brawls or cans of "WhoopAss" but I'm sure if I did I would have some compassionate understanding of a few more things than I do now.

It's easy to judge. It's easy to judge harshly. And it's usually not fair.

"Betty" has been very good to my girls. Emily says she "rocks". Tessa and Sara-Grace like her. She values the good things in Matt. She owns a restaurant and I'm so thrilled for Matt that he's marrying into the restaurant he's always wanted to have. I overheard a voicemail "Betty" left for Emily once -- just checking on her and saying to call if she needed anything. I was touched that she was looking after my child. And if "Betty" is willing to have Emily live in her house and serve in a caregiving way toward her then I owe her a debt of gratitude.

I just hope that she and I can be on good terms with each other. We have my children in common. I wish her happiness. I may give her a crocheted toilet paper cover for Christmas.

The Politics of Teeter Totters

2009-07-20T08:15:00.002-05:00

In a shady corner yard on the unfamiliar side of town sits a relic from the time of my parents' childhoods. A creation styled in such a way that in my own youth I would have easily and unconsciously recognized it as "old": A red metal slide with circular handles jutting skyward at the top. Right out of 1942! Right off the pages of a Dick and Jane primer. An artifact of generations of children.

I remember slides like that (or similar but more "modern" versions) on every playground and every schoolyard of my childhood. Learning the personality of a slide was regular and intrinsic part of being a kid. Was it fast or slow? Was the slope steep or slight? Was there going to be a burn or a wet bottom involved in the process? Was there a mud puddle at the end? Would I bump off the end and find myself sitting embarrassed on the ground after a sudden dropoff? Or would I gracefully dismount and land on my feet at the end? Would I have to gather my courage at the top? Would I be sorry at the bottom? How would it feel on the way down? Would I want to run back around to the ladder and do it all again as soon as possible?

When I had my own kids I learned a new dimension of slides: terror that one of my precious babies would fall off the top and "break their brain", as we say. None of them ever did but I'm convinced that was entirely due to my neurotic vigilence. There was always that brief stage in their development where my toddlers would try to simply hurl themselves into space at the top of the slide without knowing to sit down first and certainly without any instinct to hold on!

I won't even go into the horror of those awful spinning "merry-go-rounds" that are so beloved to my girls in their memories but that are also, blessedly, no longer a reality in their world! I could kiss the park board members who eliminated that little deathtrap from our neighborhood park! One of them is both my friend and my stock broker. I may call him to say thank-you after I post this piece!

But I digress. As usual.

Just beyond the vintage red slide with the circle handles in the aforementioned corner yard, under the fluttering elm leaves, statuesque in the dappled sunlight of a July afternoon, stand not one but TWO teeter totters. When I spotted them earlier today my mind immediately transported me to my grade school playground and to a different age and lifestage. I could see the peeled patches and the chips in the thick forest green enamel paint and the aged, gray-brown, worn-smooth grain of the heavy wood plank in the spots it was worn bare of paint. All the details of teeter totters came cascading back to me. I had completely forgotten about teeter totters! How long has it been since I've seen one? How long has it been since I was ON one? I hadn't even realized that all the teeter totters of the world seem to have disappeared over the last couple of decades. I understand why but... oh the nostalgia!

And I started wondering... have my kids ever even SEEN teeter t0tters? Have they ever been on one? So I just asked them. Both my girls had to clarify, each with a quizical look and an angled arm, that I was talking about "that thing that goes up and down". Tessa (12) remembers playing on one with Emily (15) at Woodward Park in Tulsa, the primary park of my childhood, which we went to a few times on visits to my father's (ah the repetition of the generations!). Sara-Grace (8), our youngest, claims to have never been on one. Noah (9) has. Kota (16), the oldest, has too, he informed me non-chalantly with a distinct "duh!" in his voice. Ok, so maybe I'm not quite so ancient. I guess teeter totter eradication is a child of the most recent decade.

What will happen to a world without teeter totters? There is so much about life that I learned the teeter totter! How will my little one ever learn all those things that were traditionally learned on teeter totters? How will she know all the delicate politics of putting the lighter two of a threesome on one end? Or the compassion and tact involved in trying not to make the overweight kid feel bad about needing several counterparts to achieve balance? Or the pride of being bigger enough than the younger kids that it took multiples to even out the other side? Or the intricacies of just getting on the thing?

What about the betrayal of someone jumping off the lower end to send the elevated end and it's human cargo crashing to the ground? We all knew not to get on with the mean kid or someone who had a grudge against us. We all learned to gauge other kids in terms of the potential risk of the teeter totter!

What about learning the care of making sure nothing important (mostly body parts) are not underneath the contact point? Remember when someone (probably the grown victim of a bad landing!) finally got smart and put old tires underneath?

What about the judgement necessary to figure out when and how far to sit in front of the handle to balance out unequal weights? Or when one might need to employ and extra strong or extra gentle push-off ?

What about the balance acquired by learning to walk from one end to the other or trying to balance the thing horizontally while standing at the middle? I'm sure I built some important muscles and motor skills doing that! And I still believe that some contemplative thought processes can only be accomplished in this stance!

How will my baby learn all the trust issues of teeter totters? The choreography of getting on and the getting off. That moment of realization that your counterbalance is about to let you down -- literally! And there there is the comeraderie of long chats with a whole group of kids (sometimes forgetting to continue the motion) on at the same time.

The teeter totter was the leisurely respite from the motion of the swings, the speed of the slide, the exertion of the monkey bars, the competition of the basketball hoop, the itchy grit of the sand box, the nausea of the merry-go-round! It was an impomptu desk on which to scribble down the answers to that forgotten math assignment, study for a particularly ominous spelling test, or fold a piece of notebook paper into a fortune teller (which one of those boys would it tell me I'd marry?). The tetter totter could even be a descent place for a brief nap if you put your feet on the wrong side of the handle, stretched out on the plank, and could remember not to roll off the side!

All rythym and partnership and dangling feet, the scales of childhood justice somehow hinge on teeter totters! They are somehow representative of the way the world goes around (or up and down) in so many ways! The teeter totter was always the place to identify a bully or establish a bond with a new pal. Somehow an interval on the teeter totter could be the beginning of relationship building. There was always something sort of intimate about getting on a teeter totter with someone. There was a bond and a partnership implied. There was a budding of something on the teeter totter. It was where sleep-overs were planned, playdates devised, and new friendships concocted.

And the cadence of the inevitable teeter totter chant! "TEEE-ter TOT-ter, TEEE-ter, TOT-ter!" Be it verbal or non-verbal, that chant was always present on some level! I'm not sure I ever took a spin on the teeter totter without that chant in my head or on my lips. And when I look at the moving arm of a oil pump going up and down out in a wheat field or a cow pasture somewhere out here in the oil country of western Oklahoma, I can't help but hear the teeter totter chant in my head in relation to their similar motion.

I think all the relationships in our lives could benefit from a spell on a tetter totter! I think I need to put one in my yard as a marital aid -- a demonstration of how, usually, one spouse is over-functioning to some degree while the other is underfunctioning to a complementary degree. And then the proportions change! Maybe I'll send my kids to the teeter totter to work out their differences or to learn that many things in life are on a continuum.

Does anyone know where I can buy some teeter totter hinges? Maybe just a log and plank would suffice for now...

419 S. Taylor

2009-07-19T11:00:00.000-05:00

We spend so much time in Enid and SO much money on hotels that we've been seriously considering buying a house in Enid to use as our own little "guest house". It would be fun to have a little "playhouse" where I could play with renovations and decorating on the inside and Mark could play with the landscaping on the outside.

We've lost the last two houses we wanted. Neither owner would rent to us until we can buy. Both sold to other buyers. I can't even drive past them I'm so disappointed.

In the wake of the second loss a few days ago, I went for a drive around my target neighborhood to try to drain out my sorrows and air myself out. AND I FOUND A HOUSE! A little, teeny, tiny, cute, quaint, bungalow cottage of a house! And that was that.

As of today we have a verbal agreement with the owner to rent it until we can buy. We can move in tomorrow.

Both of the houses we didn't get were much larger. But this tiny thing seems much more manageable and, therefore, even more fun. The bills will be small. The cleaning minimal. Mark's very wise father had said to me a few days before, "All you need is just a little two bedroom house." That didn't sound like fun to me at the time -- and, remember, we have FIVE kids! -- but we're all used to staying in one hotel room together and this house has possibilities for up to FIVE bedrooms if I work it right. So it's just perfect.

The house is about 800 square feet and was built probably somewhere in the teens. It has two bedrooms - three, if you use the back sunporch as a bedroom (which we will!) and four and five if we finish out the partial basement and the detached garage. The back sunporch is lined with solid windows on two walls. I've always wanted a room like this so this one will me mine (and Mark's, of course!). The house has a bath and a half (well, technically, a 3/4 bath and a 1/2 bath). The larger bath is the only thing in the house that has been completely redone. I would have preferred original fixtures but it's probably for the best in terms of resale. There's a partial unfinished basement, a sunny, enclosed front porch, and a darling 8' x 18' one car garage that would make a cute guest house for the guest house! The back yard is just quaint, quaint, quaint - all cool and green and shady and old-fashioned with three tiered levels. There's even a little log playhouse in the backyard that's really old and very authentic. I love all the original features: the woodwork has never been painted over, The windows are original (there's nothing worse than cheap new aluminum windows on a vintage house!), the kitchen is original, the closets (which are only 18" deep!) are lined with wall paper from the 20's to 40's era.

We plan to paint it pink - a nod to John Mellencamp's song "Little Pink Houses". Somehow John Mellencamp has sung the theme songs of our relationship since back when he was known as John Cougar and sang "Jack and Diane" which was all about US! We'll have to send him a picture of our little pink house! Oh, and it needs a white picket fence too! I always have to have a white picket fence! Gotta court the metaphor, you know!

A note about the address (419 S. Taylor): 4 is our lucky number, 19 is Mark's birthdate (November 19), South is warmer than North, and Taylor is Mark's ex-wife's maiden name! Haha! Actually, I thought about naming Emily "Taylor" if she's been a boy so I've always liked it. Maybe Traci (Mark's ex-wife) will feel honored! Oh! And it's just a few blocks from where Traci and Mark's boys live which we're thrilled about! And it's also in the neighborhood my mother grew up in and a couple of blocks from the park as well!

Here are a few photos. They ended up posted in reverse order which is annoying but too time-consuming to change. So I only moved the picture of the front. This will hopefully explain why the order seems so weird! Also, I took the interior shots thru the windows so they're not that great. Now, before you look at the photos, keep in mind that there will be MANY changes to this house. The carpet will be removed to expose the wood floors. The walls will ALL be painted. Things like that!

Kinda side view. Can't you just SEE the picket fence and all the flowers? And I'm hoping to find a way to put a ladder up to that little attic space with the windows up there. I think the kids would love to have that as a little play loft or sleeping loft! Hey! A SIXTH bedroom!

A litttle peek at the tiny kitchen. We have a wonderful vintage green Kelvinator refrigerator that's just been waiting to be the star of and inspiration for this kitchen! We paid $29.74 for it (yes, under $30)!

Side yard. I can't wait until Mark works his magic here! You can't really see it but there's an old iron fence and gate at the front.

Rear view of house with sunporch windows. The little single window goes to the half bath.

The cute little garage. I'd love to put french doors on this side and open it up to the yard. Wouldn't it be the cutest little guest house?

The log cabin playhouse. Very old and authentic!

The back yard. Can you see the fireplace in the center left of the photo?

Front view of the garage and side view of the sunporch. Too quaint!

One side of the enclosed front porch. It's about 8' x 22'. Love the purple carpet! Picture black slate floors here instead!

French doors to the front bedroom off the living room.

View of the living room, then the dining room, then the kitchen, and then on into the sunporch. Dark and drab, I know, but wait for the "after" photos!

NOW, HERE'S THE TWIST: I am planning to fix up and decorate this house for FREE, using only found items, free items, or things bought with money from the sale of free and found items. I have wanted to take on this kind of challenge for years and I can't wait to get started! Don't be scared -- the point isn't just to furnish the house for free. The point is to make it look like it should be IN A MAGAZINE -- for free! Stay tuned for a new, additional blog that will document the process!

Cross Purposes

2009-07-18T09:27:00.011-05:00

This morning I went for a walk and stumbled across a revelation.

I was upset and discouraged and was trying to walk those feelings off -- hoping to find some direction along the way and maybe also running from my problems to some degree. And if all that failed, I could hope that it would at least be good for my heart and my hips!

The street I was on has house numbers painted on the curb in front of each house. It seemed that some industrious minor league entrepreneur had been through the neighborhood at some point, making his ends meet by painting house numbers because, though the colors and numbers were different, the style was the same. Apparently, he also offered to paint the homeowner's choice of insignia as part of the deal because there were OU (University of Oklahoma) houses and OSU (Oklahoma State University) houses and even an upside down Texas longhorn (a symbol from the traditional rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma).

But one house was different. One resident went beyond football fanaticism and rivalry and put their heart on their sleeve -- or, rather, their soul on their curb! One house has crosses next to their house numbers. My foot landed right next to this painted rectangle as I walked by and I walked on with this image of a Roman cross painted in metallic gold with black shadowing on my mind.

Something about that gold outshining the black stayed with me and I began to contemplate. Isn't it interesting that Christianity has taken the cross, an instrument of the brutal murder of Jesus, as it's most holy symbol? Have we FORGOTTEN what that cross was used for? Anyone who watches the History Channel knows full well that crucifixtion is a brutal, horrific way to die. It is murder AND torture. It is NOT pretty.

I really struggle with the whole crucifixtion concept. It just doesn't seems right to my mind that we are all so horribly bad that someone had to DIE for our sins. And that God would sacrifice his only son to a horrible death because we are so awful makes it even more challenging for me to reconcile. This part of Christianity has just never made sense to me and I have really worked at making peace with it but I keep hitting walls.

God has his own little laugh about me, I'm sure. Stuggle as I do with the whole crucifixtion thing, I also have a love for and collection of (you guessed it!) CROSSES! I have groupings of crosses hanging in two different places (one inside, one outside) around my house and a dozen or so pendants. They just fascinate me. It started as a collection of all things that people consider lucky or sacred: a four leaf clover, a rabbit's foot, a rune stone, a Native American medicine bag, a Bhudda figure, a St. Christopher medallion, a rosary, etc. But somehow the collection settled into just crosses. They're everywhere! I find new ones all the time. I guess that's because Christianity is so important to so many people. And this thought is what keeps me coming back to trying to make peace with Christianity in general and the crucifixion in particular. It must be a big deal to the masses because there's really something valid in it.

So as I walked I turned the contradictions of the cross symbol over and over in my head. Crosses were involved in the murder of Jesus. Crosses are a symbol of resurrection. Hmmm... And then something clicked: IT'S ALL ABOUT MAKING SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF SOMETHING BAD! Jesus's death was a horrible, brutal, tragic thing but God used it to show us something wonderful and beautiful: the renewal and transcendance of the Ressurection. Maybe I don't have to go around feeling all insulted that God thinks I'm so bad that only Jesus's death can save my soul. Maybe I can just focus on how God is showing me that there can be great good that comes from great bad. And even the worst bad (at least to me), death, ends up good in the end because we get to be resurrected somehow.

Sometimes, in down moments, I wonder if the point of life is just to see if we can pass the test of getting through all the trials without becoming totally discouraged, hopeless, and cynical. Sometimes bad things happen and I don't know how to make sense of it and I end up all bitter and angry with God. But maybe the answer to all these situations (and I haven't thought of an exception yet!) is that the point is to try to make something good out of something bad!

Let's test this theory for a minute. What's the worst thing that could happen? I could die. And what if I die? Well, that's ok somehow because I believe I'll either go to Heaven, to another incarnation, or into spirit form in the presence of God.

Professor Randy Pausch (author of The Last Lecture) got the death sentence of pancreatic cancer. Instead of plummeting into despair and curling up to die, he spun it to the positive and wrote a best-selling "gift" for his children, inspiring millions.

If you live in this area, you know the name Colleen Nick. A decade ago, her six-year-old daughter, Morgan, was abducted, was never found, and was, presumably, murdered. Colleen Nick rose above the horror and the despair and founded the Morgan Nick Foundation to give support to families with missing children (and she was given a new house by the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for her good work as well).

Once upon a time, Mark found himself in hard times. The only job he could find was as a minimum wage night stocker at Walmart. Finding oneself in this position could spiral even the best of us into hopelessness and depression. Mark walked in the first night with determination and the throught "I'm going to run this place someday!" He worked his way up to Manager in record time and, in the process, found his true passion: retail marketing and merchandising.

Ok, smaller examples now.

One day I was getting out of my car to go into Barnes and Noble where I like to write. As I juggled my purse, books, and computer getting out of the car my pen rolled under the car -- not just a little way under the car but right at the very mid-point of the car from both side to side and front to back. And this was not just any pen: it was the silver monogrammed pen that Mark had given me that I adore. DARN IT!

So I put down my load and crawled under the car to get it. I was frustrated and exasperated and all sprawled under my car retrieving my pen when a thought came to me: this is happening for a reason. Like one of those thoughts where you wonder if the reason you hit every red light was that God was delaying you enough to keep you out of that major accident, I felt strongly that the pen had jumped out of my grip and positioned itself in a challenging spot for a reason.

Now this was exciting! I knew that SOMETHING was about to happen and I had been given the awareness to get to watch it unfold! I recovered my pen, re-gathered my belongings, and headed for the front door of Barnes and Noble in heightened awareness... just in time to run smack dab into my friend David. David had recently, inexplicably, severed out friendship and cut off communication. I desperately needed some resolution and to make some peace with him. There was no other way I would have been able to see him. We talked briefly, cleared up the issue, and went on our way on good terms again. God had given us the gift of "coincidence" and reconcilliation. All because I dropped my pen!

I feel like I've been given a great answer by God: You see, Anne, when things get tough you're just supposed to try to make something bad into something good. It's THAT simple! And that's what you're supposed to do when you don't know what to do or how to handle a difficult situation.

Thank-you God. Now I understand. Now please just help me to remember that in a pinch!

Oh gosh! That last line sounded almost like a prayer! Prayer is another thing I'm struggling with. Maybe God has a two for one special going on today! If so, I hope you get yours too!

And one last thing! That guy who made some money painting house numbers on curbs. I'll bet you that wasn't his dream job. I'll bet that was an endeavor that came out of financial desperation. The lesson is: if you fall on hard times and have to resort to painting numbers on curbs, maybe you'll make the money you need. And maybe you'll give someone walking by a HUGE revelation from God! He will never know how he touched my life today!... Which reminds me of a story I'd like to tell you about a guy who stood on his head in front of a Coke machine outside a grocery store. Tune in for that one soon!

My Hometown Photo Essay

2009-07-05T20:56:00.017-05:00

I talk about Enid, Oklahoma all the time on this blog so I thought I'd give you a little tour of it -- or a stroll down memory lane if you're an Enidite!

The photos got scrambled when I put them onto the blog template and, since it took me forever and many tries to get the pictures loaded, I got tired of fighting them so I just let them find their own order!

Also, my apologies for the formatting lunacies. It's 1 a.m. and I'm going to bed without fixing them because they don't seem to want to be fixed and it could take all night if I tried!

Hope this gives a glimpse of where I run off to and, perhaps, an understanding of why!

My favorite house in my favorite neighborhood in Enid. I would hope that any house I renovated would end up this cute!

The old Enid train station. This building was vacant for as long as I can remember until recently when they found a wonderful use for it: the Farmer's Market. I always wanted to fix up this building -- even in high school!

Enid High School. Class of 1984! We ALL went to Enid High: my parents, Mark's mother, Mark's son, all our siblings. My step-grandfather graduated in the class of 1914 from this very building (built in 1911) which just got air conditioning in the last few years. It was barbaricly hot! But you've got to love a school with vintage features, marble bathrooms, and an observatory on the roof! I wouldn't trade it!

One of the houses we have our eye on. It's abandoned. It's purple. It has amazing woodwork and all those wonderful sunroom windows. We think we could buy it for somewhere in the range of $12,000 - $20,000! It would be a FUN project!

Another of the houses we are interested in renovating. Price tag: $36,000 for 2700 square feet! I LOVE Enid real estate prices!

One of Enid's wheat elevators. When you're in the middle of wheat country you need someplace to put all that wheat!

DeWitt Waller Junior High School. This is where Mark and I met. This is where it all started!

Inside Waller Junior High. Down that hallway is where Mark and I first laid eyes on each other. He remembers it. I don't.

My grandfather's office was in this building for decades. The same little old lady operated the elevator for my entire life! It was always special to get to go to Papa's office!

3101 Whippoorwill Lane. We called this "the house on the hill". This is where I lived from age 12 to age 18. The trees were little then. It was the last house in the neighborhood which kinda made it the last house in town. There was a wheat field and a horse pasture behind it when we lived there (now there are houses which is still weird to me).

Mark's parents' house. Mark cooking hamburgers out front. This is where we hang out when we're in town.

Mark's family has lived here since 1973 when he was 8.

Another of the old Enid train station (Wow! A two-train station town!). Just included it because I think it's fun architecture... and because it says "Enid"!

One of the three tall buildings in Enid's downtown. The second floor ballroom (far left in the photo) is where we had most of our high school dances -- AND our wedding reception!

The Garfield County Courthouse. Our marriage license came from here. Mark says the jail in on the top floor. I'm not sure how he knows that.

Our ugly, dinky library on the main square. Last year the roof caved in. But they fixed it. Darn!

My step-father's store was just across the street.

Dumpster Diving

2009-07-01T21:23:00.008-05:00

I'll admit it. I am not ashamed. I am a Dumpster Diver. A PROUD Dumpster Diver! I adore the treasure hunt of it. I love finding the redeeming qualities in some "whatever" that someone else rejected or gave up on. I can find the good in anything... and anyone. That's who I want to be. I'm proud of that.

Whenever Mark and I are in Enid, Oklahoma, our hometown, on a Sunday we hit the dumpsters behind the thrift stores. Enid has the BEST thrift stores and, therefore, the best dumpsters!

Because it's Sunday, we often end up in the dumpsters in our chruch clothes. Well, actually, Mark usually does most actually spelunking into the dumpsters because a skirt and heels aren't exactly conducive to it. I love a man who will climb into a dumpster in a coat and tie to fish out a treasure for me!

One Sunday we were in the thick of the hunt, Mark standing waist-deep in the dumpster, me directing from beside, when a battered blue 70's farm truck went rumbling by. "Dumpster divers!" a male voice yelled from inside as the truck sped by and disappeared behind the yellow bricks of the building next door. Mark and I didn't even pause in our digging -- just gave each other a mildly confused look. "So?" was all I could think. A minute later Mark said, "Was that supposed to be an insult?... 'cuz I'm kinda proud of it!" ME TOO!

Among our dumpster finds are: two McCoy pottery pieces (a planter valued at $30-$40 and a vase valued at $75-$85), four matching curtain panels (see them in the photos of my master bathroom remodel in an earlier post called "My Happiness"), vintage "milk glass", a globe, cool vintage suitcases, an old GMC pickup tailgate (which is totally great because I've always wanted to use one for a headboard), a pair of new balance tennis shoes is good condition in Mark's size, scissors (who throws away scissors?), a 3 foot tall plastic Frostie the Snowman that lights up, bags of name brand clothes (I sold the best of them to the consignment store and made $60!), a small wicker trunk, and a vintage twin bed with headboard, footboard, and rails (actually, TWICE!).

Things I most hate to find in dumpsters: kitchen scraps and, worse yet, NOTHING!

NOTE have a wonderful photo of Mark sitting next to the dumpster in front of the mini storage on an old bench seat from a 70's pickup. Alas, I have been through thousands of photos in the last 24 hours and cannot locate this particular photo. So, just imagine it in this space and I'll post it if and when I find it! Darn!

Out of the Mouths of Babes: Cursing for Three-Year-Olds

2009-07-01T08:57:00.013-05:00

While scanning the local Salvation Army store yesterday I came across a wonderful, hardback coffee table book on extinct animals full of beautiful botanical-style drawings of obsolete species (for a dollar!). The cover image brought back an old, deep, early memory for me.

When my sister, Katie, and I were very, very small, we would occasionally have some clash that would find one or both of us fuming, red-faced with anger and just plain spitting mad. In our fledgling innocence we would wrack our shiny new brains for the most scathing words we could think of, find almost a pitcher's stance for the presentation of them, and then wind up to deliver our ultimate explitive, the very WORST thing we could think of to call each other: "You, you, you... DODO BIRD!"

Illustration from A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals by Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten

FINALLY!

2009-06-30T18:53:00.009-05:00

Well! THAT was NOT fun!

I cannot even BEGIN to explain all the technology headaches I've been through since I last posted! I will spare you the boring details. Suffice it to say I've spent about TWELVE hours either at the AT&T store or trying to download solutions to both my computer air card and my iPhone.

I don't know what went wrong really. These sorts of things just HAPPEN to me! I have always had a weird effect on computers. Computerized cash registers always crash when I'm trying to checkout. My computers always seem to fry. I killed about SIX of the same model of digital camera. One of them even smoked! It was actually kind of cool. NEVER get sand in your camera!

I am well known to the warranty claims department of AT&T because of all the "mishaps" my cell phones have experienced. To the point that I've exhausted my benefits at times. For a period of time my cell phones had a habit of jumping out of my back pocket and into the toilet. In my own defense that only happened twice... or was it three times? I swam in the lake with my phone tucked where my grandma used to keep her hankie. AND I swam in the ocean - with the phone in the same location. I dropped my phone into a glass of milk -- TWICE. And into a bowl of Fruit Loops. That's Mark's favorite story.

Seth, he sweet young guy who always helps us at the AT&T store is forever endeared to us because he doesn't laugh at me -- much. He's on the Christmas card list and may be coming to Thanksgiving dinner. He's becoming family!

In 2005 I spent a month participating in National Novel Writing Month. This is an annual online event in which amateur writers try to write 50,000 words during the month of November. If you write all the words, you win -- no matter how BAD the story. It's really a cool challenge. 1765 words per day only takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours to write.

So, during the month of November 2005, I would sit at Barnes and Noble during the 2 1/2 hour interval I had between dropping Sara-Grace off at afternoon pre-school and picking her up. I had my favorite table and my familiarity with the employees and the "regulars" and I wrote my little heart out surrounded by all those books that other people had written. Rather than being intimidating, I found this setting rich and inspiring: if THEY could do it (write a book), the SO CAN I! So I did. I wrote 50,000 words by November 29th. I have a certificate to prove it!

And then I LOST THEM -- off TWO computers! And no amount of expert hard drive searching could find them. Fried mother boards and a "dragon virus". I guess I can always say my book was eaten by a dragon. At least that SOUNDS colorful!

In case you were wondering, my book was about my birthmother. I took everything I know about her and used that as a huge diving board of a jumping-off place and tried to write scenes from her life staring with a photo she sent me of herself as a 5-year-old little girl standing thigh-deep in a river up to the end of the month of my birth (age 24 for her). It was great fun and, I'm sure, VASTLY inaccurate. But it was curative for me and my dislike of being left in the dark. My birthmother has never told me who my birthfather is and most likely never will. This burned me up for about a decade and then I came to the realization that my lessons are about the ABSENCE of him, not the presence of him. There is great peace in that for me.

So, my book's gone and I have grieved heavily but I still try to jump on the bandwagon every Nation Novel Writing Month. I "won" twice and fell short once. I'll try again this year again, I'm sure. Maybe I'll get that external hard drive out of it's package and figure out how to use it this time. Or just print it all out at the end of every day. Both good ideas, huh?

And there's one more thing about my technology-zapping tendencies. Mark says I have a "lightning bolt personality". I'm not sure it's my personality that's so shocking. On about four occasions I have physically shocked him. Not a static electricity shock but a shock he likens to touching an electric fence. Most recently, when I shocked him, he jumped horizontally out of bed with absolutely no concern for how he would land on the hard wood floor beside the bed. I, on the other hand, have no awareness of this electricity. He swears I'm a witch.

I've researched this phenomenon and learned that there are other people who kill computers. And there are people who kill watches. And others who kill street lights. Some can cause each successive street light to go out as they pass it driving down the street. I guess maybe this sort of thing explains some cases of spontaneous combustion. I don't plan to try it. I would, however, love to develop my electricity into a healing touch. Wouldn't that be COOL?!

So, now to post this before I kill it somehow! Glad to be back! A million thanks to my beloved Deirdre, my college roommate and the person who talked me DAILY through the first two years of parenting, for posting the "Technical Difficulties" notice. Love you Drey!

Technical Difficulties

2009-06-19T22:08:00.002-05:00

Anne is experiencing some technical difficulties but promises that she has some new posts ready when her laptop becomes operational again. Check back soon. But while you're here - take a look around and make some friendly comments.

Anne's friend Deirdre

Finally! Time to Veg! Ahhhhhhhh!

2009-06-10T21:09:00.001-05:00

My Favorite Line of the Week

2009-06-10T20:33:00.001-05:00

From out of the darkness of the front yard on a recent firefly hunt,
Tessa says to her cat: "Stormy! Don't eat that bug!... EEEEWWWW!"

Gotta love it!

Not the best photos but still a glimpse of Stormy stalking squirrels!

My Beloved Emily

2009-06-05T12:24:00.001-05:00

Today there is a new baby in the Coppock family -- Mark's great niece, Josephine Ruth, born this morning. And I started the day off having coffee with a young mother who's son will be two next week. And all this has put me in touch with thoughts of my firstborn: my beloved Emily.

Emily is 15 now. She lives with her father. Our relationship is VERY troubled and has been for the last three years. She speaks to me almost exclusively in obsenities. I very rarely even get to lay eyes on her. She says she's done with me for good. My heart breaks every single day.

This place I find myself in now is SO far from where we started! Emily was my very planned, very wanted, very doted-on firstborn. She came easily -- we were pregnant on the first try, I had an easy pregnancy and a nice delivery. I had just finished grad school and was starting my parenting with a brand new Master's degree in clinical psychology. I felt I couldn't be more well-prepared. I had all that babysitting and baby brothers and college and grad school and graduate level child development under my belt. I thought I was going to be SUCH a good mom. I wanted every moment of everything to be perfect and wonderful for her. I wanted her to feel only loved and nurtured. I wanted the perfect, charmed, abundant life for her. Mostly, I just wanted her to be happy.

The day she was born was the most glorious of my life (matched only by the births of her sisters later on). I'll never forget that moment in the delivery room when they handed her to me for the first time and my whole world changed in that instant! There is no greater magic!

The first thing I learned about Emily in the first minute after she was born was that she would cry if I didn't hold her tightly. This began a our relationship: a mix of close and far, give and take, good and bad. Just like any relationship, I guess -- only SO much more profound than any I'd ever known before.

Looking back, it seems to me that everything has been a struggle for Emily. Life has not been the easy, happy ride that I had wanted for her.

She had the WORST colic -- for 3-4 hours a day for MONTHS. I walked her for MILES and sang a thousand verses of "My Girl" (now that I think of it, maybe my really BAD singing is responsible for a few things!).

When we brought her out of the hospital the day after she was born to take her home and put her in her car seat for the first time, she cried so violently she turned purple. My first parenting failure: we drove home with her on my lap. How could I let my newborn be deprived of oxygen from crying so hard?

She continued to hate her car seat always. This was particularly difficult since we lived 25 minutes from town! I spent MANY hours on the side of the road trying to get her to sleep and/or into her car seat so we could drive the rest of the way home. She still rebels about wearing a seat belt to this day -- even after being in a pretty bad wreck not too long ago. I pray she wears her seatbelt in my absence and only refuses it in my presence just to stick it to me in one more place that she can.

Emily hated all things baby: car seat, stroller, walker, bottle, pacifier, bib, cradle, crib (except that bouncer!). She even hated clothes! From the time she was physically able to pull off her clothes, at 8 months old, she would. She did her best to be naked until she was 5. For years she would only wear one type of shorts in the summer and one type of pants in the winter and only the most comfortable shirts. She wouldn't wear socks, jeans, underwear, turtlenecks, tights -- anything uncomfortable, anything with tags. Even CLOTHES, that we all wear every day, were hard for her!

Emily was a mama's girl from day one. When she was two weeks old my birthmother came to meet her for a few days. At one point during that visit I asked the new grandmother to hold Emily for 15 minutes while I took a much-needed shower. Emily screamed the entire time. When I came out of the shower and took her back she immediately quieted -- seemingly relieved that her long period of suffering was over.

That was the nature of our relationship for the next 12 years. She was the clingiest child I have ever met. We were completely enmeshed for the first dozen years of her life. She didn't even want to be left with her daddy. I didn't have much opportunity to leave her with anyone even for short periods because of our geographical isolation (we lived in the house my mother had left me on Lake Tenkiller in rural Oklahoma).

Starting preschool was traumatic. Starting Kindergarten was traumatic. She didn't want to be in a different room from me or (God fobid) on a different floor of the house. There was a year I couldn't leave the house without her or she'd plaster herself on the hood of my car. I didn't leave her overnight until she was 10 1/2. Maybe it was pathological, but at least then she LIKED me!

School was always a challenge. Emily didn't do well with groups or schedules which is what school IS. She wasn't a morning person. She didn't want to be away from me. She was so competative that she wouldn't do anything that involved competition because she was afraid she might not win. I sat in the hall outside her classroom for two weeks in first grade. I home schooled her for several years. I sat outside her classroom all day every day for SIX MONTHS in 5th grade because that was the only way I could keep her in school. Some mornings we had to chase her around the neighborhood and drag her kicking and screaming and crying to school. Every day she would just fall apart the minute she walked out of school at the end of the day and then start dreading the next day before we even got to the car to go home.

My poor, poor baby. This was the baby that was supposed to have the charmed life. And everything was so hard for her. I could never seem to make it better for her.

Maybe that's where I made some of my biggest mistakes: I didn't let her skin her knees enough. I think I probably saved her from all the things she was supposed to learn the hard way -- which were the things she probably most needed to learn!

And I yelled at her a lot. Emily says I yelled at her every day of her childhood. I did. But yelling was never my first reaction -- it was what happened on the eighth stab at whatever we were struggling with. Emily was strong-willed. She was stronger than I was. She could out-last me on everything. I finally learned that it was only by about 2 seconds that she could out-last me but she could still out-last me because I didn't have that last 2 seconds worth of strength. So she won a lot of battles that she probably shouldn't have. And I lost my mind WAY too many times in the struggle and the frustration and the panic of it all.

I know the flaws in my parenting. I was too soft-hearted. I should have corrected her on the first whatever-it-was rather than asking nicely and trying to reason with her and then losing my mind the eighth time whatever-it-was happened. I just always thought that we could work out a solution. My mistake was that I expected her to be reasonable. She was just a little person, she had no idea how to just be reasonable.

The best example of this was the day she decided it was funny to run across the street. She was probably 2 or 3. She decided to joyfully run across the street in front of our house just for sheer thrill of it -- or maybe the fun of rebelling against me or watching me turn white as a sheet in terror. Luckily, our street is only lightly travelled so she wasn't in as much danger as she would have been in heavy traffic but STILL! Small children need to learn not to run into the street, right? I told her NO and explained to her why it was massively dangerous to run into the street. She laughted in my face and kept doing it -- laughing all the while as I grew more and more panicked and terrified.

Finally, on the eighth run, I resorted to something I didn't believe in and had been taught against in grad school: spanking. I picked her up out of the street and spanked her. Her immediate reaction was to slap me across the face, saying "DON'T HIT ME!". I burst into tears. I had just taught my child to hit and made her feel abused in the process and she still hadn't learned about the street. That's why spanking isn't good, in my mind. But that wasn't the only time I spanked her -- later desperation led to trying anything I could think of. But I was usually short on ideas.

I think Emily also blames me for the divorce which disrupted her whole world. I don't blame her for being angry. It did rip up her world. And I know she probably thinks I left her dad for Mark. That's NOT what happened. For the record, I hadn't seen Mark in nearly 20 years when I decided to divorce Matt. The divorce was about me and Matt and no one else. And I wish she could know how much the divorce was about me wanting the best for everyone -- especially Matt. I wanted happiness for him and I knew that I couldn't give him the happiness I thought he deserved. SO much soul-searching went into that decision. I'm still sure that, in the grand scheme of things, I did the right thing. I only hope someday she can understand.

I love Emily more that words can say. She is an AMAZING person. She is a wonderful, creative soul with great passion for animals and great talent in art. She has a wisdom about her that that speaks of an old soul. Not too long ago she completely blossomed from a beautiful chubby kid who hated herself into a gorgeous young woman whom I hope can see, appreciate, and enjoy all the incredible things about herself. She has those wonderful exotic eyes, that beautiful cinnamon-vanilla skin, Mark says she has my arms, I see my legs and hips on her. She is wonderfully loving but firm with children (probably a lot more like what I should have been with her than I was). She has the most incredible sense of humor. She can be the best big sister when she wants to be. She lovingly looks after her dad. She's real, accepting, supportive, and good to her friends. She's incredibly, incredibly strong and very brave. She's so many things that I am SO, SO proud of. And, despite all the school-related challenges her soul has been through, today she goes to school, wearing JEANS even!, and she makes terrific grades and her teachers think she's wonderful and wish they had a whole classroom full of Emilys! And I breathe a huge sigh of relief that things are finally starting to be easier for her.

When she was little I lived every moment in awareness of her. I breathed every breath with her. I empathized every emotion with her. Now I miss her so very extremely desperately.

I LOVE just to get to LOOK at her which is rare because she will not permit photos to be taken of her, I've had to hide all of the old photos of her off of the premesis because she'll take or destroy them (she doesn't like the way she used to look), and I don't get to see her often because of the way she feels about me right now.

It's become my realization that she's better off without me right now because I bring up her demons. She won't take my calls. She blocks my texts. She won't read the letters I've given her. I would love to call her daily or sent her a text or a note every day but I suspect she would just yell at me. To "respect" her wishes and just leave her alone feels like I'm ignoring and abandoning her. I feel like I've lost a child. And I grieve her every day.

I pray she outgrows all this. If she never does, at least I know she's alive and healthy and walks the earth. And I hope she knows (as I've told her more than once) that I'm here with open arms any time she's ready to start working on making all this better.

My secret wish is that it will all be better in time for me to be there to send her off to the prom. That's reasonable, isn't it? And, when she's 22 and realizes that I'm maybe not so bad after all and that maybe I was right about a few things, I don't have the heart to want her to regret everything she's put me through or all the hurt she's given me. I just want my baby back. I just want to have her in my life -- happy and healthy and MINE!

Grand Central Station

2009-06-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

The air conditioner in the upstairs of my house has been broken for the last two years. It wasn't as bad as it sounds during the heat of the summers because I could coax a little bit of cooling out of it at night if I turned it off during the day. And the ceiling fan helped. But this year it's been totally out which has given me tremendous appreciation for what our pre-A/C ancestors went through. The repairman came today and gave us a temporary fix that should hold until the permanent fix can be ordered and installed (at horrifying expense if I may lament!). Yipee!

The one nice thing about a broken air conditioner is sleeping with the windows open. When the A/C works there's always some reason not to: bugs or allergies or security or Ninja Turtles or SOMETHING! But when the A/C is out, no one argues. So we've had the windows open. And the animals LOVE it!

For the record, we have 3 dogs and 6 cats and 2 ferrets and that's the lowest animal count we've had in YEARS! At one point (just for a week or so), we had 7 dogs, 13 cats, and who knows what else! All this is the result of a pathological interaction between Emily's love of animals and my soft heart. This means I'm a cool mom, right? Not everyone would agree with that but that's the theory I'm going with! Anyway, we've worked it down to almost manageable so no one has to feel obligated to have me committed or anything!

Torpedo is our "mama dog". She's beagle and Jack Russell terrier and is named for her rocket, whirling dervish, TORPEDO-like maneuvers when excited or escaping capture. She moves so fast she's just a blur and jumps for joy three plus feet in the air like she's on springs! Torpee looks after all the other animals like a mama and has appointed herself Director of Human Interface. This means she communicates with us on behalf of the other animals. If Maggie and Lily (the other dogs) need to go out (or come in), Torpedo tells us. Often Maggie and Lily have no idea that they need to go out and Torpedo has decided this all on her own. Or maybe she just kicks them out when they get on her nerves! You'd have to ask HER! She also supervises the ferrets when they're out of their cage and tattles on the other animals if they're someplace they're not supposed to be. This fascinates me.

Torpedo takes security VERY seriously. If anyone sets foot on our property she goes off like an alarm system. She also thinks the street in front of our house is ours as well so we hear about it if anyone walks by. If they have a dog with them she practically loses her mind! This morning the UPS truck drove by the house at full speed. It never even slowed down. Torpedo went nuts. I don't worry about security much around here!

Torpedo loves it when the bedroom window is open. She can sit on "her" bed and monitor the yard and the street from a great second-storey vantage point. And, if the window is open wide enough, she can let herself out onto the roof of the front porch and bark at people from outside without being able to actually accost them. AND she's smart enough not to jump off (or FALL off like others of our dogs have done who shall remain nameless to protect their dignity!). So, the A/C challenges have worked well for Torpee!

Torpedo standing guard on the roof.

Last night I was laying half asleep in the middle of the night and one of the cats went wooshing through the window at full speed without even slowing down. I'm not sure what the impetus for this hasty exit was but it struck me funny enough at the moment that it inspired me to write this whole piece! Too bad I can't seem to capture the humor of it adequately at the moment!

Tessa's pride and joy is her rascal teenage boy cat Stormy. Stormy puts the windows to his own uses whether they are open or not. Tessa tells me that Stormy meows at her window around 2 a.m. every night and makes her let him in. Sometimes the window is open but the blinds are down in front of it. And these aren't mini-blinds -- they're the plantation shade of window blinds with 2 inch slats that the girls often need adult help to raise. Stormy just sticks his head through between the slats and looks at you expectantly. Sometimes he manages to get his whole body through this space as well! Stormy cracks me up!

Wishbone (Wishy) and Stormy at the window.

Last night a dragonfly few in the bedroom window. It was the biggest dragonfly I have ever seen -- probably some extinct prehistoric African variety! I kid you not, it was five inches long! Torpedo immediately went after it and the top of Mark's night stand was quickly cleared of coin bowl and cell phone in the process. The chase was on! Sara-Grace and I finally caught it in the lemonade pitcher after much running and jumping and climbing on furniture and a fair amount of laughing and girlish squealing in what turned out to be a fun mother-daughter adventure!

The dragonfly. See? It really IS huge!

I can tell you, after all the open-window adventures, that I really wouldn't be surprised if an elephant came through the window in the middle of the night! I may sleep better tonight with the A/C on and the windows closed, but I'm sure I'll be missing out on some adventure!

The Ice Cream Truck

2009-05-31T18:57:00.000-05:00

I live a block from the park. From the first warm day to the last warm day every year the ice cream truck trolls the park for children. I can hear the repetitive music from the ice cream truck from my house -- from the front porch, from the back yard, from inside if the windows are open.

The tune gets stuck in my head. And the words get stuck in my head: "With their hands in their pockets and their pockets in their pants, all the little fishies do the hoochie koochie dance..." Ad infinitum! ALL summer! EVERY year!

If I were the ice cream truck driver, I'd be SLITTING MY WRISTS about now! And it's only MAY!

You'd think they could have Tuesday music. And Wednesday music. And maybe some Rolling Stones or something!

Can you mail-order a bazooka?

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Heretic's Lament -- The Fall

2009-05-31T16:10:00.000-05:00

Get comfortable -- this is going to be a long one!

Today, something really clicked for me. And one of those Biblical stumbling blocks that has tripped me up always rolled away.

You never know where you're going to find yourself! I thought I was just reading up on Robb's blog yesterday (that's Robb Ryerse, Vintage Fellowship "director and narrational leader", http://www.thegrenzian.blogspot.com/). On the topic of "edgy" sermons there was a bit of a discussion of the line "Sometimes you have to lower the bar so someone can accept the invitation to a higher bar." One person said they didn't like this line. I DID like it and commented, "Life is messy. Lessons are messy. Higher things come out of it." Somehow this came to be the theme of my weekend!

Sometimes, the only way life makes sense to me to view every challenge as a lesson. When things get really bad, I can be angry or resentful or distraught or depressed or a host of other pathetic human emotions which probably do no good. Or I can ask, "Ok God, what am I supposed to learn?" There is incredible peace in viewing hardships as lessons rather than just random cruelty. So I really meant the "life is messy" statement. And sometimes I really cling to that concept because it all just gets so complicated and frustrating and seemingly-hopeless sometimes. And gosh, if we're not here to learn something then why ARE we here?

I see life as the lab portion of the class my soul is taking. I must say here that I avoided all classes in college that involved lab time because who has time for all that hands-on learning anyway when you should just be able to read the textbook (Robb -- there's something cosmically significant about your day job being in the textbook business!). But life is not college. Life is a lab. I wholeheartedly believe the new-age concept that we are "spirits having a human experience" rather than just humans having a spiritual experience.

Of course, the most colossal example of the spiritual having a human experience is Jesus. Now that I have worked myself past seeing him as a mortal prophet, I CAN conceive of Jesus as God incarnate coming down to earth in human form to walk the full-on human experience just like he expects us to do. I can finally see Jesus as God coming down here to get his hands dirty, diving into the thick of the complicated, exhausting, challenging, fatal, MESSY experience of being human. All the biblical foot-washing imagery makes sense to me from this perspective: if you walk through the dusty, dirty roads of life, you're gonna get dirty. (I'll save the concept of cleansing for later!)

And speaking of dirt: seeds never cease to fascinate me. You take a tiny little thing that can look like nothing and throw it in the dirt and it somehow knows what to do and becomes a plant! And it doesn't even have a brain. Or lessons. Or a textbook! So, to me, God has got to be in each and every seed. Somehow. Otherwise, how could seeds contain life and know what to do and complete mind-boggling tasks like it's something that just happens a jillion times every day?

So life's messy and dirty. And seeds have to get thrown on the ground and mixed up with the dirt in order to grow thereby rising above the dirt. And I, as a human, do exactly the same thing with both literal and metaphorical dirt. I get thrown down. I get all dirty. I get mixed in with the mess of it all. And because of this "misfortune", hopefully I grow. I may not like the dirt but it makes me grow. And ultimately, I somehow come to rise above, to something higher. That makes all the hard times make sense.

One of the songs at church this morning was "I'm Wholly Yours" by the Dave Crowder Band. Of course, it's infinitely better to listen to the real song and I hope you will (even if you're familiar with it) but here are the lyrics for the sake of the coming discussion. Meet me down below for the relevance of this.

I am full of earth

You are heaven's worth

I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity

You are everything that is bright and clean

The antonym of me

You are divinity

But a certain sign of grace is this

From the broken earth flowers come up

Pushing through the dirt

You are holy, holy, holy

All heaven cries "Holy, holy God"

You are holy, holy, holy

I want to be holy like You are

You are everything that is bright and clean

And You're covering me with Your majesty

And the truest sign of grace was this

From wounded hands redemption fell down

Liberating man

But the harder I try the more clearly can I feel

The depth of our fall and the weight of it all

And so this might could be the most impossible thing

Your grandness in me making me clean

Glory, hallelujah

Glory, glory, hallelujah

So here I am, all of me

Finally everything

Wholly, wholly, wholly

I am wholly, wholly

I am wholly, wholly, wholly

Yours

I am full of earth and dirt and You

I LOVE the visual message of this song. I wonder how many people have only heard it and not gotten the "sight gag" of the spelling: "You are holy... I am wholly (yours)". And, of course, all the wonderful dirt references!

By the time this song came on this morning, I had gotten past my previously-referenced tears because of the music and because I actually SAW the moment that the music got to Mark and melted away the issue of the morning. So I was freed up to be open to the moment. About that time one line reached out and grabbed me:

The harder I try the more clearly I can feel

The depth of our fall and the weight of it all

And something clicked!

I struggle with the whole concept of "the fall" of man. It just has never made sense to me. Eve got all blamed for everything. Adam didn't. Why was God so picky about his fruit trees. And what's this about talking snakes? And why was God so mean? And wasn't it all a set-up? And I have an issue with rules anyway. And who thought this story explained ANYTHING? I've been stuck on this one for forty-three years!

Then it hit me, from out of the place of struggle and exhaustion that I had just been in, how very far below perfect we are as humans -- and "the weight of it all". And that we aren't SUPPOSED to be perfect because we aren't God. Because we're here to learn and what can you learn if you stay all clean on the sidelines or in heaven or in spirit form and don't get your hands dirty?

So "the fall" to me isn't falling out of favor with God so much as "falling" from perfect spirit form down into the laboratory of earthly life so I can get my hands into the soil and learn something. One of my favorite garden quotes (from a plaque in my step-grandmother's garden) is "We come from the Earth. We return to the Earth. And, in between, we garden." This gets into other issues but I love the hands-in-the-soil sentiment of it.

I'm not sure where the Garden of Eden is exactly. The History Channel says they've located it in the Middle East. But it sure makes sense to me that the Garden of Eden is someplace closer to heaven than the Earth is and that we "fell" out of it into this human experience so that we can really wrestle with the issues both large and small.

The tree of "the knowledge of good and evil" never made sense to me. Why would it be called that? What did good and evil and knowledge have to do with it? Why didn't they just call it an apple or an quince or whatever if the point was just that Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat from it just because God said so? Was there really something chemical or magical about this particular fruit? Or was it just an arbitrary rule? Or was it a dare. Or, like I said before, was it a set-up because God knew that Adam and Eve were human and would act in all their human-ness and that one darn tree was just too much temptation to resist. To me, we're not bad, we're just human. Replace the word "sin" with the word "human-ness" or "human failings" or whatever form of the concept fits the sentence and it all goes down a whole lot easier for me. More on this later!

Adam and Eve already had knowledge of good. They knew God, personally!, and God is ALL goodness. Ever noticed that the word "God" is one letter off of the word "good". Simple semantics (not that there's anything simple about the WORD "semantics" -- it took me most of college to get what that word meant!). In order to have knowledge of more than just goodness, to have knowledge of bad, of evil, Adam and Eve were going to have to rock their world a bit. I think the "and evil" part of "knowledge of good and evil" is why we're here. To have knowledge of evil man must gnash around in the dirt. You can sit on your cloud with your harp and your wings and have knowledge of good. But to have knowledge of good AND evil, one must have the human experience of wrestling with BOTH, down here, in the dirt, in the laboratory, where life's MESSY!

So, Adam and Eve, and I, must learn about good and evil through the daily hands-on contrasting struggle with both. I have to really FEEL the mud between my fingers to understand how good it really feels to have clean hands, experience, some good lessons, and a sense of accomplishment. Because, if my hands are always clean, I haven't experienced anything and there are no flowers or vegetables or fruits in my garden and I just don't really understand or appreciate the priviledge of having gotten to learn the lesson.

I think some mud pies sound good about now! Followed by a nice manicure!

The Heretic's Lament -- Today

2009-05-31T15:05:00.000-05:00

Leave it to church on Sunday to stir up stuff to write about! It always does! Here goes my long-contemplated, leap of faith, headlong dive into discussing religion! Buckle your seatbelt!

Geez! This morning was hard!

Mark and I have struggled so hard to find common ground between our very different religious perspectives. He is a very traditional Christian with considerable Baptist exposure. I am a pretty way-out, liberal, new-age, universalist with a great fondness for reincarnation theory. We have searched high and low for a church that can work for both of us. NOT an easy task!

This morning Mark was struggling with feeling like I'm dragging him to MY church. And I was thinking, "Hey! Wait a minute! I thought we had agreed that we were both comfortable here?" And then he wasn't going and I think the only reason he went was because I was very pathetically sobbing.

So we went. And I don't believe that prayer does much good because I'm pretty sure God already knows what he's doing but I prayed that whatever happened at church would be what Mark needed. And, of course, it was.

But that's his story. Which I won't go into because it's HIS story. But I do think I'll tell you MY story. Because today a lot of things clicked for me.

So church starts off with 5 or 6 Christian contemporary songs. I have had a closet Christian contemporary side since my best friend Michelle sang a duet of "Friends" at the junior high talent show and then introduced me to Amy Grant and I was so proud of myself that I knew all the words to "El Shaddai" in Hebrew (isn't it?). Something about this music always finds me where I am. Today the music started. And then the tears started. "Tears of truth" I call them. Have you ever noticed that when something's really true the tears come with it? Mark and I always say "it must be true if the tears come when you try to say it." This morning my tears were of grief and exhaustion and fear that maybe we hadn't found the right church after all. And that we might have to start looking again. And that I might have to leave another church.

A couple of years ago I got involved with the Unitarian Universalist congregation. It was a wonderful community of very genuine, caring, sensitive people -- lots of lesbians and older university professors and people with social conscioussness. I found a great sense of community in that little congregation where about 65 people showed up weekly. I joined the writing group and made the food for the after-service social hour once and went to other activities on other days of the week and really got involved. Things I'd never done at a church before.

It was a good place for me at the time. And that was a good time for me even though I was wrestling with big challenges. I was going thru my divorce, transforming my life, doing lots of soul-searching and writing and really finding myself. For the first time I had a personal relationship with the ministers, an older, married couple from back East who came to the ministry late in life. My favorite moment come when I walked into church one Sunday morning and Rev. Dave said to me, "We missed you last week!". I hadn't even remembered that I hadn't been there the previous week -- but HE did. And that felt REALLY good!

But the UU didn't work for Mark (and I give him great credit for trying) and I realized there was not enough God for me there. There was more of a social and environmental consciousness than God there. I found I felt uncomfortable saying the word "God" there because no one else really did. And the ministers seemed to believe more in God as the connections between people than in God as an external force. That's nice, but I needed more God.

So we searched around for a while and tried several different churches -- all of which had pros and cons (but doesn't everything?) and agreed on Vintage Fellowship and I'm just really starting to get to know people and to feel at home there. And I really like the minister. And his wife. And the authenticity they practice. And the transparency with which they live their passion. And I don't want to start over.

But God has his compassionate ways and before the music was over Mark had made his peace with his issues. And maybe we're learning something together. Perhaps today the lesson is that there is no perfect church for both of us but that any church is hopefully going to push us to learn and grow. And if that means tossing us into our issues sometimes, bring it on!

I realize I haven't really gotten into all the things that "clicked' for me today that I mentioned earlier. I'm going to post this portion now for the sake of some attempt at brevity. Stay tuned for "The Fall" which I will probably post later today. If I write a million words on Sunday does that mean you'll forgive me for slacking a few other days of the week?

Yikes!

2009-05-31T15:01:00.000-05:00

I think about this blog so much that I believe I post things more often than I do! My goal is to post something daily. So how did it get to be Sunday and I haven't written since Wednesday! Oh, yeah, that whole staging project I took on! Gotta earn a living and exercise my others passions too! Hang on a minute and I'll write up with something! Church on Sunday always brings out the ponderer and writer in me!

Garage Sale Finds

2009-05-27T21:18:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday Mark and I, with Starbuck's coffee and the newspaper classified section in hand, spent a glorious summer morning tromping to garage sales in Enid.

Before long we found ourselves on a street that Marks knew well. When he was a kid, it was empty land near his house. The kids in the neighborhood called it "the woods" because of the trees that followed a small creekbed (in the Oklahoma prairie, a few trees constitute a forest in the eyes of native children!). Mark was able to tell the homeowner that her house stood right in the middle of the old poison ivy patch! The lady was quite pleased to know that her property was much improved from it's previous, itchy state. Mark was kind of glad to walk away NOT itching!

Next was a sale with lots of old farm equipment. As I perused a table of items, I picked up a long contraption primitively made of old wood and tin and asked Mark, is this a seed planter? Before Mark could answer, a gravelly voice beside me said, "It's a corn planter."

"I thought you might know" I said, when I looked up to see an old farmer in overalls and a plaid shirt beside me. He took the implement from me and, with weathered hands and a stooped back, demonstrated for me with practiced movements the way the corn planter worked. "You seem to know a lot about that," I said. "I SURE DO! I've planted a lot of corn with one of these!" he replied, still demonstrating, clearing reminiscing on his long-ago childhood. He seemed quite annoyed that the metal seed canister on the side of the corn planter was missing it's lid. I left him to wander on among the other items for sale.

We bought an old bottle for Mark's collection and a burlap feedbag, just because, and, as we drove away, I saw in the rearview, a pair of old blue overalls, make their way across the street, in something between a lope and a hobble, to an old truck. In his hands, a couple of old horse bridles... and a corn planter. I was glad to see him take him memories home. I wonder if he'll plant some corn!

Later, while scanning the goods at another sale, I gray-haired woman in jeans and a chambray shirt over a white t-shirt stopped me and asked if I thought this shirt and that vest went together. I told her the horizontal lines in one and the vertical images in the other clashed a bit to my eye. Clearly more interested in talking than in whether the outfit really matched or not, she went on to tell me that her children were all grown, that her oldest son died of colon cancer, that she's 73, weights 114, and wears a size 5 shoe, that she "practically" raised a grandson, and a number of other details about her life. She was cute and spritely, clearly lonely, and maybe a half a sandwich short of a picnic, but she was sweet and generously shared herself and her story with me. Later on in the day, at another location, I saw her again. Again, she stopped me to ask for assistance (what time did the Salvation Army store close?), but I don't think she remembered me. Now I wish I'd asked her name. She will remain anonymous to me. But I'll remember her. Even if she doesn't remember me.

You never know what treasures you'll find at a garage sale!

Sometimes it's more the stories than the "stuff"!

My Zicam Endorsement

2009-05-27T10:03:00.001-05:00

Well, it turns out that my sore throat wasn't from the paint fumes -- or wasn't JUST the paint fumes -- because it didn't go away overnight. And yesterday I felt just plain crappy. Today I feel 90% better and we're on our way to Springfield, Missouri to pick up a motorhome.

The catalyst to my semi-miraculous recovery is Zicam. I could be the Zicam poster child or not-a-celebrity endorser or, better yet, PAID endorser!

Zicam is an over-the-counter cold remedy that you can get in about 12 different forms at Walmart or wherever. Personally, I prefer the orange or cherry tablets that you dissolve in your mouth (and then don't drink anything for half an hour) every three hours until your symptoms are gone (it usually only takes 3 or 4 or 5 to whip it). They're basically zinc lozenges and they REALLY WORK!

Here's my testimonial about how I discovered Zicam:

I was in Enid, laying around watching TV in the hotel room, feeling worse and worse by the minute. I was supposed to have driven home that day but I felt too bad to drive. All day long my throat had been getting more and more sore until I had the most vicious sore throat I could ever remember having. This was NOT going to be good!

A commercial for Zicam came on TV. I basically ignored it. I never use cold medicine. Then the commerical came on again. I ignored it again. Soon the commerical came on a third time and I muttered to God or the ceiling or whoever "Ok! I hear you!" because how else would the same commercial come on three times in two hours unless God is in charge of media scheduling! I got up and went to Walmart and bought some Zicam. I took one immediately and another three hours later before falling asleep for the night.

By morning I was 90% recovered! Miraculous! Since then, whenever I've felt cold or flu symptoms coming on and caught them early with the Zicam I've been able to kick it in 24-48 hours (usually more like 12 hours!). I've never gotten anything full-blown since!

I hand out Zicam on street corners! Well, almost. I seriously DO hand it out. Twice I've given a few to my friends who work at the Salvation Army Thrift Store (it shouldn't surprise you that I'm friends with the employees at the thrift stores!). I forced some on Mark's parents. I carry extra in my purse. It is a wonder drug (ok, wonder remedy)! Everyone I've given it to has become a believer too! I always feel a little silly pushing it on someone (because I wouldn't listen if someone pushed it on me!) but I'm so convinced of the benefit that it's worth feeling silly to be able to offer some poor suffering soul a cure!

So, there's my commercial!

Do you think I could get Zicam to advertize on my blog and pay me for it?

Chicken!

2009-05-26T00:22:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long silence. I have thought about it all week but I have just plain chickened out on writing the religion series -- for now. I just don't have the energy to re-invent this wheel at the moment. I'm sure the day will come as issues of spirituality are one of the main things I ponder and write about and one of the motivations for this blog. But, apparently, this is not the week for it.

I HAVE concluded one thing: I WILL write it all out eventually for no other reason than this: There is so much about religion that can be rigid and judgemental and negative. "My God" (just me and God and what I have learned and what we have worked out between us) is bigger, less petty, and far more positive than alot of other takes on God that are out there. If I get hit by a bus, I want my daughters to be able to read about my view of God so that maybe they can get a glimpse of the WONDER and GLORY and JOY that ARE God, as I see it.

I am particularly not in the mood to wax poetic on God at the moment (no offense to God) after the evening of butting heads over religion that Mark and I have had tonight.

We've known from the beginning that his very traditional Christian beliefs and my way-out, new age, metaphysical, nebulous, in-the-statosphere beliefs were in sharp contrast to each other. We have worked for a couple of years to find a church that would work for BOTH of us (http://www.vintagefellowship.org/ if you're interested). Mark has heard many warnings and admonishions about being "un-equally yoked" (if find that insulting -- my flavor of different is not interior!). Even the minister who married us sternly warned him that such a pairing could spell trouble. Ok, so he was right but I also firmly believe that our religious differences are part of our task and journey together. I believe that we have much to learn together and from each other. I looked forward to decades of deep conversation about spiritual matters. And I still do.

But sometimes all the doubters have their day to be right. Today was one of those days.

I believe that evolution is a wonderous example of how God works within his own systems and attends to the tiniest details personally over the mind-boggling time span of billions of years. I married an creationist. To me, the Bible is frustrating and foreign and just doesn't speak to me. I was an English major. I like to analize literature. I see the Bible as metaphroical and allegorical and poetic (not to mention obscure and imprecise). I recently learned that there is a word for the way I approach the Bible : deconstructionism! I am a deconstructionist. I want to know what each original word was when it was written in the original Hebrew or Aramaic or whatever. I want to know the social, political, and cultural nuances of a word. I want to know exacrly what was lost or modified in transition between languages and versions. Whew! Mark is a Biblical literalist. I believe we're here to learn and that God understands that we are merely human (he made us that way, you know!) and that, when I die, I'll go "the Light" and God will say, "Welcome! What did you learn?". Mark believes I'm going to hell. I hate Christmas. Mark lives for Christmas. And on and on and on.

Tonight the debate was evolution vs. creation, the Council(s) of Nicea, and the issue of alcohol as it relates to church leaders. I'm worn out and, other than my little deconstructionist tirade above, I have no energy left for this volatile topic. Catch me on a stronger day! I'm sure it will come!

Or perhaps I'm just tired! Friday, after many days of cleaning (which for me often means redecorating and rearranging and re-inventing the wheel -- again!), I had my new friend and favorite inspiration, Vanessa, and her daughter, Charleigh, over for lunch. Tessa and Sara-Grace were wonderfully helpful with the preparations and the five of us had a lovely lunch in the dining room featuring all my favorite luncheon dishes: cucumber sandwiches (PB&J for the little ones), fruit salad, carrot and ginger soup, and scones with lime icing. This is how I want my life to be ALL the time!

Immediately after our guests left, Mark and I left for Enid. We had the nicest weekend! We did all the usual thrift shopping (Enid has the BEST thrift stores!), went to a bunch of garage sales, did some dumpster diving, ate at all our favorite places, and worked in his parents' yard (which involved roses and petunias!).

I also had the huge treat of getting to redo the extra bedroom which involved 6 hours, much vacuuming, unearthing all sorts of fun family history and memorabilia, a $3 pair of garage sale red velvet curtains (COOL red velvet curtains, not tacky red velvet curtains -- think Pottery Barn!), and some dumpster prizes (a pair of white sheer curtains and two baskets), and a head board for the bed that I ended up making from vintage VW bus parts (long story -- but you wouldn't guess if you saw it!). There are, alas, no pictures because my phone/camera was having a bad day but it doesn't matter because I had THE BEST TIME!
That was yesterday.

Today we started off with raspberry mochas and apple fritters at Starbucks and then spent the rest of the day helping with improvements at church. We cleaned and carried and organized and painted and put down floor tiles -- and talked and ate too! And had a very enjoyable and productive day. I should be exhaused and konked out but I'm still energetic (as long as I'm sitting in bed!). I may be too tired to sleep. And I have a raging sore throat -- I guess I'm sensitive to paint fumes (since the same thing happened when I painted my bathroom). Remind me next time to get low-odor paint. Lesson learned. Maybe. If I remember.

So... I guess I'll try to sleep now because my eyes usually pop open at 6 a.m. and that's getting rather close if we're counting in terms of hours of sleep! Hope you all had at least half as much fun this weekend as I did! Goodnight!

Teetering on the Edge

2009-05-21T09:12:00.000-05:00

I have been planning lately to start a multi-part series on religion because that's a topic that frequently has my mind whirring. I even have three or four pieces mostly written. But I can't seem to work up the nerve to post them. Maybe it's that old admonishment about avoiding discussion of religion and politics. Maybe it's that I know I don't know anything about anything. Maybe I don't want to be perceived as trying to shove my view down anyone else's throat (it's MUCH better to shove cookies and scones down other people's throats!). Or maybe I'm just delaying the inevitable "heretic" label that I will surely earn. So, please be patient with me. I'll either work up the nerve or I'll write something else!

By the Thread of Grace

2009-05-17T20:13:00.000-05:00

Everyone asks how Mark and I got back together so I thought I would post the story once and for all for all to read at their leisure.

The story of what happened between us in junior high and high school is a book in itself. Chapters of it may appear here from time to time but I won't try to recount it all here. I really would like to write our whole history and love story up as a book someday. Everyone loves a good love story. It's especially amazing to get to live it! And it's particularly difficult to try to capture all the complexity and meaning with mere words. But I'll give it my best try!

The briefest summary of our past is this:

We first laid eyes on each other in the 7th grade. My mother had remarried and we moved from Tulsa to her hometown -- Enid, Oklahoma. (Coincidentally, she married the boy she had her first date with when they were 13. They re-met at their 20th high school reunion. In my life there has always been something about coming full circle.)

The first sighting was probably sometime shortly after November 4, 1978, my first day at Waller Junior High. I passed him in the breezeway near the cafeteria. He still remembers what I was wearing (Sassoon jeans!). He says it was love at first sight. I remember my awareness of him gradually coming into focus over the course of that year and the next.

In the 8th grade, we found ourselves in Mrs. Keahlier's English class together. He sat two seats behind me. He would wad up paper to put in the trash can at the front of the room so he could walk by me. I would go to the pencil sharpener at the back of the room so I could walk past him. We passed most of the eighth grade in highly-aware silence. We may have talked once on the last day of class over yearbooks but I'm not sure.

In the 9th grade we met for real one night at a party (this too is a chapter for another day!). We both agree we fell in love that night. That was January 31, 1981. We dated off an on from then until the beginning of our second semester at different colleges.

It ended badly with misunderstandings on both sides (also another chapter). We saw each other a couple more times in college (more chapters here too!) but could never get past all the hurt.

Eventually, we both went on with our lives and eventually married and had children and jobs and all that stuff that makes up life.

Over the years I heard only a few of the barest facts about his life.

Years and decades went by before fate brought us back together.

I was 39, going through a long divorce and, understandably, trying to find myself again. I lived immersed in extensive soul-searching, reevaluating and pondering the big questions about my life.

The previous year I has started taking quarterly "runaway mommy weekends". I never left my children overnight or for more than 6 or 8 hours at a time during the first 10 1/2 years of my parenting. I had been wife and mother and all the many job titles that go along with that. After all that, I really needed to figure out how to be just myself again. During those years of my marriage and early parenting, I had lost myself somewhere between the laundry and the dishes.

The first runaway mommy weekend was with two girlfriends. We talked for 26 out of 34hours we were away. The next runaway mommy weekend I was to go on alone. The only place I felt comfortable going alone was Enid, Oklahoma. In Enid I knew what was what and who was who and there were people to visit if I wanted company. Enid was home. Or at least it had been long ago, before Mother and Grandmother and Papa were in the cemetery, before I had children, before lots of things changed.

The first time I drove to Enid for a weekend alone, I had the strongest feeling that I was being led somewhere. I didn't know where or why but I knew my life was being taken in a new direction. I felt somehow led by the hand of God or fate or destiny or something larger than myself. I felt deeply that trusting the process was imperative so I decided to move forward in faith and see what would unfold. One thing I did know what that I was being taken home, back to the source. I had a strong desire to reconcile things from my past that made it necessary to return to square one and start from the beginning.

I hadn't seen Mark in 18 years. He hadn't really been in my life in about 20. Over the years I had Googled him periodically but I could never find him. I found people FOR A LIVING (as an adoption search consultant) but I could never find him. I figured he was probably in the Oklahoma City area. But he remained elusive.

Since the summer before, when Mark hadn't come to our 20th high school reunion (or the 10th either!), doors had started to open for me about Mark's location. Gradually, doors began to open for me until it seemed like every time I came to an impasse the lock sprang open and the door openned in front of me. It had been so hard for so long and now it seemed to be getting so easy.

During the summer of the 20th reunion I found an address for Mark in Cherokee, Oklahoma. I went there but they had moved on. A "For Sale" sign in the yard gave me his wife's phone number which turned out to be at a house in Enid a block from the house my mother grew up in. So I thought I knew where he and his family lived but I could never work up the nerve to call him. What if his wife answered? I didn't want to disrupt anything. I just wanted to know what had happened to him and to discern some final truths about our relationship.

Mark was always "The One" to me -- since that night at the party in 8th grade. He was my first love and my prom date and jusst simply "The One". He was the one I always compared men and love and relationships to. I looked for him in every guy I dated. I never found anyone like him. And I never felt that way again.

So, as I was getting divorced and re-evaluating my ability to trust myself and to judge love, it all kept going back to Mark. Had he really loved me at all? Had he loved me in the same deep, spiritual way that I had loved him? Or had it all just been teenage hormones and puppy love and my own self-delusion. I needed to know. I needed to know if I could trust my gut and my instincts or if I was silly and gullible and self-deceiving.

Mark had two other relationships in the five years we dated on and off. I always took him back. I always dumped whoever I was dating to be with Mark again. But I had come to be ashamed of myself for having been so pitiful and pathetic. And I had gradually come to believe that he had just used me back them. I loved him and always took him back and gave him some pretty good adoration. What teenage boy wouldn't take advantage of a situation like that.

Slowly, year by year, I grew angrier and angrier. I wanted to put my hands around his neck and say to him, "Ok, so tell me how much of the time did you really like me and how much of the time did you use me and go ahead and tell me the truth because it couldn't be as bad as what I think". I just needed to know what the truth was. One way or the other. What was true?

I found myself in Enid on another runaway mommy weekend. I drove by the address I had for his wife several times a day -- just for curiosity. And then there he was in front of her house on a Thursday afternoon.

I parked down the street in front of my mother's childhood home and watched. His car was in the driveway and he was in the yard with his two boys and his wife. My heart fell when I saw that she was about 7 months pregnant -- now I really couldn't call him because his wife was pregnant and I couldn't be disruptive in his world.

I watched Mark go to his car and look in the car and in the trunk several times. In between, she would go into the house and come back out and seemed to be chewing him out. The boys went in and out of the house several times. I'm not sure they ever found what they were looking for.

Then Mark and the boys got into the car and backed out of the driveway. I followed as they drove to his parents house, got out, and went into the house. A couple of years earlier I had Googled up an anniversary announcement for his parents and a wedding announcement for his neice. From this I learned that, not only were his parents still living, but they still lived in the same house they'd lived in when we were in jr. high and high school. And I still had the phone number. Hmmm...

Later in the day, his car was at neither house. Over the course of the weekend, I continued my surveillance of both houses and didn't see his car again. I started to think about what I had seen and suddenly it dawned on me: over the course of 15 or 20 minutes, Mark and Traci and the boys had all had been looking for some missing item and everyone had gone into the house EXCEPT Mark. During all that time, he never went into the house. And then the suspicion hit me: That was a visitation transfer. He didn't live there. They were divorced.

On Sunday morning, for some reason unknown to me, I woke up feeling strong. This surprised me. I planned to leave town at 2 that afternoon.

Late on Sunday morning Mark's car was back at his parents' house. I somehow worked up the nerve to call him. It was time. I drove to the pay phone outside the old Safeway and dialed that old familier number. The voice that answered was that of his younger brother, Pat. Pat had always answered the phone back then when I used to call Mark regularly! And he still did.

I started my rehearsed speech: "Hi! I was looking for Mark..." before I could say "...and I was hoping you could tell me how to reach him..." Pat said, "just a minute!" I hadn't expected to actually TALK to Mark on this call -- just get his phone number and call him later after I had had time to plan what to say.

A mere 15 seconds later Mark was on the phone, saying hello with curiosity in his voice. Luckily, something had come to me to say: "Hi Mark! This is a voice from your past..." He sputtered for a second with fragments of "who" and "what" before I let him off the hook and said, "This is Anne Sturdivant." My old name sounded strange and unfamiliar to me after 15 years of marriage and another name but it was also still some old core version of me.

"How ARE you?", he asked with pleased enthusiasm. "Well," I answered, "it's been 18 years and I haven't heard more than a few words about you in 18 years and I just couldn't stand the curiosity anymore. How are YOU?"

Very quickly the conversation turned into "I'll be there in ten minutes." I hadn't expected him to even want to talk to me, let alone want to see me, let alone want to see me IN TEN MINUTES!

I waited inside Hastings bookstore, out of the cold, where he'd told me to go until he could meet me. I found myself hoping that he wouldn't be fat or bald or gray (forgetting that I'd just seen him from a distance three days before and he was none of those things).

I stood back from the door, about halfway down the aisle where I had a clear view of the door. I tried to look at books while making sure to watch every person who approached the door. It must have been more like 20 minutes because the butterflies and breathlessness had started to subside and I had calmed down just enough to actually be able to read words. I was halfway through the three paragraphs on the back of the first book I had actually focused on since I'd been standing there when I looked up to see him 10 feet inside the door and bounding toward me! He had snuck in during the first lapse in my vigilance! He looked just like he'd always looked: tall and well-built and gorgeous! I breathed a sign of relief that he wasn't all the things I'd been afraid he might be.

He saw me and our eyes met. I fumbled to put the book I was holding back on the shelf and walked toward him.

"Look at you! All grown up!" I said. He said, "Come here you!" We closed the last of the ground between us. I walked into outstretched arms and before I knew it I was in an embrace that felt wonderfully familiar.

"The years have been very kind to you," he told me, "Let's go get some coffee!" Before I knew it, we were out the door and into his car and on our way to DaVinci's, the local gourmet coffee house.

There we began the long process of catching up on each other's lives. There were 20 years missing -- it was a big job.
Not long after we settled into two armchairs in the front window of DaVinci's, before I could put my hands around his neck and roll out my little speech, he said, "I have two regrets: I regret that I didn't treat you better and I regret that I didn't marry you!" I was stunned! He had said the word "marry" about ME! The whole world changed in that instant. I wouldn't realized the full implication of it all until it unfurled over the next few months but it was clear, on some level, very soon afterward that we were going to give it another try. Neither of us wanted to let the other out of our life ever again.

We talked for four hours before I reluctantly left town to drive home to my kids and my world that would never be the same again. We talked on the phone for the last two of the four hours of my drive. He ended our conversation by saying, "I'll call you in a couple of days."

I wasn't sure I believed him. Two days came and went. Then three. Then four. I gave up after a week. On the ninth morning I found a just-missed call on my phone. It was Mark. He really HAD called. It all felt just like high school again -- all those old butterflies, all the same hopes and dreams. I tried to bat them down but they were undeniable.

It was almost a year and a half before my long-contemplated divorce finally went through. Mark supported me through that time, sharing with me the benefit of his experience with his divorce (and, by the way, his ex-wife's baby wasn't his). Gradually, we got closer and closer. When the divorce was final we decided to give it another try. No one was more surprised that I was that looking him up ended up with us being back in a relationship together. I still can't grasp that I'm with that guy from the prom!

And the rest is wedding photos! Ok, so that's a VAST understatement! But the next chapter is a story for another day!

One

2009-05-17T13:52:00.000-05:00

Gosh, can I explain magic and miracles and God with mere words? Let's see!

Some of my favorite moments in life are those times when things come full circle and bring a new layer of meaning to something revisited. Those are the times I really know that God is looking out for me. If He weren't he wouldn't orchestrate such wonderful threads of grace over the course of years or decades, transcending time and space and mere mortalness with amazing divinity. (By the way, it is no coincidence that my youngest daughter's name is Sara-GRACE. The concept of grace is beyond words for me in it's divinity and as an expression of God's love.)

We're big American Idol fans around here. This season we have been awed by the amazing talent and magnetic personality of Adam Lambert (ok, so Kris Allen is also amazing and was clearly worthy of a road trip to his hometown visit! He's been Tessa's favorite from the beginning!). Last week, Simon Cowell, in all his infinite wisdom and music-world expertise, chose the U2 song "One" for Adam to sing, even going so far as to get special permission from Bono to do so. Unfamiliar with the song, I thought Adam sang it masterfully like he does every song -- he even improved on "Tracks of My Tears" in my opinion! Mark said Adam butchered the song and was disappointed.

Today after church we each had something we wanted to get our hands on at Barnes and Noble. Mine was the book everyone at church keeps talking about, The Shack, which I'm sure I will have much to say about later. I also picked up a new copy (having unsuccessfully "loaned" my copy to a friend awhile back) of Only Love is Real by Brian Weiss, M.D. There's a story in that one too which I'll save for later! Mark's was a U2 CD.

So I finally got to hear the original version of "One". Mark says it was always about me for him. EVERY love song is about me to him AND about him to me. We're just like that. But some songs stand out above the others. Some songs transport us our own private elsewhere. "One" is one of those songs -- for him, and now for me.

We listened to it on the way home -- twice. When we got home, we cranked it up and openned the car window and slow danced in the driveway while the neighbors pretended not to watch. We spontaneously slow dance in LOTS of places -- our little "prom moments" (and yes, we DID go to the prom together, for any of you who weren't sure).

The line that gets me is simple: "one love, we get to share". FINALLY, we get to be together! It's been a very long road. And we each carried our own private love for the other in our hearts all along. And now we get to share it. He's "the ONE". He was always "the ONE". I knew it when I was 14. I know it now.

After our slow dance in the driveway Mark told me about a time I HAD heard "One" before. At the end of our first semester of college, when everything between us was falling apart and the end was very near, Mark took me to his fraternity's Christmas dance at OCU (Oklahoma City University). College (I went to Trinity University in San Antonio) was, without a doubt, the worst four years of my life -- often hellish, in fact. That first semester was the worst -- fraught with traumas and trajedies and turmoil (that will remain unspoken in this public forum though I am usually public about it and would readily tell you in a private conversation -- you are welcome to ask me if you want to know). Because of all this, it was a very broken version of me that attended that dance with Mark. I have maybe one vague memory of it. In the broken state I was in, I apparently failed to encode the rest into my brain. But Mark remembers. We danced to "One" that night. And he cried. I guess I was numb. We were teetering precariously on that precipice between Mark finally knowing that he really wanted to be with me and simultaneously knowing that too much damage had been done and that he had probably already lost me. A month later can the final breakdown of "us". And then we spent 20 years apart.

Today, coming with tears of truth (you know it's true when the tears come with the speaking of it!) I shared with Mark a vague memory fragment: In all this world, God put me freshman year with me with a randomly-selected roommate who was a huge U2 fan. I'm sure she tried to get me to listen to the song "One" a quarter of a century ago. I was offered this song way back then. I couldn't hear it. And Mark and I danced to it at the Christmas dance -- through his tears -- and I couldn't hear it. But today, I am finally able to hear it and connect with it and to have that which was offered to me so long ago when I wasn't able to receive it and I am brought full circle, again, by the grace and benevolence of God who somehow had it all planned out.

I know that in God's grand scheme of things Mark and I are supposed to be together now and those 20 years apart served a purpose that's beyond what we can fathom. But often it's difficult to bear the pain of the loss. We lost so much time together. We lost our twenties. And our thirties. We lost having our first wedding together. We lost having our first child together. We lost getting to break all that ground together. I grieve this. But I also believe that God knew we wouldn't work out until now and that He brought us back together at the first opportunity that it WOULD work out between us. And we just have to trust in the divine wisdom of that.

Mark and I have many tasks between us -- many things we feel we are supposed to do or learn together. One of them is captured in a few of line in "One". It says "Have you come here for forgiveness? Have you come to raise the dead? Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?". These are graphic images but they capture a theme for us -- that of coming back together, of reviving something, and of healing the hurts of the past. Jesus healed the lepers. And the rotten flesh of painful memories and bitterness can also be healed. And that is one of our tasks together. Mark has many scars from his past than he needs to heal. I have bitterness toward him that I still grapple with. We both need to heal.

And the song has lines that tell us how: "Love is a temple, love a higher law" -- we must honor this. And "We get to carry each other" -- we are SO lucky to GET to be together, to GET to live together and wake up together every day, to GET to learn and to grow together, and to GET to carry each other. Even in the hard times, it is a miracle that we are where we are, that we are together. God was looking out for us all along after all!

Fluff and Pretty Pictures!

2009-05-16T22:18:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know I haven't really been WRITING lately. I do plan to get back to it when my muse returns from wherever she went! In case you were wondering...

I Take Back Everything I've Ever Said About the Poor Quality of Life of Opossums!

2009-05-16T21:53:00.001-05:00

Finally! A Grave for the Rubic's Cube!

2009-05-16T21:47:00.001-05:00

Mark removed a fencepost and inadvertently solved our Rubic's cube problem!

So the girls held a funeral!

Paper Tigers

2009-05-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

This menacing-looking storm rolled into Enid last night and looked like the prelude to the end of the world! But it was just rain. Still, these are some amazing clouds!

100 Collections

2009-05-12T14:33:00.000-05:00

I was wondering what to write about today when my delightful birthmother called. After reading my blog she wanted to know exactly WHAT my 100+ collections are! So now I know what I'm writing about. I just toured my house with pen and paper and came up with a list. I think it is important to specify that I like cheap junk and I almost never pay a premium price for anything. I don't by on Ebay. I just come across things and if they're cheap enough I'll buy them. I'm not hung up on condition -- all that damage puts otherwise expensive items into my price range!

Note: There are photos at the end if you wear out during the list or want to just skip it altogether!

I must explain that there are different types of collections in my world:

There are things I actively collect (like 40's pottery and Fiestaware).

There are things I would buy more of but they're usually out of my price range (like vintage doll dressers and vintage toy kitchens).

There are things I ended up with three of (and three makes a collection!) but it doesn't have to go any farther but probably will if I find a good piece for cheap (like egg cups and heart sachets).

There are things that I will always buy when I find them for cheap because I always use them (like small glass bowls and picture frames).

There are also things I gather because I use them for projects (like vintage chenille bedspreads which I make into baby quilts and vintage printed table cloths which I embellish denim jackets with).

I won't try to break the list down into these categories because it would require too much thought but I will star the favorites and qualify the little, accidental collections with (3) because that's how many of them I have.

The most prevalent of my collections are vintage pottery which fall into several categories:

*1. matte white Haeger vases (I have about 100 pieces. Some of these are in the bathroom remodel photos I posted previously.)
*2. McCoy vases and planters in any color
*3. blue and green vases
4. pink vases
5. yellow vases
6. black vases
7. olive green vases
*8. blue and white china
*9. Mexican Talavera pottery

Beyond the pottery obsession:

*10. vintage thermoses (I bought two at a garage sale one day for 50 cents and then one at the next garage sale for a quarter and I've been hooked ever since!)
*11. small silver pieces (bowls, creamer, suger bowls)
12. silver pitchers
13. silver frames
*14. wall-hanging crosses
*15. pendant crosses
16. wreaths (I like to have one for every season and holiday)
17. letters (I have every letter my birthmother has ever sent me in the 24 years she's been in my life except for a few that were destroyed somehow. Some great-grandchild is going to find a treasure trove in the attic someday!)
18. vintage decorative aluminum tableware (it's still cheap but gaining in popularity!)
19. Incoming correspondence
20. Outgoing correspondence (I keep copies of everything I send out. The great-grandchild will be delighted again!)
21. doll dressers
22. anything with lots of little drawers - spice drawers, apothecary drawers, lingerie chests
23. the aluminum grilles off old screen doors that have an initial on them (probably my weirdest collection!)
24. heart sachets (3)
*25. HEARTS (but not heart jewelry)
26. red metal things (I have shelves, a basket, a napkin holder, etc)
27. vintage hats (mostly my grandmother's)
28. dress purses (mine, my mother's, my grandmother's, my former mother-in-law's, and my daughters. Because of this collection I took the same little white beaded purse to the prom AND to my wedding!)
29. vintage ceramic birds
30. vintage ceramic fish
31. international dolls (my grandparents started this collection for me when I was little and always brought me dolls from their travels)
32. James Michener books (my favorite author)
33. Shakespeare in paperback (I was an English major)
34. Mysteries of the Unknown Time-Life book series (I have 3 of the 26 volumes)
35. pitchers
36. miniature chairs
37. little children's chairs
*38. vintage globes
39. vintage photographs of the ancestors
40. a photograph of every place I've lived
41. flower frogs (they hold flowers in vases)
42. vintage Mexican Easter baskets (I hated them until I saw a collection in a magazine -- now I want a collection too!)
*43. sign letters and numbers
*44. the number "4"
45. photographs of the number "4"
*46. oil seascape paintings
*47. sand from beaches around the world (both from my travels and from friends)
*48. dirt from important places (like from my childhood home and from the hospital where I was born)
49. vintage clocks
50. antique bottles
51. antique ink wells
52. quilts
*53. vintage floral bark cloth
54. vintage cameras (3)
55. vintage photographic slide boxes (3)
*56. vintage framed floral prints
57. vintage dog paintings (4)
58. picture frames
59. annual Christmas ornaments for the girls (every year I buy them an ornament related to something they like or are interested in that year and then I write the date and the explanation on them)
60. vintage silver Christmas balls (when I find them in dumpsters -- which is often!)
61. doll kitchens (3)
62. vintage post cards
63. vintage suitcases in a particular style (3)
64. washboards (I only have 2. One belonged to my grandmother. One I'm keeping for the girls because it belonged to Matt's grandmother.)
*65. vintage picnic baskets (great for storage above the kitchen counters!)
66. matchbox cars (when I find them in dumpsters which is often)
67. marbles
68. pez dispensers (the girls get them in their Christmas stockings every year to remember Matt's Aunt Honey who always gave them to the girls)
69. Mardi Gras beads (not really a collections but I corral them into a big glass pickle jar when I find them around the house which, for some weird reason, is often!)
*70. rose bushes
*71. iris bulbs
72. old cabinet knobs
73. vintage lace
74. vintage-inspired lace tops (4)
75. memorable bathing suits from over the years (yes, I know this one is weird and I hate to admit it)
76. favorite old t-shirt logos (to make into a quilt someday)
77. my clothes museum (the outfit I wore on the first day of my first "real" job, the dress my mother got married in, the top I delivered Tessa in, things like that)
78. decorative balls (I use them all the time for staging)
79. play balls (I have a big salad bowl where I throw al the balls I find around the house)
80. kilim bags
*81. mercury glass
*82. utensils with wooden handles painted red
*83. utensils with wooden handles painted green
84. vintage suitcases
85. costumes (I have a cabinet full of dress-up clothes that the girls always loved playing in)
86. shells (who doesn't!)
87. rocks
*88. heart-shaped rocks (copying my birthmother's collection)
*89. enamel refrigerator drawers (esp. PINK!) and containers
*. wire freezer baskets (they make GREAT storage baskets)
91. jellow molds
92. vintage metal souvenir state trays
93. Noah's Arks stuff (even before I had a step-son named Noah!) (3)
*94. colorful ceramic bowls (and white ones too)
95. blue-green Mason/Ball jars (4)
96. egg cups (3)
97. white embossed fruit-pattened dishes (We use them daily. I buy individual pieces when I come across them and then it doesn't matter when they get broken)
98. apothecary bottles (5)
99. cigar boxes
100. vintage jewlery boxes (3)
101. wire-work (pen cups, letter holders, baskets)
102. vintage metal trays
*103. buttons (this collection was started by my grandmother)
*104. fruit crate labels (vintage and reproduction)
105. vintage tole-painted trash cans (4)
106. glass juicers
107. glass insulators
108. zippers
109. rick rack
110. pink depression glass (5)
111. vintage door knobs
112. bottle caps
113. old printer's type
114. match holders (one from each grandmother and one that's mine) (3)
115. vintage chenille bedspreads
116. decorating magazines
117. decorating books
*118. painted wooden stools
119. vintage handkerchiefs (I used them to embellish jean jackets)
120. vintage costume jewelry (I make magnets out of old earrings and broaches)
121. dominoes (they just look cool in a jar)
122. dice (they look cool in a jar too!)
123. vintage cans with labels (oil cans, coffee cans -- I found a dozen or so in the well house at the cabin that had been there since the 50's and put them all up on a shelf in the "boy bedroom")
124. stuffed Muppets (must have a collection to commemorate my childhood!)
125. pill boxes (most of them were my mother's)

There are also other collections in the house that I contribute to:
1. stars (Tessa)
2. nutcrackers (Tessa)
3. ceramic birthday figurines (Tessa)
4. MONKEYS! (Tessa)
5. rabbits (Tessa's birthday falls on Easter sometime)
6. stuffed animals (all the girls)
7. ties (Mark)
8. weights and measures (Mark)
9. Coca Cola stuff (Mark)
10. orange things (Mark)
11. milk bottles (Mark)
12. antique bottles (Mark) (we bought a box of 25 for $11)
13. glassware (Mark) (single glasses he likes)
14. rubber animals (When Emily was about 2 she got one for $1 every time we went to the grocery store. They have been the favorite bathtub toys ever since!)

I'll add more when I think of them below:
Yikes! 126. Fiestaware! We received 12 place settings and some serving pieces as wedding gifts. I had a few vintage plates and saucers and salt shakers. I continue to seek out more pieces (new or vintage).

Lest ye envision my house as being completely overrun by collections, here are a few photos to show that everything has it's place!

1. A few of my globes. The rest are out on a staging project.

2. The sand and dirt collections.

3. A screen door grille.

4. The melding of his collection and mine: his ties and my blue and green vases!

I Need A Favor

2009-05-10T23:48:00.000-05:00

Hello?

Who's out there?

I see the number on the counter increasing but I'm not sure who I'm talking to (other than myself, of course!).

I don't want to blow anyone's anonymity but, if you don't mind, leave me a comment and say hello so I know who's been here.

Here's to hoping that doesn't fall into the "pathetic" category! I'm just infinitely curious!

Thanks!

A

My Happiness

2009-05-10T19:54:00.000-05:00

Here are photos of my recent $34 bathroom redo! It's just plain silly how happy it makes me!

All I paid for was "Chocolate Truffle" paint ($14) and curtain rings ($20). The rest is just stuff I already had. And I must brag on the dresser: I saw one in the Pottery Barn catalog that looked very much like it for $799 PLUS $150 shipping. I paid $29.50 at the Salvation Army for mine a couple of years ago and added new drawer pulls. Oh, and the curtains (all four panels) came out of a dumpster! That's my favorite part!

Keeping the Sabbath

2009-05-10T16:27:00.001-05:00

It's funny the places wisdom comes from or the ways God finds to speak to us. Sometime, somewhere this week (I don't remember where) I was in a ladies room and, on the inside of the door of the stall, was taped a piece of paper with the Ten Commandments on it. I read them over for a review (odds are I'll end up being quizzed on this in the near future and here's my chance to study!). I guess I should already know them but it turns out I don't. I had forgotten about the one that says "Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy", forgotten that it was one of the Ten Commandments.

Mark is always telling me to take Sunday off. He pointed out once that I don't set an end to my workday and I don't do anything to differentiate the weekend from the rest of the week. In fact, I rarely sit down. There is always more to do than I can possibly get to. I calculated not long ago that, if I quit sleeping at night and worked around the clock, I might be able to catch up in a year or so. Or I'll just come up with more projects!

To me, Sunday is a day to get more done. But I've noticed that I often sort of collapse on Sunday and lay around in bed watching Monster Quest on the History Channel and writing on the computer. (That's exactly what I'm doing right now!) I guess God has his way of imposing the Sabbath on my even when I don't honor it myself! Clearly there is great wisdom in the concept!

Earlier I was lying here wondering what to write about for today's blog post and the phrase "keep the Sabbath" kept coming to me. So I'm listening.

From where I lounge I can see a glorious bouquet of three dozen roses in a silver pitcher. Mark made sure I had a dozen roses from each child. They are white (my favorite!) and two different shades of pink (ok, so those are my favorites too!) and they are just bursting into full bloom. They are breathtaking -- almost too gorgeous to believe. And there was a delicious and decadent lunch at the Olive Garden after church and now one of my favorite things: a day with nothing scheduled!

Yesterday I indulged in my annual Mother's Day weekend tradition: The Annual Washington Elementary School Fundraiser Home Tour. This is all I want for Mother's Day every year. It's that simple and I love the simplicity of it. I got to tromp through seven houses and peer into other people's worlds. It is truly a blessing to get to view the houses of people you don't even know. It is mind-expanding and inspiring.

My favorite house is one I saw in it's unrenovated state several years ago. I've always grieved that I lacked the fund to renovate it myself. It was with trepidation that I crossed the threshold, but inside was a treasure trove of the unique, interesting, and amazing. In addition to beautiful finishes and furnishings and had a sense of humor and a taste for the bizarre. The living room walls were covered with a varied collection of vintage oil paintings of dogs. On the laundry room wall was a large pair of shark's jaws with a vintage bikini hanging from the teeth. In the wall in front of the treadmill was a gold frame with a Snickers bar in it. One the back porch was a vintage mint green dentist's chair.

But the best part of all was an array of vintage, back-of-the-zoology lab, taxidermified creatures worthy of their own museum exhibit. There was a framed bat, a ferret/mink/weasel-type of thing, and, I kid you not, a two-headed calf! But the best part was the flying monkey (I don't get to write sentences like that very often!). On a table by the window in the living room was a a real, once-alive monkey (poor thing!) mounted, poised for take-off, and embellished with a pair of real hawk wings! I know it sounds gross and I wouldn't want is residing on my night stand but it was truly a marvel and I wish I'd thought of it (though I probably wouldn't have the heart to buy a preserved monkey)!

Anyway, the home tour has me taking a new view of my house. It is my secret desire (not so secret now!) to have my house on the home tour (and, of course, to have it be everyone's favorite!). But I have a long way to go. Every year I think maybe by next year... but somehow it never happens. Luckily, hope springs eternal!

I feel like I should write a tribute to Mother's Day but I have decided that I have no editorial comments on Mother's Day. I wouldn't be able to contain the wild swarm of thoughts and emotions enough to put them into words that made any sense. And I'd probably offend someone anyway. Mother's Day is loaded. My own mother died almost 20 years ago. She hated mother's day. And then there's my birthmother. And my stepmother. And all the people who have mothered me. I am grateful for and to them all but I still have no perpective on Mother's Day other than a jumble of complicated and conflicting thoughts and feelings. So, my second Mother's Day gift to myself is that I get to ignore it and NOT write about it!

Happy Mother's Day! I sincerely hope that it's a simpler, more benign thing for you than it is for me!

More from the House of Oddities:

Priceless

2009-05-09T11:23:00.000-05:00

Three bottles of water $6.00

Two custom t-shirts $20.00

Driving your 12-year-old 183 miles (each way) to get 15 ft. from her favorite American Idol Contestant: PRICELESS!

Conway's own!

Kris Allen!

Tessa and Kris Allen in the same photo!

Tessa and Sara-Grace and Kris Allen in the same photo!

There was no way we were ever going to get a view of him onstage (the stage is that green triangle in the upper left corner)!

So we went around behind the stage and got something of a view.

Above-reference custom T-shirt.

The aftermath of the parade.

*********************************************************************************

Baby Love

2009-05-07T08:41:00.000-05:00

Today I'm taking my first dose of Clomid (that's a fertility drug in case the name is unfamiliar to you). And I keep marvelling at finding myself where I am. I used to take pills to KEEP from getting pregnant. Now I take pills TO get pregnant. How did I get HERE?

I never expected to find myself here. Fertility was always my best thing. We got Emily on the first try. Tessa took two trys. That first unsuccessful try felt like such a huge failure but was quickly remedied the next month. Sara-Grace was also a marvel of fertility. We had planned to get pregnant in September for a couple of years preceding. When it came down to September, we decided to hold off a year. We got pregnant that September ANYWAY -- right on schedule (I guess she didn't get the schedule change memo)!

On top of the instant conceptions, I'm pretty good at deliveries too. Tessa was born SIX MINUTES after we got to the hospital! Seriously! Like some scene out of a sit-com. My entire labor with Sara-Grace was one hour and forty-seven minutes. I never even took a Tylenol after any of my deliveries.

Often when I think I know it all is when God gives me a lesson. I'm finding myself in that territory again. I guess I bragged about my effortless fertility too much. I guess I got over-confident. A friend at church always says, "A lesson's what you get when you don't get what you want". A lesson's what I've got.

Mark and I planned to get pregnant on the honeymoon. After all, I was 42 and the biological clock was not only tickling LOUDLY -- the snooze button had been hit a couple of times! I'd be 43 then the baby was born. I'm sure most people just assume we're "done" and that babies aren't even a consideration. Mark and I wanted to have a baby together in high school. NOT having our DNA merged into a child of our own is NOT even a consideration. Life would not be complete...

Well, the honeymoon was 10 cycles ago.

I think I'm supposed to have the full range of fertility experiences in this lifetime. I was young and pregnant once. Now I'm old and battling infertility. And wondering how I got here.

I was the birth control educator at the women's clinic I worked at in Southern California in grad school. I gave the pregnancy test results. Deirdre and I spoke at prospective adoptive parent seminars and to high school health classes in college. I spent five years as an adoption search consultant, immersed in the adoption reform movement, doing searches, fascilitating reunions, and working for legislative change. During all that time, I was the Fertile Myrtle. All that infertility stuff applied to those other people. Not me.

So I took my first Clomid at 8:44 this morning. 8:44 to enlist the superstitious assistance of the power of "our" number "4" and also "8" which is four doubled (that's how we came up with our wedding date: 08-08-08). Now I'm wondering what I'll feel (if anything). Maybe I'll grow a second head or snakes for hair (possibly on BOTH heads). I'm not sure how I could be more irritable than I was yesterday without hormone supplements. It's a really scary thought that I might end up being yesterday's irritable on steroids!

I saw the follicles in my ovaries on ultrasound on Tuesday. So now that know they're there and I've been formally introduced to them I have a message for them, "Get to work guys!". It's looking like I could be 44 when the baby comes. IF the baby comes. I have three friends who had babies at 44. NO ONE has babies at 45 (or older). Anyone who does is not using their own eggs. And I spent enough time in the adoption world to have some strong feelings about not using someone else's eggs.

I was all insulted when I was 34 and pregnant with Sara-Grace and, because I would be 35 when she would be born, they stamped "AMA" on my chart. I knew what that meant! I worked in the OB-GYN and Perinatology departments at UC Irvine Medical Center when I was a twenty-something. AMA means Advanced Maternal Age and is considered a pregnancy complication that puts one at high risk! They were calling me "OLD"! I wonder was age-discriminating insult they would put on my chart now? Probably just a roll of the eyes! I wonder (if I get pregnant) if I'll be my midwife's oldest mom-to-be. And, by the way, if I'm so old, shouldn't I know more by now?

When my midwife was ultrasounding my reporductive machinery on Tuesday I asked her if anything looked excessively elderly. She laughted. But she's also the one who said, "you won't be able to get pregnant" when I told her my plan a year ago. It's very bizarre to feel young and, essentially, BE relatively young, and have some part of me be so old it's about to give out!

I've had a lesson recently in how different things age at different rates. Our Labradors, Zeus and Seraphina, who were puppies when Emily was a baby (they were 7 weeks younger than Emily) both died in the last couple of months. They were 15 -- the oldest Labradors I've ever heard of. And they were lumpy and bumpy and bald and blind and deaf and frail and arthritic. Both died mercifully in their sleep after a short period of rapid decline. Blessedly, my Emily, who is also 15, is still young and youthful and at the very beginning of her life. And they were all the same age. See what we have to look forward to?

Last fall we were at Church in Enid and ran into a friend from high school. She was the one who was pregnant with her first baby at our 20th reunion. A couple of our classmates were grandmothers. Kay was just getting started -- the latest bloomer in our class. At church last fall Kay was carrying her second baby and told us she was expecting a baby girl in December. I told her were were hoping to have one too and she immediately shot back, "I know a great fertility specialist!" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, and even as I sputtered in my fertility pride telling her I had never had a problem before, somewhere in the back of my heart I knew I would need it. I knew someday I'd be seeking Kay out for fertility advice. And I since have.

Speaking of old classmates, my best friend from junior high told me recently to get a puppy and enjoy the time with Mark. I've just whittled my way down from SEVEN dogs to three so I think if dogs were going to fill the void they would have done so by now. Cats don't work either. Nor do ferrets. After the animal parade Emily's brought through my house and life over the past 15 years I know for a fact that animals don't fill the baby void.

I'm lucky and grateful to have my three healthy girls. And Mark has his boys. But I've planned all my life to have FOUR children. When I divorced Matt I literally grieved that fourth baby (already named and everything) that I thought I might never have now. Mark, too, has grieved the children he didn't get to have. Noah was 3 1/2when Mark and Traci divorced and he no longer got to live in the same house with his son. He's told me many times he feels like he got gyped in the parenting department. He as such a love of children. He tells me, if we have one together, that he MIGHT let me hold it every once in awhile!

I guess there is one comforting thought about wanting babies at our "advanced" age: because we're so OLD, grandbabies aren't that far away! I would raise a grandbaby in a minute and have ALWAYS said I would. One of Emily's very troubled friends was pregnant recently and I really wondered if I was suppossed to raise that baby. But she miscarried and got another chance at childhood which was the most benevolent thing God could have done for her.

When I started writing this post I thought I would write a paragraph or MAYBE two. I guess I didn't know how much on the subject I had swirling around inside me! If you have any baby dust laying around, sprinkle some our way!

A Little Nudity!

2009-05-06T14:23:00.000-05:00

Having a blog is really scary! It's like being naked or going to the pool in a bikini (which, to me, feel like the same thing)! Did I write something stupid? Did I reveal too much? Where did all those typos come from?

I always say I'm the kind of person who likes to have all the cards on the table. Now I wonder if I should hold back a couple of aces! Nope! I'll just dive in! Leap of Faith and all that!

I realized something yesterday after I included my dad on the email invitation list: the person I most hope will read my writing and the person I most fear will read my writing are the same! My dad. I'm probably wrong but I think he has no idea who I really am. I'd love for him to both know me AND like me! I already know he loves me!

Birds of a Feather!

2009-05-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

I went to visit my birthmother over spring break. We haven't seen each other in eight or nine years so it was overdue! She's like me, she has her romances with objects that catch her fancy. This time I noticed that a flock of birds seemed to have descended on her house, framed and hanging on the walls and interspersed among her books and other intersting things. The story gradually came out that her sister, Courtney, says Mom lives in a birdhouse because the vintage fourplex they have very successfully made into a single family home has lots of little rooms (8 bedroom and four of everything else to be exact!). From this, birds have grown on her and found their way to her and been given to her by observant friends. We even re-hung a couple of bird paintings so they could be nearer the rest of the flock!

One of the results of this visit was that I left her with my rather nasty cold. (Sorry Mom!) But I wasn't aware until this week that I had been exposed to something contagious too -- those birds! I think I got the better end of the deal!

When I started writing the explanation of this blog it all came out in bird metaphors! I didn't go looking for them, they just came to ME -- or should I say flocked to me! Now I see that she got my cold and I got her bird affinity!

I'm currently scouring all my regular junk-acquisition haunts for the perfect bird to go with the nest I had tucked away on a shelf in an old bowl (which is not to overlook the box of vintage ceramic birds that I just put away on moratorium). And I'm also at what I hope is the end of a two-year search for a wreath festooned with blown eggs (hopefully in a variety of pale shades of brown and blue and green -- very Martha Stewart!) and maybe a shadowbox with speckled eggs or robin's eggs in it -- or BOTH! All of this will somehow converge into some sort of artistic photograph for the header of this blog someday (hopefully soon!). I can see it in my mind's eye already!

Yikes! Yet another collection! I counted once -- have over 100 different collections (not different ITEMS in a collection but 100 COLLECTIONS!). It's TOO much fun but sometimes it threatens to take over my house!

The bird theme got something of a divine seal of approval in my sentimental, superstitious eyes last Saturday when we watched the Kentucky Derby.

Matt was always a big Derby fan. He started the Kentucky Derby tradition. It's particularly fun when you research it a couple of weeks in advance and watch the broadcast of the drawing of post positions so that, by the time the race starts, you have a good knowledge of the facts and stories and are well oriented to the whole thing. Matt has called the winner each of the last four years (don't ask me how he does it!).

This year we forgot to research so it was all fresh on Derby Day. I'd batted this wild, stray thought down a few times but finally, just before the race started, I said (aloud, thank goodness!), "One of the horses with 'bird' in the name will win." Some silly something in the back of my mind had whispered to me, "if a horse with 'bird' in the name wins it means your bird-brained blog idea will fly!" Yeah, right!

Summer Bird was at 42-1 odds and Mine That Bird was a 50-1 longshot. I lose every year so it didn't hurt to endorse an impossible favorite -- or two. Friesan Fire was supposed to win but Mine That Bird (and exactly WHAT does that name MEAN?) came from dead last to pass all the other horses like they were standing still and won it with many lengths to spare! Hooray for the underdog!

Cosmic blog confirmation? I don't know but I'll take the vote of confidence -- wherever it came from! Even if that's nowhere.

Why I Write

2009-05-05T16:30:00.000-05:00

The words in my head have a life of their own. They flow through me. Something pulls the cord on their motor and they just start coming: words, phrases, sentences. They swarm around me like a pack of affectionate cats. They seem to come from another place, from someplace divine. They float around in my head, begging to be captured.

I am an archivist at heart. I want to capture every day in some little way so it won't get away unnoticed. I want to be the one that thought to tape the original receipt into the dresser drawer to be marvelled at in 100 years. I want to be the one that has my Grandmother's handwritten recipe for her Aunt Mavis' cloverleaf rolls (I do). I'm the one who still has all the social notes I received in junior high and high school. I can look back and verify the details of things from back then. When memory fails, I want to be able to look up the facts!

I've been the familiy geneaologist since I was a kid. Genealogy has taught me one startling fact: within a few generations, all but the most illustrious individuals are reduced to a name, a date of birth, and a date of death. If we are lucky, we can see where they lived (or maybe only where they were buried), who they married, who their children were, and maybe an occupation. But that's usually about it. No one remembers what they were really like. What was their personality like? What were their passions? What were their endearing quirks? What were they known for? What was on their heart and in their soul?

In 200 years I want to be more than a name and a couple of dates on a genealogy chart. I want to leave messages for my descendants. When now becomes "back then", I want them to be able to know who I was and what my life was like if they're interested. Maybe that's ego. Maybe it just derives from wishing that one of those ancestors on my genealogy charts had left a diary or letters or something to know them by. I am always trying to surmise who they really were.

But, on the most basic level, when I write, I simply enjoy the process. And, as I contemplate that process, I see that my creative process is my connection to the divine. Writing puts me on another plane. And on that plane are all things mystical and magical. On that plane exist God and love and truth and meaning. On that plane are memory and epiphany, poetry and poetic justice, possibilities and potentials -- all those things that transcend the day-to-day.

Life rolls forward, seemingly senseless at times. Things happen. Confusion abounds. We struggle daily with something or another. Writing is the place where everything comes to make sense and where the intricate, carefully-planned thread of God's hand at work is revealed. For me, God's fingerprints are on everything and, if I write, I can see them clearly and it all makes sense. Writing is where I unearth the underlying meaning of everything. Writing is where I find God. And maybe, in doing so and writing it all down, I can leave a little bit of a path to God for those who will come after.

The Opossum's Role in Anne's Weird Reincarnation Theory!

2009-05-04T20:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so the previous post was enough sentimental drivel for one day! Be warned - I'm prone to sentimental drivel! But I am also prone to lapsing into weird, way-out fringe spirituality, much of which has to do with reincarnation. Brace yourself for lots of that too!

So, it all started with my favorite joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? Answer: To show the opossum and the armadillo that it COULD be done!

That still cracks me up!

But it goes farther than that for me! Do you know why opossums are always splattered all over the highway? Because there's no fun in being an opossum! It's even spelled weird! Opossums are oversized, under-brained rats. Though hanging from a tree by one's tail might be fun now and then, it doesn't have many redeeming features as a way of life!

So, my theory is this: one day Bob the opossum, who had dreams of being a mighty lion this time around, realizes that he is an opossum and immediately runs (or rather waddles wobbily!) to the nearest pavement to throw himself under the first passing car (or, better yet, TRUCK!) to end his miserable opossum existence in favor of WHATEVER he will come back as next -- kind of like a Cosmic "reset" button only messier!

My kids probably have nightmares about droves of suicidal opossums and they will go through life with this weird, warped view of roadkill but at least there's an element of eternal hope mixed in there somewhere!

First, Let Me Explain "Leap of Faith"!

2009-05-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

I wasn't exactly convenient. I understand that, cosmically, I'm supposed to be here. But my timing wasn't so good. When I was born my birthmother was young and unmarried. I was an unexpected surprise. She had just met the man she would marry and spend her life with. I showed up in the middle of everthing and threw everyone a curve! Giving me up for adoption was HER leap of faith!

I was born on Valentine's Day 1966. Because I landed here on that particular day, I have always know I am supposed to feel loved. I feel my birthdate isn't just coincidence. I think God must have known I'd need a little reassurance!

I spent the first ten days of my life "between parents" (like some people are "between jobs") in the maternity hospital run by the adoption agency. Babies stay there until their birthmother signs relinquishment papers and departs the premises and until the adoptive parents are contacted and can arrive to pick up their little bundle of joy. (All that goes down onto paper so easily but don't make the mistake of overlooking the HUGE emotions that accompany the whole process!)

In the interim, the babies are given "crib names" in the nursery by the nurses -- just something to call them while they're there. My crib name was "Faith". Again, as far as I'm concerned, NOT a coincidence. I think God knew that I might need to lean on the name and the concept from time to time! In times of doubt, when I struggle with cynicism and fear, I remind myself, "have Faith"! I AM Faith. Surely "Faith" should have faith! It's my safety net. It catches me and keeps me from falling too far into despair.

As my life has moved forward, Faith/faith has become less and less of a passive concept in my life. It has taken root and grown into an active, living force. And I have learned something very important -- especially for a safety-minded, mortality-aware, homebody with no taste for adrenaline or adventure for adventure's sake: The best things in my life have come from taking the biggest leaps of faith!

This principle has come to guide me in times of uncertainty. Rather than leave you in the dark, I'll share a few examples of my giant leaps of faith:

Deciding to search for my birthmother (in 1985, when I was 19) brought me a wonderful, loving, inspriational role-model and fairy godmother!

Deciding to follow my college boyfriend to California after graduation let me both to California (which I still pine for) and to graduate school. That leap eventually led to landing in Laguna Beach! There are few better destinations!

The leap of going to graduate school (in clinical psychology) led me to book knowledge, life knowledge, and confidence beyond the token of earning a Master's degree.

Deciding to get pregnant and have my firstborn, Emily, was a huge flying leap into the abyss of parenting. Nothing can change a life more than that moment in the delivery room when they hand you your firstborn and your whole world changes in an instant! Emily is the first of the three best things I have ever done! The others would be her sisters Tesakiah and Sara-Grace, of course!

Deciding to marry Matt (my first husband) brought many happy years and much learning.

Deciding to start our own business (Harjo Properties) give us freedom from bosses and time clocks and allowed us BOTH to be home with our girls full time.

The leap of seeking out Mark, my junior high and high school sweetheart and my present husband, was intended to help me make sense of myself and of my/our past. What it brought me was the love of my life (again)!

Following my heart to garage sales, flea markets, and thrift stores led me to the jumping-off place for my staging business, Upstage. Staging and decorating is an absolute passion for me. There is no greater fun in my life!

I have many dear friendships because I chose to take that leap of faith and reach out to someone I didn't know.

So now, this blog is my newest leap of faith. May it bring what all the others have brought: change, progress, process, creativity, moving forward, new horizons, and soft landings.

Special thanks to Vanessa Ryerse for multiple layers of inspiration, to John Glaze for giving me my first view of blogging, and to Deirdre Pattillo for finally nudging me into taking this leap! If I end up regretting it, I'm coming after all of you!