We have really had some of the worst winds that we have ever had. Gusts have been well over 80 mph, and yet life goes on with no closures since the roads are dry. Still, grocery shopping is not fun. Twice this week, I have had my shopping cart yanked from my grasp and had to run to retrieve it. I got slammed to the ground the other day when I took the dogs out for a walk. Am I really not that strong?
I can’t sleep when it is like this and the latest has been happening since the day before my birthday. One of my friends had a house next door burn down. She said there was a knocking on her door and that the fire had engulfed it before the rigs got there. This is where a 12 minute fire like "mine" would take less than three minutes. Of course I read this on FaceBook and didn’t sleep for several days. There is nothing paranoid on my behalf for worrying. It’s like pregnancies where once you have a problem, others become more realistic. Our house shakes and I hear shingles breaking off the roof, wind comes in via the oven vent and the elctrical outlets, and I had wind blowing down my chimney as I sat next to the fire while I knitted. It has never been this bad. I actually relaxed to let myself sleep by thinking of things that are far worse and being thankful that I wasn’t dealing with them. I was not dealing with my ex husband in court. I wasn’t on the phone with my dad making mean jokes about my reproductive-ity and my “hobby.” These things normally annoy me if I think of them, but when I figured it out, knowing that only my house could trap me and burn down but that I wasn’t under a threat, I was OK.
The winds are not abating after a day or two—this is the fifth solid day. We have a few breaks and then more wind. We should call this season, “wind-er.” What is the etymology of winter? I keep imagining Ol World Russian families, Jewish and Christian alike, forced from their homes by Lenin’s goons, and making their way across the fields and the frozen rivers in weather like this. I imagine how desperate they were to get away where there was no safe place, so the 20 jog steps to my car are no real big deal and I try to not complain. I have been hit by my car door, though. Getting groceries in requires that I take the big canvas shopping bags to the store with me (they have more space and are sturdier) and I fill up my driver’s side back seat. I call the kids from my phone and they come out with jackets zipped and I hold open the car door while they step in front and grab bags.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
If a person says, "I am just being honest. . ."
run. Don't talk to them again, ever.
There was probably a diplomatic way to deal with whatever they wanted to do, but what do people with MPA's know of diplomacy or kindness?
Grrrr!
There was probably a diplomatic way to deal with whatever they wanted to do, but what do people with MPA's know of diplomacy or kindness?
Grrrr!
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
I made it into another new year!
We got through New Year's Eve and on New Year's Day, I have my first group of people to my house since I lived in South Anchorage at my parent's ranch. For twelve years, our old house was full of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.) My husband's sister and her husband and family of five kids came over. It was really nice. My husband's sister is better than me in every way and she has intimidated the heck out of me since we met. In spite of a stroke, she is a pastor's wife and is on top of everything. Her kids are perfect. For her to not intimidate me, I am not sure of what she could do. Would she have to walk around swearing like a sailor and try to be more "earthy"? I have no idea. Her kids are all in their mid teens (she adopted a couple-- after a decade of more miscarriages than she could count, she always had sticky pregnancies when she adopted newborns!) All of her kids are super fantastic. One in particular makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world when he speaks to you. Another one played Pachelbel's Canon in D for me and I started to cry because it was so beautiful.
I realized that my sister-in-law's light does not make what I feel like is darkness on my part more dark, but more light. I do not trust people who are extremely complimentary-- I always wait to hear the, "but" that shakes me to my core and makes me realize that everything good that was said meant nothing. Not with her. I watched her with my kids and her exuberance and enthusiasm had them wanting to show her how amazing they are. Even when I knitted some dishcloths for her, she was so excited that I almost ran off to get the rest of my work to show her. (OMG! I want that talent that she has to bring out the very best in people! What a great super power to have-- to pull the very best from people! I so much wish I wasn't immune to her, as well as having been skeptical of her.)
When I say that my sister-in-law is a perfect person, this does not mean that she looks down on anyone. Quite contrary to this-- she is very accepting of everyone. She really looks at every person as a unique creation of her Christian god. She runs huge fundraisers and teaches and does everything very well. Yes, her light showed how chaotic my life was. I told her how amazing she is and how stupid I feel when I am around her and she said, "You've had no time for what I do! You are finally able to go to the bathroom by yourself! What do you know of what you can do? You are just starting to crawl out of the nursery!" She got a degree before she started having children, she had them later in life-- and by then she had mastered a lot of "advanced" jobs. She told me to always push the envelope and learn, but to be aware of my present limitations.
My brother-in-law is an amazing athlete as well as a pretty wise guy. He runs a huge congregation but used to be a counselor. He is always passing on some wisdom and while I won't quote what he said to me because I am not sure if he meant to say it, I will say that I think that I could not pass this guy on the street without him saying something profound. Every moment to this guy is a teaching or learning moment.
My eldest is studying in another state, but my second eldest came over to help me make lunch for everyone. I am amazed by how she knows me so well that we work without talking in the kitchen. We have a sixth sense with each other but while she isn't shocked by it, I completely am shocked when I turn to do something and she is already on it and in the same way I do it! She loved being over here and seeing everyone, too.
My 14 year old daughter was being a pill. I adore her, but she is in a stage where every time she is asked to do something, she slouches and rolls her head and eyes back. I make her do push-ups instead of other forms of punishment and she is getting huge biceps. Instead of this decision on my part curing her of smart-alec comments and her attitude, she has advanced to push-ups with clapping and she is getting good at them. She doesn't change her attitude, but she is getting into shape for her sports! I envision her doing really well at the varsity level and having to attribute her great conditioning to her cheekiness!
We got through Christmas break. This year was not terrible in the least, although I had braced myself for it. My kids are older now, which helps. . . and my mom bought them a Wii! I never wanted to be a mother who put her kids on the computer or games like that, but Wii is not a sedentary game system. We set them up in teams and the looser of a game looses his turn to someone on his or her team and the winner plays one game extra and if he or she wins again, they only play one extra game before handing the controls to someone else on their team. They cheer each other on and yell and get quite excited. Wii is not a typical electronic game. As for me and the Wii? I still don't know how to turn it on and the TV confuses me.
My eldest son turned 13 last night. This is the one who has Aspberger's Syndrome. He obsesses over how lawns are mowed and, in the winter, how snow is shoveled. As he has gotten older and begun to articulate himself better, I am liking what he has to say. His career will probably be in something to do with property maintenance. His Aspberger symptoms may turn out to be an asset, after all!
I have a couple of shawls on my needles at the moment. What I don't like about knitting is that I feel like I am painting by number with it. I know my stitches, but you have to work off patterns. A good knitter can look at something, squint their eyes and point out where you did a knit when you should have purled, or where you did a double increase instead of a triple increase and then explain how you did well to compensate, "because no one else will look this closely!" and this annoys me. Few look that closely and those comments on minor mistakes are more to show off, as in, "Look how much I know and can see a mistake!" than on the overall appearance of the piece. I do not do shoddy work, but some people are so into precision that they become machines when they knit. I like taking simple patterns and spicing them up with color and texture. This doesn't mean that everything that I do is bright-- there are lots of stunning, sensual neutral colors, especially in angora blends. I have met people who hold patterns in their heads. I don't have many in my head, but the local yarn store says the patterns are like math equations. I told her that I have not been able to do well and with confidence and certainty she said to me, "Knitting will make you able to remember math equations." She explained that knit patterns are physical manifestations of patterns, that once I can retain them, that I will be able to go into abstract ideas and that it will get easier, especially with the kids getting older.
Knitting is more expensive than drawing. As much as I spend on chalks, I spend more on yarns. Working with yarn takes up more time and of course, I like nice yarn, but I can also do some good work with not-so-good-yarn so it doesn't matter that it's not great.
I realized that my sister-in-law's light does not make what I feel like is darkness on my part more dark, but more light. I do not trust people who are extremely complimentary-- I always wait to hear the, "but" that shakes me to my core and makes me realize that everything good that was said meant nothing. Not with her. I watched her with my kids and her exuberance and enthusiasm had them wanting to show her how amazing they are. Even when I knitted some dishcloths for her, she was so excited that I almost ran off to get the rest of my work to show her. (OMG! I want that talent that she has to bring out the very best in people! What a great super power to have-- to pull the very best from people! I so much wish I wasn't immune to her, as well as having been skeptical of her.)
When I say that my sister-in-law is a perfect person, this does not mean that she looks down on anyone. Quite contrary to this-- she is very accepting of everyone. She really looks at every person as a unique creation of her Christian god. She runs huge fundraisers and teaches and does everything very well. Yes, her light showed how chaotic my life was. I told her how amazing she is and how stupid I feel when I am around her and she said, "You've had no time for what I do! You are finally able to go to the bathroom by yourself! What do you know of what you can do? You are just starting to crawl out of the nursery!" She got a degree before she started having children, she had them later in life-- and by then she had mastered a lot of "advanced" jobs. She told me to always push the envelope and learn, but to be aware of my present limitations.
My brother-in-law is an amazing athlete as well as a pretty wise guy. He runs a huge congregation but used to be a counselor. He is always passing on some wisdom and while I won't quote what he said to me because I am not sure if he meant to say it, I will say that I think that I could not pass this guy on the street without him saying something profound. Every moment to this guy is a teaching or learning moment.
My eldest is studying in another state, but my second eldest came over to help me make lunch for everyone. I am amazed by how she knows me so well that we work without talking in the kitchen. We have a sixth sense with each other but while she isn't shocked by it, I completely am shocked when I turn to do something and she is already on it and in the same way I do it! She loved being over here and seeing everyone, too.
My 14 year old daughter was being a pill. I adore her, but she is in a stage where every time she is asked to do something, she slouches and rolls her head and eyes back. I make her do push-ups instead of other forms of punishment and she is getting huge biceps. Instead of this decision on my part curing her of smart-alec comments and her attitude, she has advanced to push-ups with clapping and she is getting good at them. She doesn't change her attitude, but she is getting into shape for her sports! I envision her doing really well at the varsity level and having to attribute her great conditioning to her cheekiness!
We got through Christmas break. This year was not terrible in the least, although I had braced myself for it. My kids are older now, which helps. . . and my mom bought them a Wii! I never wanted to be a mother who put her kids on the computer or games like that, but Wii is not a sedentary game system. We set them up in teams and the looser of a game looses his turn to someone on his or her team and the winner plays one game extra and if he or she wins again, they only play one extra game before handing the controls to someone else on their team. They cheer each other on and yell and get quite excited. Wii is not a typical electronic game. As for me and the Wii? I still don't know how to turn it on and the TV confuses me.
My eldest son turned 13 last night. This is the one who has Aspberger's Syndrome. He obsesses over how lawns are mowed and, in the winter, how snow is shoveled. As he has gotten older and begun to articulate himself better, I am liking what he has to say. His career will probably be in something to do with property maintenance. His Aspberger symptoms may turn out to be an asset, after all!
I have a couple of shawls on my needles at the moment. What I don't like about knitting is that I feel like I am painting by number with it. I know my stitches, but you have to work off patterns. A good knitter can look at something, squint their eyes and point out where you did a knit when you should have purled, or where you did a double increase instead of a triple increase and then explain how you did well to compensate, "because no one else will look this closely!" and this annoys me. Few look that closely and those comments on minor mistakes are more to show off, as in, "Look how much I know and can see a mistake!" than on the overall appearance of the piece. I do not do shoddy work, but some people are so into precision that they become machines when they knit. I like taking simple patterns and spicing them up with color and texture. This doesn't mean that everything that I do is bright-- there are lots of stunning, sensual neutral colors, especially in angora blends. I have met people who hold patterns in their heads. I don't have many in my head, but the local yarn store says the patterns are like math equations. I told her that I have not been able to do well and with confidence and certainty she said to me, "Knitting will make you able to remember math equations." She explained that knit patterns are physical manifestations of patterns, that once I can retain them, that I will be able to go into abstract ideas and that it will get easier, especially with the kids getting older.
Knitting is more expensive than drawing. As much as I spend on chalks, I spend more on yarns. Working with yarn takes up more time and of course, I like nice yarn, but I can also do some good work with not-so-good-yarn so it doesn't matter that it's not great.
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Year's Eve
 |
| A New Year wish for someone I hold in high regard |
This has been a rebuilding year for us. I don't rememebr last NYE-- we were at the rental house and I don't rememebr very much. I don't think I cried, but I was sad quite a bit. This year when I unpacked the Christmas decorations, I remembered only buying the birds for the tree, but I know I bought all of it because I had joked with my husband that I'd saved an exorbitant amount of money at the store and he paused and asked me, "And how much did you have to spend to save so much?" This was the second year in the 14 that my husband and I have been married that I didn't have to put the tree into a play-pen.
Anyway, all is well at the Crumpet House.
I think that I have always been overwhelmed and the fire woke me up to the fact that I have been overwhelmed for the last 14 years (then it was 13 years) of my life. At the time, I thought it was the fire and surely the after the fire it was, but there are a lot of kids and I have had no family to depend on unless literally, someone in my family was dying or I was giving birth. I needed an extreme emergency for help!
The last 3 months have been about us settling. My kids are at different schools that I drive them to in the mornings. I have to fill up my SUV tank every forth day. How do I manage to put 65 miles on it every day, four days a week? The furthest I drive is 18 miles away, but times everything by at least 2 and they add up. I have realized with all the driving that I am always tired, always trying to catch up on more sleep and always running behind.
Today I realized that I wake up late and run out of the house late for everything. We are late to at least one of the kids' schools every day. I have asked my husband to please get to bed early, as in before 9:30 because he doesn't seem to need as much sleep as I do and I can't sleep until he gets to bed, but he doesn't like to. I am not sure how to handle it, but I would ultimately like to be up and dressed before the kids are so that they can wake up to a mom who is on top of things in 2011. I think that if I am on top of things (I feel like I've been body surfing through life-- and I am learning to go from dog paddle to hopefully a stead crawl stroke.)
Anyway, it has been a good year as far as rebuilding. I don't know if I can call it "good" because I am starting to get a sense that I can breathe now. The kids are getting older and while they need me with them more than ever (my sons' brotherly love is more "Cain and Able" than "Orville and Wilbur") I am really in a position to do more creatively.
My husband has been truly amazing. He has his faults-- but he has really done his best when not trying --with the kids-- to drive me out of my mind. He, not me, got us into the house we are now in. And he keeps us afloat. I realized a few days ago that my dream of doing something for pay and working around other adults will most likely not happen and he is the one who works, whether he likes ot or not. (He loves his job and he is quite fortunate.)
I think that what has helped me most through this year (besides the obvious, my husband) has been that I started making Shabbat dinners every Friday. I am not Jewish, but I have always leaned that way-- probably since I was 15. I may convert one day, but I fear that once what I like doing becomes an obligation, I may resent it. I don't want to resent it and I always want to enjoy it's beauty. About 2 years ago I decided to try getting my house as clean as I could and then have a nice dinner and except for dishes, relax for one day. Certainly there were places to take the kids, but I wouldn't bother with nagging at myself to get more done. There is always more to do, so when I gave myself permission to say, "It is done for now and like G-d, I, too, shall rest." I got more done when I resumed.
After the fire, I stopped for 10 months and resumed in July of this year. I started with just observing with tea and cookies! Within a month I was back baking challah bread and kosher grape juice. The baking of challah is spiritual for me because I feel like the making of the bread is like putting my family and friends together. At the rental house, I felt like my postage stamp kitchen was suddenly big enough for me. We have done things backward-- to my Jewish friends, the candles, wine and blessings are the biggest deal, but to me it has been the making of the nice dinner where we would all sit down to eat that has been the biggest issue. At that tiny rental house, the kitchen seemed just right as I cooked even though making burritos in the microwave for four people was usually too much!
I must add here that when I tried having a family night any other night of the week and tried to make it just any night, it was not the same. For me, Shabbat is only on Friday evening to Saturday at sundown. I am slowly starting to not knit of Friday nights and Saturdays. This is hard, but I need the break for my mind. More ideas come to me while I can't create. I'd not drawn for a while and as soon as I decided that I would not draw on Fridays, my mind flooded with ideas. (I did my first drawing in months of a golden lab puppy last Sunday-- she'd been in my mind for a month or two and I finally got her on paper!)
So we are looking forward to the new year. Starshine will be a whole half year into kindergarten, God willing that all goes as planned, and the kids will be a year older and I will be close to turning 43. I hope that I will have cherished this coming year!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Greetings and a Commitment
As of late I have just been busy. Moving and raising children are hard work! I have been writing letters to a friend who has been away but he is returning and not needing me to keep writing and entertaining him, and I am coming back to my writing of my blog. It has been hard to write post inferno, but I am ready to resume.
About a year ago, probably a little over a year ago, I started knitting. When life has stressed me out, I have turned to it. What is it about fiber that is good for a person who is mourning? We couldn't afford presents but I was able to knit them and while I am late getting them out, they are bags in which I am putting Alaskan jams and jellies for friends and relatives. It is known that I will knit regardless and so people like my mom know that I have the yarn, and who can't use a good, roomy, farmer's market bag? Hemp is my favorite material for farmer's market bags, but I am making all kinds of things. I love that I can create something useful! My mother loves that she gets dishcloths from me on a regular basis-- and it is embarrassing, but she isn't framing my pictures and having to find space, so she either uses them or gives them to friends. In this picture here, I am finishing a little bag. I prefer pictures of my hands to my face.
I have returned to drawing. This past weekend, I was making time to draw when I got some terrible news and while no one had died, it kind of killed me. I tried to draw (which I hadn't done in almost a year) and my arms were numb. Most of this week I have been depressed over it and have decided that I want to draw regardless of my mood. So my husband came to bed early and he was greatly annoyed with me as I began sketching him. Specifically, his feet. He did not know that I was drawing his feet, but his feet are sensitive and as I drew he kept yelling, "Don't touch my feet!" I told him that I was drawing his shoulders. He got up and looked and I had, indeed, been drawing his feet. Am I that good that he could feel my stylus on his toes? (I must be a Ninja Artist!) I was really drawing on the pad, probably six feet away from him, not drawing on his body.
Winter break is almost over. My kids are busy this time and it isn't overwhelming as it has been in the past. I hardly remember anything from last year. Last year we were at the rental house and my kids tried to play the World Series with Christmas wrapping paper tubes and ornaments. My husband yelled at me for refusing to put up the tree or decorations until break began, but I didn't feel like fetching fallen or pulled off ornaments. So far, so good, no problems with ornaments or decorations being misused. If they are good this year until January 1, I will put them up a week earlier next year. It wasn't the little kids who messed with the ornaments, it was my three middle sons who were then ages 11, 10 and 9. Does having them be a whole year older make any difference in maturity? (No. My husband actually got mad at them for why I'd not put up the ornaments and told them that he shops more when he has more decorations up and to not screw themselves next year! He shopped the same as always, but they seem to be getting a clue!)
I sometimes wish winter break was shorter, but I think of when I was fighting a custody battle with my ex husband and I don't want it shorter. My daughters wanted to be home as much as they were able to be, so I won't bug anyone on the school board about this.
I will soon start sharing pictures of what I draw. I am going to start drawing for at least ten minutes each evening and take pictures. I want to draw awesome hands and feet. I did massage therapy and I think that hands and feet are amazing. We often see what artists render and they will put anything in from of hands to hide them. Feet reside in shoes much of the time. Since we don't notice them as much, they are not as easily recognized or appreciated.
We are getting ready for Christmas and I am ready for it. As we started to do last year, I am making traditional meals. The kids like traditional now where before, turkey was not the norm and we'd have other things that we liked and at regularly.
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