Accessories for the (Steampunk) Lady: For the Waist

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Steampunk Style, for the Lady

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anecdotal wisdom

I am not one of those people who easily remembers Bible verses, quotations, jokes.  But sometimes a snippet or idea will stick despite myself, and sometimes I think it is because God wants me to have it on hand, so to speak, when I need it. 

Once of those that has stuck in my mind, and resurfaced over and over again through the years, was originally a little throw-away blurb at the bottom of an article in Reader's Digest, of all places.  If you have ever read RD (who hasn't at some Dr.'s office at some point?) you know that those are the little humorous anecdotes that the editors use to nicely fill up otherwise blank space at the bottom of a page; most likely things readers originally submitted for one of the magazine's regular reader-submitted features, but which, for whatever reason, were not considered worthy of inclusion.  I read it years ago--I mean years, probably when I was in college, most likely even before I was dating DH--and did not think much of it at the time (or I would have saved it!).  And yet, it stuck, and the older and more experienced in marriage I have become, the more I value it for its simplicity and grace and truth.

So here is the little story, my paraphrase of course:

At my Great-Aunt and Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary party, I made sure to get a moment alone with my Great Aunt to ask her the secret of their long and successful marriage. 

My Great-Aunt said to me, "Well, it's very simple.  The night before my wedding, I decided that I would keep a list of ten things that my husband could do that might make me mad or drive me crazy, but which I would choose to overlook for the sake of our marriage."   

Curious, I asked her, "So, what were some of the things on the list?"

And she answered, "You know, I never did get around to making that list.  But every time he did something that really made me burn, I just said to myself, 'Lucky for him that's one of the ten!'"

Brilliant. 

And--since this is pretty much the way I imagine Jesus keeps track of our "transgressions"--the embodiment of Grace.  


Oh, and don't go thinking poor DH is doing anything particularly "list-worthy" these days--I've just been meaning to share this for a while and finally remembered when I had time to blog! ; )

The first week of School/Summer

Yesterday morning I saw the first yellow school bus rumble down the road in front of our house, and I realized it was the first day of school at our local elementary.  It was also the first truly summer day we have had all year--temperatures reached the lower 80's where we are, and I am sure reached the lower 90's in Santa Cruz.  (I heard this has been the coldest summer on record since 1973--average highs at our house were in the 60's!) So, to celebrate both, we packed up our mathbooks and went down to do school at the beach. : )  Hey--those are some of the best parts of homeschooling, and I need to remind myself to celebrate more often!  And it was truly gorgeous--absolutely perfect weather, neither blistering sun or chilly breeze, but just relaxation and calm. Ahhhhh. 

Oh, and it was made all the better because the girls actually had been working up into a terrible morning, all grumpy and not making good choices.  So to go from not liking my children very much and dreading schooling. . .  to sitting on a blanket in the warm sunshine with all three girls spread out around the beach contentedly bent over their workbooks, and Smiley sitting between my legs reclined back on me, just looking at the water. . . Ahhhhhhh.

We have been doing school much of the summer.  Partly because I choose to school year round, and take breaks when we want/need them instead of at arbitrarily assigned times.  And partly because we had such good momentum at the very end of last Spring--it felt like our semester was just getting going in May!--and I wanted to keep on rolling to finish some things up.  And partly because I don't like the painful re-entry into schooling if we take too long off--two weeks off is a perfect break, just long enough to give everyone a rest and not so long that our brains and discipline all turn to mush.  And partly because, honestly, we have not met some of our learning goals for last year, and I really wanted to feel better about them before we officially tackled the new year.

Grade levels are so nebulous in homeschooling, so it is really not a big deal if we do some typically 4th grade work in 5th grade.  But my brain likes things tidy and so I can't feel like we are truly entering the next grade level if we have things undone.  And DH cares VERY much about our kids not being "behind" public school kids.  On one hand, what does that mean?  They are learning some things I did not learn until adulthood, which I am sure other 4th graders did not get this past year. . . on the other hand,  there are some basics that all 4th graders in the state of CA learned last year, and so it seems a no-brainer to take a week and cover them (seriously--you could meet all the core requirements in one month of homeschool, easily, so why not?).

So while we took off 1 or 2 weeks in June and 3 weeks in July, we have been going strong all August, and it has been good.  I made school goals easy and fun, opting to support the structure of school more than being hard on the academics.  Each older girl made a list at the beginning of the summer of her personal academic goals; for example, Sunny wanted to learn about Egypt, watercolor paint, and build an amusement park out of recycled plastic bits (which is such an awesome idea we are going to incorporate that into our plastics unit and do it with our local homeschool group!), and Merry wanted to perfect her printing and learn handwriting.  Both girls wanted to participate in a summer reading club.  So every day I would assign them only three school tasks--usually two were things I wanted them to do, and one was their choice from their list.

And the personal academic goals lists worked so well, I plan on using them every month/semester this school year.  Since the girls chose the things on their lists, they never once fussed about "having" to do them.  They got to choose what they did and yet they were things I wanted them to be doing too--win win!

Anyway, the official first day of our homeschool program was the 16th.  Since I was not psychologically or practically ready to start up the new grades, we just continued our summer school, and will begin our new school year the week after Labor Day.  That feels right, and gives us a couple of weeks to nicely round up our summer school, and ending with a back-to-school homeschool party that my friend Becky and I will host for our Vintage Homeschool Moms group.  Last year it was awesome--families made booths/displays of "What I Did During Summer Vacation" (which they had to write something for) and each got to do a presentation for everyone, and then of course we had food and the kids played and the moms caught up and dreamed for what we wanted to do together during the new school year.  This year. . . well, the party may end up being short notice, so we might not do the educational component like last time, but then again, why not?  Flexibility--again, it's one of the best things about homeschooling, and we should take full advantage of it. : )

Summer.  School.  Ahhhhhhh.

Steam-punk 101

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introducing another new blog on my sidebar

I don't even know how I find some of these blogs, just starting at one of my usual reads and following some link trail, I guess.  (It's not like I am on the computer ALL the time, but when I am sitting down for my afternoon tea respite, sometimes blog reading is the perfect mental escape.)  But this one, Creating my Own Little Nirvana, has been fascinating--another glimpse into a life so different from mine, another beautiful story in the making.  And you know how I love God stories--well, now that I think about it, maybe you don't, since I keep meaning to write them down here but have so far only posted a couple.  ANYWAY, if you are in the mood for an amazing, goose-bumpy good story, here you go. 

And then if that was not enough God awesomeness, check this one out.

geeky humor

From menstruation to Star Wars, I am clearly back to being all over the place with this blog. 

Welcome to my brain!

I thought I would take a moment and introduce a new blog on my sidebar, Epbot.  This is the sister blog to Cake Wrecks, created by CW founder Jen as an outlet for all her non-cake ideas and delights.  This blog is so much fun to read--Jen is amazingly crafty, and is a truly girlie geek at heart, but her writing is what always gives me a smile.  She and her husband John have been at a big Star Wars convention in Orlando, Florida, and they have been posting photos of costumes they sighted while there, some amazingly acurate, some just funny, and others funny and cool:

In honor of the Rosas

(As you can see, the photo belongs to Epbot--hopefully Jen won't mind me using it here since I am using it to laud her blog!)

on bleeding and life-giving

Ok, I lied.  I said I would finish whatever I wanted to write about my week in Illinois this past weekend--not for any particular reason, just because my brain liked how neat and tidy that would be.  Finish that one train before jumping into my usual stream of consciousness blogging.  Except it turns out the things left to say are not little things--not snippets.  They are big things, like homeschooling, and marriage, and breastfeeding and spiritual growth.  So I guess I will just let go of my need for tidiness here in this blog--because, really, why should my blog be any different than all the other facets of my happily untidy life?--and jump right on in to the swing of life as it is now.

And at this exact now, the pendulum of life has swung to that time of the month.
(so, no more snippets, but loads of TMI ahead)

This is a sorta big deal for me, since I have not had a period for. . . (counting on fingers. . . resorting to paper and pencil. . . ) 33 months.  Almost three years.  And I truly enjoyed being without periods, so am only reluctantly welcoming them back into my life. 

Welcome back.  We loathe and are embarassed by periods when we are teenagers, dismayed at the treachery of our bodies that would make us ache and stink and break out every month, and give any notion of premarital sex an ominous weight.  Then when we are women, more attuned to our bodies, to the give-and-take of pleasure and sacrifice and rhythm and blood, we are much more accepting of our menstrual cycles.  We are like little heathens, our bodies connected to the moon, to the earth, to loam and musk--fresh-bodied still, our spirits and flesh much more loosely bound.  The most heathen of us anticipating the blood rite with eagerness, with dread, with despair, then with relief and celebration as the spin of the roulette wheel once more chooses liberty, and the slow decay. We get practical about the mechanics of our monthly rituals, and even flippant, or if we are lucky, transparent about it all with a lover with whom we are safe.

When we have matured a little more in our sexuality, feeling a fullness of body, a readiness, a restlessness for achieving life, our periods take on a whole new weight.  They no longer represent inconvenience, uncomfortableness, awkwardness;  instead, they represent a cycle of life to which we are now drawn, in which we hope and trust with desire and awe.  Suddenly, sex takes on a spiritual weight, our bodies and spirits pulled together by awareness and longing--we are vulnerable, and beautifully so, as with our lover   we seek to make love tangible, physical, in a new little body into which we expect to pour forth all our joy and by which multiply our joy further.

And then, when motherhood is no longer about anticipating but immersion, when our bodies are no longer young and ripe but worn and dried out, when our spirits are weighed by the daily toil of loving those little bodies, little beings--then . . . ?

That's as far as I have gotten on this walk--I am not sure how the story ends.  But as you can tell, since two days ago I have been conscious of entering a new stage in my sexual/fertile life, and I am not sure how it will be defined, what it will hold.

But yesteday, in "celebration," I took the day off.  I knew it was coming--had warning signals for several days.  Night before last I knew it would be yesterday, and so I mapped the day all out:  stay in pj's all day, lay around as much as possible, eat whatever chocolate happens to be on hand. (Which, to my complete dissatisfaction, was NONE.  Next month I'm planning ahead.)  The girls and I did school, but it was a slow and easy day, more keeping up momentum than actually having goals to accomplish.  I actually did way more than I intended to--some necessary yardwork, and cooking for both lunch and dinner (again, next month I'm planning ahead), but I also allowed myself to not do a few other things that really needed doing, like vacuum and do laundry.

And, really, it was not that bad of a day. Cramp wise, I mean. On one hand, this could just mean my body is being a little slower to get back with the game now that I am so advanced in age, but the bad cramps will still come by next month.  OR if things are really starting to slow down, my body slowly shutting down its productivity, then maybe the cramps won't come back with such a vengenance ever again.  That alone would certainly make me look at periods much more affectionately.  Ah, poor tired ovaries, you've done good, girls, your run is nearly through.  Ah, my dear uterus, whose thick, rich nourishment I always distained, and yet which grew and held my babies strong and healthy--your showing this first month is but a wan reminder of your past vibrance, vitality, and my abundant fecundity, which I have taken for granted all these years. 

It is nice to be now at a place of feeling affection for my body like this.  When I was young, my body and I were most definately at odds; for several years the cramps and overall ill-feeling were so harsh I even threw up once a month.  Ugh.  I am very fortunate that my parents had sympathy, and let me stay home from school on those days.  But still, I remember days when I had something important I needed to do after school, like audition for a play, and so had to stick it out all day. . . and yes, even hurling at school, at least once in that exact same bathroom featured two posts earlier (first stall on the right--ah, memories).  And then, when I was in college a gynocologist told me about A*naprox (now available over the counter as A*leve, which, yes, it does).  If you have bad cramps and have not yet discovered the magic of A*leve, please let me urge you to try it out as quickly as possible.  No other pain killers come close.  But I must also confess that I have always doubled the recommended dose, to meet the dose prescribed for me, which is NOT medical advice, so always talk to your doctor before doing any drugs (does that phrase cover me from lawsuit?), but definitely ask him if you can try upping your A*naprox if you are wanting to feel the magic.

Yesterday I didn't need any pain meds.  The cramps, like I said, were not bad, and they reminded me oh so vaguely of post-partum cramps, which I actually always enjoyed (well, after the first day when I felt likeI was going to vomit or pass out from their intensity) because they reassured me after each baby that my uterus was doing what it could to reduce my distended belly back to what would be "the new normal."  And these cramps were such a pale imitation of what my periods used to be, that every ache in my back and abdomen was a positive reminder of how great this was in comparison.  And I remembered too, nostalgically and a little awed, how those heavy periods and horrible cramping had meant there were some serious baby-making hormones at work, and organs eager to do their job. 
And, yes, I have been quite fertile.  Proof is on my sidebar--but that is not even the half of it. Seriously.  Once we decided to try for our first child, I think it took us a few months to get pregnant.  But no more than 3, and that includes the time my body was re-adjusting from being on the pill.  When our first baby, Sunny, was about 16 months old, we decided we would like to have a second child, but did not want them to be too far apart in age, and knew it might take a while to get pregnant (in theory), so I actually weaned Sunny completely so that I would resume ovulation and menstruation and we could try for a second.  My body jumped into overdrive big time--and I started having two periods a month!  Well, at least I had three periods in a month and a half, and then I got pregnant.

Years later, once again I ended up weaning our second, Merry, at 18 months, and once again my body kicked into overdrive, and the exact same things happened.  By this point we had figured out that fertility was not an issue for us.  We also realized we still had our senses of humor, which is fortunate for my death-defying Dear Husband, who, during my third period in two months, listened to me griping about something and then asked with mock concern, "Oh, is it that time of the two weeks again?" 

When I weaned our third child, Happy, I am pretty sure my body was wacko at the start, but this time I did not pay it any mind, except to be glad whenever I had a period because--as I have mentioned before--we did not think we wanted any more kids.  So, it took a while longer, what with the various methods of birth control we were using and all, at which God must have just looked and chuckled, but a short while later we ended up with Smiley.  And now, here we are in this strange spot--feeling really, truly blessed and submitted to God in this area of life, and yet feeling done with our family, and not having any clue what that will look or feel like.

So the blood yesterday, today, brings up so many emotions, so many memories, such strong fears and hopes for our future.  I do welcome it, as symbolic of this journey I am on in body and mind and spirit, and give it over to God, along with the fears and hopes.  I feel like He and I are embarking upon a stage in the journey even bigger than where we have walked before, and while it is a journey with my husband, it is even more a journey of MySelf, walking in faith. 

You brave (and not easily offended/made queasy) readers who have made it through this post--you have my sincere admiration.  Thanks for coming along. 


Coming soon. . . the complete Blessed restrospective of child-birth and lactation!  ; )

Summer Snippet #3

This weekend I'll write my last thoughts and bits from the visit back to IL and the reunion:

First, some swank:

Ooooooh!  Ahhhhhh!

Of course there's a story.  The week before I go to Illinois (this is about two weeks before the event), I end up emailing back and forth with Wendy, the organizer of the reunion, about the Saturday night dinner.  So in one of those emails, I offer to help her out with whatever little reunion details she needs help with when I am in town the week before the reunion.  She emails and says she needs help with ideas for decorations for the dinner Saturday night.  I run over to etsy for inspiration, and email back saying, "What if you could make what look like little vintage decanter labels with our high school logo on them to hang off of wine bottles?  That would be fairly easy, inexpensive (the restaurant could save wine bottles for us to use), and classy, and either flowers or candles could be put inside the empty wine bottles.  And people could take them home if they wanted, as souveniers."  She thinks that's a great idea.

Oh, you savvy readers already know where this is going.

So late Tuesday night the week of the reunion she emails and tells me she is swamped with work stuff and asks if I could please "design" the labels.  There is something ominous about that wording, and so I emailed to ask if by "design" she does indeed mean "make."  Yes, she does.

Ok, folks, this is the moment when I need to stop and formally declare that I am NOT a crafty person.  Yes, I have a definite artistic side, and yes, I consider myself somewhat of a "Jill of all trades" and think I can do just about anything with even just a small degree of success.  But my true skill lies in generating ideas, not implementing them.  And certainly not on short notice, and certainly not when a certain degree of professionalism is going to be expected.  Ack! 

But it was me or nobody.  And I knew I could do it, I was just not sure how well I could do what I knew would look best.  So I went to the craft store to investigate materials Weds., then had to talk with Wendy Weds. night to confer about what she really was wanting.  Then Mina and Susan arrived Thursday and while we were out and about shopping and lunching we also stopped and they helped me finalize the materials.  Friday I started to work on the project, and while I was talking through the idea with Mina and Susan, Mina had the BRILLIANT idea of having a watermark of our Central High School "C" behind the words.  But this idea would involve computer skills, which I have NOT at all.  But Susan said, essentially, "Oh, that's easy, let me have a minute with it" and starting humming away on her Apple laptop.  And while it ended up taking several HOURS to work out various technical problems, like blurry fonts, centering issues, etc., and us running to Kinko's twice to get the final product printed out, the end result looked AMAZING, and did confirm my long-held suspicion that Susan has some mad computer skills. 

By this point, however, if was time for the Friday night event and so we had to put off the actual makings of the labels until the next day.  So Saturday after the school tour, when Susan M. and Susan and her husband Luke and Mina and DH and my parents and I were all hanging around the table casually chatting. . . I was also cutting and gluing and edging like mad.  (And none of that could have happened without my Mom's collection of scrapbooking stuff, which she was so awesome to loan me!)  So finally, it came down to the last part--the chain.  Only to find we did not have the right tools.  While Dad was off rummaging in his tool boxes, Susan watched me for a few minutes trying in vain to maneuver the tiny links with just my inadequate fingernails, and then took over.  Then Dad found his little pliers and snips and I would have been happy to take it back over, but Susan had worked out the method and was so fast that within 20 minutes she had attached the chains to all the labels. 

So, with the help of my wonderful, highly skilled and brilliant and patient friends, we managed to deliver about 15 of these labels to the restaurant about an hour and a half before the event was set to begin.

Not perfect, but all things considered, not bad. : )  Wendy thought they were great, and the owner of the trendy little restaurant where we had the event (who was also a classmate of ours) thought they were such a good idea she was going to use the idea in the future, and I saw some classmates taking them off the bottles at the end of the evening to take home.  So, all in all, I'd say it was a happy story, and a good memory of the reunion. And when Mina and Susan stop rolling their eyes, I am sure they will look back on it fondly as well. 



P.S. The labels looked great on the wine bottles at the tables--with a single flower in each bottle.  The label does not quite fit right on my green--vinegar?--bottle.  But you get the idea.  
P.P.S. About the horrible window painting job visible behind the vase in the first photo--this is not my work.  This is just an example of the imperfections lingering all around the house from the previous owners.  They apparently would get the urge to paint parts of the house without bothering to mask off the parts that they were not planning on painting.  They also stuck seemingly random nails and thumbtacks into the walls and floors everywhere around the house.  And used nails too long for the depth of the boards so that the bare points of nails protrude from cabinets and walls at child-danger height.  All things we are slowly fixing. . . ANYWAY, I just had the need to tell you that I was not the one responsible for the ugliness.

Summer Snippet #2

Yes, I know two weeks ago I said I was going to post lots of snippets and photos, so I could get all the things piled up in my head out here in the way least painful to all of us. I gotta get cracking--the things I really want to write are seriously starting to overtake my thought patterns in the day! When I get an idea going around and around, I find myself blogging in my head about it, and that does not stop until I actually get it written down. Sometimes I even write things that I never "publish," just to get them out of their holding pattern in my brain.


(Which also really makes me wonder what I used to do with the ideas before I blogged. Probably pounced upon my poor, unsuspecting husband some nights when he came home from a long day of work at the office. . . )

And because my brain is the way it is--you know, so obsessive compulsive organized--I have to finish up the trip to IL and the reunion before I can move on.

So here are a couple more pics from the reunion. . .

I was so fortunate in high school not only to have Mina and Susan, but to also have another Susan as a best friend:

Me and Susan M., in front of the choir room during the school tour--

and I can't believe this dim mobile upload is one of the only pics we got of just the two of us

 from the entire weekend! How did that happen?!

Mina and I became friends the summer before freshman year of H.S. when she moved in down the street from me; then midway through our freshman year she introduced me to Susan O., there on the bench in front of school.  I honestly do not know why the three of us became such close friends, other than it was meant to be.  But Susan M. and I became close friends because we were involved in so many of the same activities throughout our years in high school:  musicals, Madrigal Choir, Speech Team, Students for a Better World, Peer Ears (student counsellors).  The first three activities on the list alone accounted for so much of our free time after school and in the evenings and Saturdays, so actually Junior year I probably spent more time with Susan M. than I did with Susan O. and Mina.  And then Mina moved to California the last day of school Junior year, and Susan O.  had an out of town boyfriend she was with much of the time, so Senior year of high school Susan M. was the best friend whom I hung out with the most. 

Saturday morning there was a reunion tour of our alma mater, where I got to relive some of the old, fond memories of my friendship with all three women. 

Memories like hanging out in the bathroom!  Aren't these the most awesome stalls?  Just so classic--I hope they never try to upgrade these bathrooms, because they would just ruin them.  This bathroom is going to look better in 100 years than anything else they could possibly put in, because that's how you made things back in the good ol' days--to last. 

To prove my point further--subway tile!  It's back in style already!  Okay, maybe not in that particular dried pea shade, but still!  And the steam radiators!  Very cool.  Susan M. was our photographer for these shots, and I was going for the nostalgia shot here, reminiscent of how we would all check our hair-do's (and don'ts. hehe) before leaving the bathroom.  Except it looks like I'm checking for gray hairs, which is a little too much realism.

Anyone else remember how teen girls would carry a full-size can of Aqua Net in their purses, for touch-ups in such bathrooms between classes?  Not that I ever did. . . no seriously, I never did.  I was anti-hair product most of my life because I believed it made my acne worse, and I so did not need help in that tragic aspect of life.  And my grandma used Aqua Net, so that was that right there.

We haven't changed a BIT.  ; )

Our high school was not air conditioned back in the day--and amazingly enough, is still not!  Actually, that makes me glad, and not in a sadistic kind of way.  No, I am proud of the "buck-up, pioneer schooler!" attitude of the school, which knows that kids will not actually die of heat, just stick miserably to their seats and lose all ability to pay attention, and might even want to nap, esp. when the teacher turns off the classroom lights in compassion (or was it commiseration?).  And heaven help you if you were not lucky enough to be sitting in the path of one of the box fans teachers would bring from home and set up in the classroom.  Or if you were in a classroom on the first floor, where bees would wander in and out of the open windows.  But still, you grew up hardy, and full of vigor, not like those wimpy Centennial High School kids across town who were actually sent home from school on the days when the air conditioning wasn't working. 

ANYWAY, after the school tour Sat., Susan M. came back to my parents' house with Susan O. and Mina and DH and I and joined my parents for lunch.  It was just a perfect time--laid-back, with delicious, nostalgic summer food (thanks Mom and Dad for such a great lunch!) and good catching-up time.  Really, those moments with my good friends were the best parts of the whole weekend.


 

Best of the Blogsphere #2: Garden Wisdom

I love allegory; word pictures to help us understand an old idea in a new way.  One Thankful Mom wrote this beautiful piece the other day, which is just so, so true, and which I really appreciated hearing.  I urge you to take a moment to go read it!

Best of the Blogsphere #1: Love me them old-time photos!

Remember what I was just saying the other day about Happy in her dress, and how seeing her in it always conjured up mental images of Depression-era black and white photographs?  Well, following the blog trail this morning I found this "new" collection of photos from that time in America--except they are rare color photos.

Please take a moment to look.  The photography itself is amazing.  But it is the emotional life behind the images that staggers me--these are truly historical treasures.

 

Blessing of the Week: Blue Flowers for a Blue Girl

I realized yesterday that I have been feeling a little blue.

Reasons I can think of:

1. Not enough sleep for me or DH this past week, for no good reason. 

2. And definitely keeping up the girls WAAAAAAAY to late Weds. night for that beach bonfire, which appears to have broken their normally sweet dispositions, esp. Sunny's.  And by that I mean my lovely Sunny girl has been AWFUL the past two days.  Things were so yucky Friday I had a hard time even getting into the shower, and even then Smiley was not well attended (normally one area in which Sunny, well, shines) and was getting into things he should not have, and girls got into fights TWICE.  All in the space of the shortest shower I could manage.

3.  This being the absolute coldest and greyest summer EVER.  It's like winter Part 2.  Seriously, every morning for the past several weeks we wake up to a house that is 60 degrees.  DH has to make a fire before work to take the chill off.  Usually the sun comes out around 11, so if the house is not too cold we just bring the outdoor warmth in, and all is well.  But the sun has not been coming out until around 3 in the afternoon, and even then the tempterature hovers in the 60's to lower 70's for much of the day, which means without the fire the house would be pretty miserable.  I think all the gray and cold is starting to take its toll on our psyches.

SO, when I realized I was a bit melancholy, and also realized my usual little psychological boost of tea and dark chocolate was not working, I decided I needed to start reminding myself of the GOOD stuff in life.  This means most of all I gotta spend more time hanging out with Jesus, because He is the one sure-fire cure for the blues. 

And I decided too it was about time to have a Blessing of the Week:

These absolutely fabulous hydrangeas were a love gift from my dear Rosa.  She has a huge bush that is practically obscene with these huge, amazingly colored blooms.  She knows how much I love hydrangeas and has been so quick to share at times when their beauty would make some people just want to keep them all to themselves.  These blooms have brightened my kitchen table for over a week and are just now starting to droop--but their beauty, and the reminder of friends who love and support and encourage me, lingers on. 

Just what I needed for a blue week.

Yes, Mom, I Opened the Box!

Here is Merry feeling a little sassy in the dress Mom just finished for her.  That's entirely hand-sewn and hand-smocked, folks.  My mom has amazing talent, and I love the dresses she makes for the girls, the more old-fashioned the better.

Merry says, "It is so beautiful and I was so happy when I first saw it!"

And while we are on the subject, here is another pic, of Happy in one of her new birthday dresses this summer:

I look at her in this dress and can imagine an old black and white photograph of this child, standing on the sideboard of a 1920's Ford truck, her family's earthly treasures piled and bound in the truck bed behind her,  her mother sitting in the front seat, gazing off camera, her face taunt and weary, with a faded but still jaunty hat on her head and a baby fussing in her lap. . . I dunno, maybe that's not at all historically accurate for the actual style and pattern of this dress, but it has such an innocence and yet an old-timey ache to it. . . I think this one will be of my all-time favorites, Mom. : )

(I wish I could show you all the back--the smocking goes all the way around!!!) Luckily it looks like she will be able to wear it for at least two summers!

(And doesn't it look fabulous against my hobbit green door?)

Thank, Mom.

Running from my email tonight. . .

Have you ever opened up your email program and clicked on an email, and the first words you read made you immediately tense and think, "D'oh!" and so you quickly clicked on another one, and it made your stomach roll and you actually heard yourself utter, "Ack!" And after that you glanced at the other emails waiting for your attention and your heart started pounding and your teeth clenched and then you decided just to close Outlook and walk away from the computer?

OK, maybe this was just me, just tonight. But I sat down earlier, unsuspecting, to find a piece of info for DH in an email, saw I had several new emails and as I glanced at them the above scenario unfurled.

--An email from Mom asking if we opened the package she lovingly sent for Merry, containing a beautiful new handmade and hand-smocked dress, which we have had for TWO DAYS and have not opened, because I stuck it away after it arrived TWO DAYS AGO so it would not distract the girls until they had finished their schoolwork (we started "summer school" this week, to get us back in gear before the Fall officially begins, and I am being a stickler about the clock this week--more on this later) and then which we kept forgetting to open and now tonight the girls are off with DH at a beach bonfire and won't get back until way, way too late for opening the package so I can't pull it out until tomorrow and by then it will have been THREE DAYS and sure makes me look uncaring and ungrateful. (Mom, does this serve as an apology?)

--An email from a guy I was re-acquainted with two weekends ago at the reunion, who I knew from middle school and high school, and who I discovered lives about an hour away from me now here in CA. He was always a nice guy, and TOTALLY cute. I had a little crush on him in 8th grade. And he was definitely the best dressed guy both in HS and at the reunion. Although at the reunion Mina and Susan and I were debating if even though he was married and is recently divorced, he might swing both ways, if you know what I mean. So it was fun to be friendly when I first saw him again, and say (and mean) "We'll have to get together sometime out in CA." But over the course of the weekend, he came across as a high-living, high-fashion guy who I don't know would be interested in anything I could possibly say. You know, the type of person who is so outgoing and friendly--the life of the party--but seems above anything too "real" (like I imagine, oh, just about everything in my life, like children and tiny dirty houses).

Of course he emailed to say he is going to be in our area this upcoming weekend and will have free time both Sat and Sunday afternoons, if we want to get together. ACK! Suddenly I felt all insecure, which was so weird--I consider myself typically confident in who I am and perfectly at peace with my life as it is (well, on good days that is. ; ). But as it happens, my father-in-law is coming for the weekend, so I'll have to take a rain check. But seriously, the thought of my kids and life being presented to this classy, urban guy while the whole time I would be over-sensitive to any sign that he finds it all too weird or pathetic--sad, but it makes me want to throw up. Not that I would bring him anywhere even NEAR my home, which some members of our extended family--people who are supposedly "there for us"--liken to housing in third-world countries. It's not that I care about impressing him, seriously--it is more that I don't want to feel like I am supposed to, while knowing that I would only fall dramatically, hilariously short of doing so. Does any of that make sense? I love my life and am not ashamed of it--but then again, I don't parade it in front of people who are likely to be freaked out by it. Sigh.

--THEN I saw an email from facebook notifying me that I was a complete idiot to even begin to initiate rational political discourse with a good friend, in this case Mina. OK, that's not what the email said--which was that she had "commented to her status"--but that's what I read. ; ) The topic is California's Proposition 8. Let's just say Mina and I disagree on a lot of things that are very close to our individual core beings, and so now tonight I am sure Mina is asking herself for the hundreth time since two weekends ago, "Why am I friends with that girl?!" But then reminding herself that she finds me irresistable in my loyal and unwavering devotion to her and the others I love. And that I have impeccable taste in shoes.

And for the record, I think I am doing a pretty good job of presenting my stance logically and in the spirit of respectful disagreement--but it is taking so much mental effort, since the topic is a complete landmine field. I am presenting an unpopular view, and trying to do so while coming off as intelligent and civic-minded, and not a small-minded, gay-hating, uber-Conservative religious wacko. Which I am NOT but which Mina's fb friends are going to assume, so why oh why did I even go there, and since I did go there why do I even care what people think of me or my ideas, except the whole thing makes me feel just like the email #2, that I am somehow accidentally putting the things I value up for sneering and smearing. Sigh.

--And I'll leave you with a last email, which follows the same pattern as the others, which which ended nicely, and might give you a laugh. Earlier today I received an email from a prominent member our area homeschool community, an email she sent to everyone in the community highlighting a rabidly anti-homeschooling article she had come across that had one particularly notable response:

Hello there! This is an interesting topic. I come to this blog today and I see you have several sharp posts. Good job.
Unfortunately, it is true. Home schooling is the same as child abuse. Let me explain this to you.
These parents might have the good intentions. OK. Maybe these children will receive superior book education from a house. But, they are being robbed of many social benefits. There are benefits that you might not even understand now. Your child is at home all day with you? No. That is not good. It makes me sick.

Please listen. Parents here talk about scores. What is a score if your child can't live in the World? You need to realize it. Humans are a group species. You can probably learn a lot from the books if you are in a prison. So? You are in a dark place. No. Public is not perfect, but it is necessary. Improve it.

I see people of all shapes. What do I see? Stupid and broken brains. Wet children who are home schooled might be violent idiots. Or. They will be very depressed that they have no friends and they have never seen the sun. And maybe, they will grow up and kill their own children out of fear.

OK. This is something I need to think about. I will join the discussion again. Then, I will let you know where I take it. Thank you.

That the above supposedly represents a reasoned argument against homeschooling (I find it an argument for!) is funny, but I quickly stopped laughing when I clicked on the link she provided to the original article--the man is clearly snti-Christian, and his rhetoric, brief as it is, is based upon fallacy and illogic. And it prompted me to respond to the homeschool group to share my dismay that people like this guy always jump to the assumption that Christians are ignorant, and willfully propagate that ignorance in their children by shutting them off from the dangerous world of free thinking and throwing the laws of nature and all rational, critical thought out the window. Which means once again I was writing about a hot-button topic to a mostly liberal audience, who most likely agreed with the author on the issue at hand, and I was trying to casually remind them that Christian ideas are as valid as non-Christian ones, and no ideas should be fearful to those who embrace Education as a philosophy, as most homeschool families do--while once again trying not to sound like a small-minded, uber-conservative religious wacko.

Sigh. Again, why did I go there? Why am I suddenly today deciding to speak out against what I see as slanderous illogic? Why do I suddenly care enough about the world's tolerance of Ideas Like Mine and perception of People Like Me to enter into difficult dialogue that offers me no benefit, but potentially unpleasantness and danger?

But my faith (ha!) in the generous and open-minded nature of our area's homeschool community was affirmed with the response I got back from the member who sent the original email; she wrote:

Yes, I find that reading incendiary blogs can make you feel like there are lots of irrational people in the world! There are, but thankfully, all of us homeschoolers here in Santa Cruz are the height of calm, rational thought! :) But remember, "Wet children who are home schooled might be violent idiots!"

In other words, keep 'em dry and you'll be OK.

Ah, to the gentle humor that turneth away wrath. : ) I think I need to remember that this week, and keep myself out of further trouble.

That and stay off the computer.

UPDATE:

Re: Email #2.  Talked with Susan, who reminded me that most people say "we'll have to get together sometime" and never follow through.  This guy did, which says a lot for a) him being a nice guy, and/or 2) him not thinking I will be terrible company.  She is so right--at the reunion when the organizer had a bit too much to drink and was still planning on driving herself home, this guy stepped in and tactfully and gracefully took care of her.  Why was I yesterday so worried about freaking him out with the realities of my life?  Sheesh--seriously, I was not myself yesterday.  So I just emailed him and suggested we meet for coffee or something for an hour this weekend (without Doug, since his dad will be here, but also without kids!).
 

Summer Snippet #1

Last week was one of recovery; you know, the usual unpacking, laundry, cleaning and reconnecting with the kids. I can't believe it was just one week ago yesterday that DH and I arrived back from IL and my reunion--already it feels like a month ago! And I think my brain took the slow train home, because I just have not had the mental energy to write. But that's ok, since my main goal was to get re-etablished with my kids and my home and my husband, and resume life in even better ways than I left it, and in that way it was a very good week. Lots of mental processing, and not much urge to form ideas into words--although I did finally corner my husband Friday night and talk his ear off--i.e. "blog" at him--for almost an hour, which made me think it was time to dust off the keyboard and jump back in.

And yet, another part of why I think I have not been blogging this week is because there is almost too much to say! I have been blogging in my head for the past two weeks about all kinds of things--and even started writing The Mother Of All Blog Posts while I was still at my parents' house--but I am getting easily overwhelmed at the thought of all the work it would take to assemble these ideas with coherence and lucidity. (Although correctly using the words "coherence" and "lucidity" just now--not without checking their definitions first--made me feel a little more confident.)

But I really must get some of this stuff out of my brain, where the ideas linger on, in half-life, like ghosts with unfinished business, moaning for release. So, I'm going to make things easy for myself and anyone interested: snippets and pics!

It seems only fitting to start where I left off: Mina and Susan!

All dressed up for the Saturday evening dinner event. Susan and Mina were GORGEOUS.

Blurry--wah!--but still awesome. Out in my parents' driveway before the casual Friday evening event. Also notable as the last recorded sighting of my breasts.

The famous bench in front of our high school, upon which the three of us first met, brought together by shared Walkmans and a love of Norwegian music:

Okay, maybe it wasn't just the music.

(Oooooh, and Susan, I just found this little youtube gem. I don't think Morten has ever looked or sounded better!)

But I regress digress.

Two of my favorite homegirls

a-ha pic courtesy of the offical a-ha website.