New Language, Anywhere Is. . . and My Bathroom Remodel

I am very excited: I went to the lottery last night for an Immersion Program in the next town and Mudd, Dmitri and Guy were all accepted in to the program. There were no openings for Calamity Jane or Basil's classes but they were both drawn first to be at the tops of their wait lists. The laws of averages are on my side that people will drop out of the school and the teachers expect it, so I am excited and pretty much planning to get them all in. My house will be covered in sticky notes as we learn a New Language.

I will get the Greek eventually— my tutor wanted to cancel as Lent has picked up. I know the sounds of the letters now. I can follow. I have to get the kids speaking and understanding a new language decently by September. I start doing something and something else comes up, it’s a constant with me and annoys me. Such is life—I will learn Greek one day and I know I can learn it. Do you know the song Anywhere Is by Enya? If I ever become famous and important, that song will be my theme song in the Story of My Life.



I walk the maze of moments
But everywhere I turn to
Begins a new beginning
But never finds a finish
I walk to the horizon
And there I find another
It all seems so surprising
And then I find that I know

One of my psych profs in college compared me to a "sexy sports car with a random gear shift going 120 down a curvy road." I saw him a few years ago and we had lunch and he said I'd not changed, only picked up speed!

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Now I am on a country road in life.

I have realized that for a long time I was volunteering in some heavy duty groups because I was good at them as well as because I needed to get out of the house. Now I am holding on to my moments with the kids, but for the past 12 years, I was just overwhelmed! How did I manage to get through the years with no help from my mother or any close friends, those long years of seemingly doing nothing but going from one baby to the next. Poor Darin would come home and I was out to yoga or wherever. I look at other large families and they have support. Having all the kids potty trained has been huge for me! I am like, "Wow! I have extra time!" I really can feel a difference. I don't have the need to be gone or get validation as I once did.

Darin tolerated me for 12 years of me being on autopilot. It is only now that I am seeing his huge sacrifice and appreciating him, but I don’t know if I have seen the full amount of what he has done for all of us—- me and the kids. I don’t know how he put up with me. I told him all that I just told you and he kissed my forehead and said that it meant the world to him that I had seen it, but he said that I too was being crunched and had demands also put on my body that he didn’t have. I have started massaging oil into his skin every day to show him that I love him. He says that I don't have to make it up to him but that he won't talk me out of trying!

Now I am volunteering doing things that play into my strengths. At the charter school, I will be volunteering with the kids, probably doing something with drama. I am doing a radio show and I am doing a reading hour with children on Saturdays that I love. These things are a blast. I don't like doing them-- I love doing them and I get my energy from them.



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We are finally redecorating our bathroom. A dozen years of showers by often 7-11 people per day took it’s toll and it’s been in bad shape for 2 years but something always took higher importance. It has to be done right now. I had seen some things that I liked online and Lowes sells them so I remembered the names (Moen, Kohler) and not the prices and went down to pick them out with a budget of $2,500. The one faucet that I loved turned out to be $500! The vanity top was $3,000, although he told me that I have excellent taste. I am glad that the salesman told me and shifted my dream instead of Darin as there would have been a projectile hissy fit. I was very hooked on a certain look. The salesman asked me what I wanted when I realized that I couldn’t afford it and he said, “You want a clean, pretty bathroom with enough bath towel holders for the kids, and a working fan.” He walked me through the stuff they have on site that cost twenty per cent of what I had wanted.

The faucets are works of art! OK, the ones I didn’t get are works of art. I found out that grout is just not practical with an over worked little bathroom that so many use. We will start work on this in a few weeks—- Darin has to get a window put in first as well as clearing out our bathroom for the time being for everyone to use. I feel like everything screams, “This is what I can afford”-— not, “This is what I love.” I will love it when it gets put in. It's "mine."

He is also going to let me come up with a Trompe-l'œil mural in the next year or two. I will get my marble tiles if I have to paint them into a wall, gosh darn it!