I'm Moving!

I've decided to try some new things in 2016 for my blog, and moving to WordPress is one of the first.  If you're a subscriber (Thank you!), or have a link saved to this blog, please join me at my new home, smwhereinthemiddle.wordpress.com

Once I have everything moved in (it is) and in a set-up that I like (it's not), this location in Blogger will no longer be used.  I'm extremely grateful that you've read my posts at any point over the last four years, and would love to see you at my new home.  Expect some new topics along with more of what I know best.  

Hope to see you soon!

They

...are the reason this blog has remained quiet for a year.
...are similar and completely unique.
...make chugging a cold cup of coffee normal.
...inspire me to cook, innovate, be intentional, and create.  and suck all of the energy away that I have to do those things. sometimes by 6:45 a.m.
...are 6, 2, and 2.
...make me one of millions in a community of parents who share a bond over this relationship we live.
...can turn my house from tidy to Armageddon in 2.4 seconds.
...are responsible for making sure I have someone else's food or drink on my person at all times. (and by "on my person," I don't mean a closed sippy cup or neatly wrapped snack in my purse)
...have made my marriage stronger and harder.
...were all cloth-diapered and breast-fed.  and made the day I donated my Medela pump one of the happiest of my parenting existence. and I'm really proud of sticking to what I thought was best.
...make me cry.  proud tears, nostalgic tears, exhausted tears, doubting myself tears.  again, sometimes all by 6:45 a.m.
...eat a lot of groceries. so. many. gallons. of. milk.
...have re-shaped my body in some unfortunate ways.  and made me care less about that and more about keeping it healthy enough to be around to see grandchildren.
...have given me a deep appreciation for the beauty of well-written children's books and programming.
...make it hard to keep up with the things it takes to be a grown-up.  the amount of important everything that I forget on a daily basis is staggering.
...can make a day seem like it will never end while simultaneously making me wonder how they are growing up so fast.
...are a really good cover for keeping things like mac n' cheese, oreos, chicken nuggets, and string cheese in the house.
...make putting them first a mostly guilt-free decision.
...are all in bed.

12 Things I Learned In 2014

The end of the calendar year inevitably brings many retrospectives, lists, and best-of's.  I have not been posting much in 2014, with most of my focus spent on two not-so tiny twin girls and their big brother.  So this list of things I learned seemed as good a way as any to summarize where I've been.

I learned, in no particular order because my memory could never chronologically sort these, that:

1) I love instant win games.  Not the lottery type, because you have to buy a ticket specifically for the purpose of winning, but the type that says "Hey, you bought something anyway or are a member of our group, please enter for a chance to win!"  I didn't win much more than some fries and a free movie rental this year, but the chance that I could makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.
2) Raising twins is just as hard as I thought it would be. Sometimes in life I fret and worry over something that ends up being smooth and easy.  This would not be an example of that.
3) If you enjoy photography like I do, especially the editing and printing part, do not wait a year to process your pictures.
4) Losing a pet plain old sucks.  My first and only dog so far died abruptly in May, after 11 years of trailing after my heels and being awesome.  It still doesn't feel right around here.
5) Even at this stage in my life when I have seen a few rodeos and am responsible for the lives of three little people, I am still susceptible to fan-girl tendencies.  Exhibit A: The Divergent Series books.  See also Theo James, acting in the movie interpretations of said books.
6) Sometimes the hardest part of having twins is having a five-year-old too.  Poor guy had his whole world change pretty abruptly.  Sometimes he wanted to love them too much, sometimes he wanted more of his own attention, sometimes he was just plain old tired of the crazy here.
7) Related to #6, mommy guilt is the worst.  I'm doing the best I can, and because of that, I compare and second-guess and stress and worry that it's never good enough.  I know I'm not alone here, but it is still the worst.
8) I read a lot of young adult fiction this year. I figured out that I could navigate my e-reader while pumping during my nursing stage, so I was able to read a lot of books in 2014.  When I looked at my Goodreads year in books, I saw a whole lot of dystopia and escape from reality.  Why?  See #2.
9) Having twins, while being a lot of hard work, is a gift from God in so many ways.  One that I've reflected on a lot this year is the fact that a hard pregnancy and a crazy first year has made me SO very ok with being done growing our family.  This could have been a difficult time of my life, having to transition from family growth to family stability, but instead, I thank my lucky stars that I am moving forward.  Next time I get to enjoy this stage is when they are my grandchildren.  Minus the whole pregnancy and nursing thing.  Sweet.
10) I am happiest when my personal email inbox doesn't require the use of the search bar to find what I need.  Which never happens.
11) I am of the age, along with being a grown-up and parent, where current events make my heart hurt.  Everything is more.  More evil, more dangerous, more overwhelming, more sad, more enraging, more frightening, more divisive.  Stories of children in harm's way bring me to my knees.  Growing up we just didn't get it, why adults argued over politics, and read the paper every day, and cried over bad news half a world away.  I get it now.  Lord, have mercy.
12) Parenting young children is my most important life's work, but I miss things.  I miss pondering, creating, exercising, remembering, sleeping, blogging, gardening, relaxing, watching, cooking, organizing, baking, decorating.  A lot of "-ings".  I know from having my first child that this changes, and I have about another year before I start getting more consistent time for those "-ings".  Halfway there.

What did you learn in 2014?
May the next year bring you all the "-ings" you wish for, and maybe a few that are unexpected as well.

Love in the Time of Mashed Bananas

All it took was a few ice bullets.

I've been scanning few articles lately about marriage.  This time of year it is a popular editorial and blog topic with so many newlyweds back from their summer honeymoons.  Articles about what it takes to have a happy marriage, to stay together, to not get bored, to fight less, to love more, to make it through rough times, to be a team during parenting, etc. etc. etc.  I have a few years of marriage under my belt now, so I can look at those and laugh, scoff, agree, shake my fist, and have a bit of confidence that I know a thing or two.  There is no one answer that works for every couple for anything, no matter how many lists try to tell you otherwise.  One thing that all of those articles have in common, though, is that none of them mentioned ice bullets.

My husband and I have three kids.  A five-year-old son and twin eight-month-old daughters.  We have full-time jobs.  Right now, there is not much life outside of those two topics. Our time together is spent juggling children and everything that goes with them.  During this season of life there is no time or money for dates, presents, vacations, clothes without spit-up or conversations longer than three sentences.   If I'm being honest, marital health is pretty low on the list of things either of us think about on a regular day (as far as I can tell, anyway).  But it is vital for us to remember each other every now and again, even if it is in the middle of a three-ring-circus.

Our ice-maker in the freezer sprung a leak a few weeks ago, so the hose was disconnected until it could be replaced.  Suddenly it was June and summer and no ice.  Sure, the fridge keeps beverages cold enough, but sometimes in the summer I just really like ice in my drinks.  (why didn't we just use old-fashioned ice trays, you ask?  because we got rid of them long ago.  who needs ice trays when you have an ice-maker in your freezer?)  So every couple of days I would mention how much I missed ice.  Then my husband would mention that it would be an easy fix, he just needed the time to get to the store to buy it and fix it.  Repeat. Time is in short supply, and we still don't have ice.

Yesterday I was prepping all of the supplies needed to batch cook and puree baby food.  We have special trays for freezing the food in small portions, and I looked all over the kitchen without finding the one I needed.  After I yelled into the general vicinity of baby shrieking and toy crashing to inquire if he knew where it was, he walked in with a sheepish grin and said that he was trying to do something nice for me, but I had spoiled the surprise.  I was in the middle of work-mode and completely taken aback that he was talking about nice surprises when I just needed a baby food tray.  He pulled the tray out of the freezer full of mostly-solid, glorious ice chunks in what looked like over-sized bullets from the shape of the holders.  That seemingly mundane act of freezing water, in this time of our lives, held the equivalent weight of a dozen roses and a romantic dinner out.

So, bloggers, journalists, and women's magazine headline-writers, there's your next scoop.  How do you show affection to your spouse when you haven't slept past 5:30 am or eaten hot food for dinner in the past year?  Listen for the little things.  And ice cubes.

Sixteen

I can't remember my sixteenth birthday.  Is that weird?  What girl doesn't remember their sweet sixteen, either for how great it was, or how awful it was instead of how great it was supposed to be?  Granted, that was 21 a few years ago, I have three kids, and I feel lucky that I remember to put shoes on some mornings, so I'm not entirely surprised.

I do have a strong memory from the day before my seventeenth birthday.  I was riding somewhere in the back seat of the car, "Jack and Diane" was playing on the radio, and I heard the lyrics "Hold on to sixteen as long as you can / Changes come around real soon / Make us women and men."  I smiled at the irony of hearing that line on that day, and then quickly went grim as the fear of that being true took over.  I had missed 364 days that I should have been holding on to sixteen, and here I was on the last day without ever even noticing that they had come and gone!

I suppose the next day wasn't any different than the day before, but the point had been made.  Now I am many years wiser and I can agree with Mellencamp (Cougar?  Not sure what he goes by these days) that there was a significant amount of change in the next sixteen years to follow.  Thank goodness.

*this post was inspired by the Wordpress Daily Prompt*

Until It Isn't

It is easy to practice what you preach, until it isn't.

A popular topic of parenting humor on social media is a list of all of the things you swore you would never do as a parent, until you became one.  I read them and laugh, knowing that most of them are true of myself and probably most of the other parents of young children that I know.  Many years ago I might have groaned out of annoyance as a child of any age sat near me on an airplane, for example, and now my chest aches with pity and empathy for the haggard mom with the screaming baby in the row behind me, because I have been there too.
As my oldest child approaches school-age, I find myself running into more and more examples of situations that just aren't as easy to stick to my guns as I thought they would be.  Not putting a DVD player in the minivan in order to encourage discussion and imagination?  Simple.  Limiting TV for my child to a set amount of time each day?  Easy....until I had twins.  Staying calm during temper tantrums and trying to re-direct into more positive activities?  Hard in any situation.  But even I am surprised by my newest challenge - ignoring gender stereotypes.

My four-year-old is a boy, and my three-month-old twins are girls.  I have never been one to believe for one minute that girls should have everything pink and only boys should play with trucks.  I couldn't bear to wear pink until I was well into my 20's and dressing professionally.  I started watching sports as early as I can remember and started playing them as soon as the leagues would allow my age.  My husband does most of the cooking, and I will readily admit he is much better at it than me.  So of course it should be easy to continue living these examples with my children, right?

It is easy to practice what you preach, until it isn't.

My daughters wear some baby clothes that are meant for girls, and hand-me-downs from my son that are meant for boys.  They just stay in the house and spit up on them anyway, who cares?  But after a nurse commented that "I must not have known I was having girls" when I dressed them in neutral-colored clothing for a doctor appointment, I made sure they were wearing something girly to the next one, even though I felt a pang of regret for the reason I was dressing them that way.

I think my son is the sweetest little boy in the world.  When he uses his manners, or sings to himself while he plays with his toys, or gives hugs to his friends and family without being prompted, I just want to squeeze him forever. Two of his favorite things right now are the Disney cartoon "Doc McStuffins" and the Disney movie "Frozen."  Doc McStuffins is about a little girl who plays a doctor that fixes and cares for toys.  Frozen is a movie with two sisters as the main characters, who end up (SPOILER ALERT) saving each other instead of the handsome prince coming to save the day. (If you haven't seen that movie yet, it is amazing, go see it).  I couldn't be more proud that he chooses these types of stories to enjoy.  But when he was so excited to tell me that a friend at school (a girl) had on a Frozen t-shirt, instead of my usual response of "That's awesome, do you think you would like something like that too?", I simply said "That's awesome."  When he saw the Frozen dolls while picking out a gift for a birthday party, or the big Frozen castle, I said it cost too much money (which it did) knowing full well that I didn't want to buy it even if it didn't.  When he asked for the Doc McStuffins play set, all kinds of glittery, pink, and purple, so he could have check-ups with his stuffed animals too, I procrastinated even looking into it until it was long sold-out for the Christmas season. That wasn't pre-meditated, but I'll admit a little bit of relief that it was.  And through all of this the part of my pre-parent brain that thought all of this color stuff was nonsense just looks at this weak mother, caving to the pressures of society, bug-eyed and disappointed.  I'm not actively discouraging him, but I'm not actively encouraging like I should be, either.  Why do I care what "they" would think?  I know I would steal the moon for my children, and I know that I want them to believe that they can be whoever they want to be, and like whatever they want to like, but it is harder than I thought to ignore outside influences.

It is easy to practice what you preach, until it isn't.

Being her first example

When my son was born, I was introduced to the pressure of parenting. I did, and still do, spend a lot of time thinking about the best way to teach, discipline, play, talk, be a role model, balance responsibilities, and everything else that goes into being the best I can be for the love of my child.  Now I am a mom of three: my son and two twin girls.  The girls are only a week old, and I have discovered the dumbfounding realization that their first example of what it means to be a woman/mom/wife will come from me.  I know they won't want to copy it all.  In fact, I hope that they don't.  I hope they emulate the traits that mean the most to each of them, make them their own, and accept and discard all of my shortcomings.

But what kind of example do I want to be?  If I had to paint a picture of the person I want them to see when they see me, what colors would I use? My answer to those questions are surely different today than they will be 10 years from now, but I hope that by sorting out what is important to me now, it will help me to live as not only the person I want them to see, but who I truly want me to be.

So, for the sake of those two swaddled little girls just beginning their beautiful lives, I have decided to start to figure out who this woman is today, and what is important to her, before I start falling down the several-year rabbit hole of sleep deprivation and living on adrenaline that is known as parenting early childhood.  When my girls think about who I am, these are some of the things I want them to know are part of me:

• The priorities are God-Family (however you choose to define it)-everything else. 
• Being married makes you part of a team that shares responsibility.  Each person contributes with what they do best, not based on how society says they should behave.
• Exercise and being active are a part of life, not a weekly chore.
• Electronics and social media are tools and fun distractions to be used sparingly, not as an extension of one's arm.  
• Be passionate.  About faith, about love, about work, about sports, about books, about whatever moves you.  
• Girls don't have to wear pink.  Or heels.  Or makeup.  But you can if you want.  Only if you want.
• Being a female athlete teaches a level of self-respect that few other things can.  
• Nature and open lands should be protected and enjoyed.  Turn off the music and noise to hear your own thoughts on the trail/beach/waves/hills/mountains.
• Being truly present with friends and family is more important than where you are or what you're doing. 
• Every hour of the day does not need to be scheduled, nor should it be.  Time should be spared for spontaneity and reflection on the rest of the crazy called life.
• Being a mom is simultaneously the hardest and greatest role of my life.  

This list is really only scratching the surface.  Luckily, I don't have to hand each girl a double-spaced copy of everything I am, I have the rest of my lifetime to teach them.  God willing, they'll grow up to be awesome and teach me a thing or two about what their own version of woman has become.

Hear Me Roar

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Almost two weeks ago I started a little adventure in the hospital because the twins we are expecting tried to meet the world a little earlier than they should. Thankfully they have still not made their debut, and I hope to be waiting for many weeks until the time comes for them to join us.

On day one, I was transported from one hospital to another to be at a location with the appropriate nursery. At the time it was a very scary ordeal, but if you can find humor even in the face of terror, you might as well take advantage of a little bit of relief.

My ambulance ride was long enough that I had the opportunity to make several observations. First, I could never be an EMT. Never mind all the medical knowledge and skill you are expected to possess, I couldn't even handle being the guy who rides in the back and fills out the paperwork. I think most patients would frown upon the results of my car sickness. So, EMT-guy-in-the-back, I salute you, your inner-ear stability, and strong stomach.

Next, let's move on to the EMT ambulance driver in the front. You, sir, are awesome.  I know it was a small section of time, and there could be many explanations, but I have to admit, I was totally judging your personality based solely on your amazing music choices. Maybe you thought you were choosing what I would enjoy, but I'm pretty sure that was for you. I was mildly amused as we switched from one diva dance groove to the next. When you settled on Katy Perry singing Roar, there was no doubt in my mind you were up there lip-synching and head-bobbing, and it made me a little giggly. When we scanned the stations, landed again on Katy Perry's Roar, and listened to it once more from start to finish, you about sent me into a fit of hysterical laughter. In my mind's eye, you were no longer just lip-synching and head-bobbing, you were full-out celebrating and gettin' down as we flew down the expressway in our little dance floor on wheels. Thankfully I was able to keep it together, otherwise the steel-stomached guy in the back might have added a psychiatric evaluation to my paperwork.

I know that judging a book by its cover is wrong, but I just couldn't help myself. Blame the stress, the anxiety, the need for distraction, but that ride is one I will remember, even a little bit fondly, thanks to my Katy-loving EMT ambulance driver.

Jam on, sir. Jam on.

Too much good stuff...for real this time

Last summer, I started a season of reigning in the crazy.  I recognized that while I had an abundance good things in my life, it was time to take a hard look at all of the activities that I said yes to and set some priorities.    I do think progress has been made.  All of the same opportunities are still there, tempting me and shaming me into thinking I should say yes because I'm good enough to handle it all.  But I think I have gotten a little smarter, a little braver, and a little healthier.  This weekend, for example, is pretty unscheduled.  By this past Thursday afternoon I realized that and started thinking "Who haven't we seen lately?  What project have we been putting off?  How can I make sure this open time isn't wasted?"  By Thursday night I had successfully shaken myself by the shoulders and canned any ideas of filling this open time.  My entire family is benefiting from it as we glide through the hours having fun and getting moderate chores completed.

As I continue to work at being smart about over-scheduling, I am moving from a season of pruning away figurative life-clutter into a season of getting rid of actual, filling-my-house, clutter.  No one in my house is a collector, or a hoarder, but there is just a lot of, well, stuff.  The way this scenario would have played out in the past goes something like this:  Live, obtain stuff, use stuff, put stuff away in different places, lose stuff as it gets covered by new stuff, organize big heaps of stuff into more structured big heaps of stuff, get frustrated, lose my mind, snap, and spend three weeks using every open moment to tackle every single room, donating, throwing-away, and super cleaning.  I suppose life experience and parenting has helped me realize that this is not a sustainable system.  So instead I have made the very sensible decision to just take a section at a time as I go about my normal day.  When that shelf is so full that I can't put something else on it without five minutes of balancing things just right, I will take the 15 minutes required to take the stuff down, throw away what is expired, old, and over-used, start a donate bag for the items that someone else could use for a while, and have one less cluttered shelf.  You might ask why I haven't been doing that all along, but this is a paradigm shift for me.  I am fighting life-long learned tendencies to keep things because I might be able to somehow reuse them and save the money and hassle of buying a new one.  It is why I am just starting, 14 years after graduating from college, to throw away gross college t-shirts that I had just in case I needed to a dirty job.  Not even a mechanic could need the amount of ratty t-shirts I have collected.  My need for order and space is finally beating out that need to keep things "just in case."

So far:

• Expired drug-store items have been trashed (expired in 2009?  really??)
• Kitchen cabinets have been cleared of glassware (how did we ever collect enough sets of margarita glasses and beer steins to entertain an entire frat house?)
• Place-mats that have been used since we were married have been replaced (10 years creates a lot of stains)
• Another bag of clothes has been donated
• An armada of plastic grocery bags has been dropped off at the store for recycling
• At least a year's-worth of batteries was taken for recycling (did I mention we have a three-year-old who likes toys that make noise?)

Next up is a bag of old shoes that need to be taken from my closet floor to a recycle drop off  location.  Since spring is around the corner, I'm guessing something in the garage isn't far behind.  The difference between today and five years ago is that in the past, that list of what has already been done would have been forced into a single weekend and I would have been near-tears by Sunday night.  Present-day, I have completed those things comfortably over the course of the last month or so, and none of them have felt like an imposition to complete.  And yes, it feels really good to not have things come tumbling out of the medicine cabinet when it is opened, and to eat on pretty place-mats.

I am still wondering what finally changed in me that I decided to do things differently.  Clearly, scaling back has been the over-riding theme this past year, and it is a very welcome and positive move.  I'm just not sure what finally pushed me, gave me the bravery, the ability to stand up to myself, the oom-pha, to finally just do it.  I suppose that shouldn't matter, but it is something I ponder anyway.

What mountains have you scaled after living under the assumption they were just too high?  What changes are being put on your heart that you might not be paying enough attention to yet?  

Momentary Heroes

Disclaimer:  I am very aware that the experience I am about to describe below is not necessarily typical of all similar situations or families.  Please enjoy it anyway.

We took a family vacation last week.  My son is three.  The vacation involved travel in cars, buses, trains, airplanes, and a cruise ship, sleeping in a hotel, and for a little extra spice, a seven-hour delay in a very small airport.  After hearing that, you would expect that I am about to go on a short, comical rant about the challenges and stress of travelling with a small child.   In this case, you would be wrong.

Most any kind of movement from point A to point B with a child is challenging. For that matter, most anything with a child is more complicated than most anything without one.  That's just how it is, and as a parent you learn to accept and adjust to that fact.  So on our vacation, we went to bed early, and we woke up with the sun.  Our time on the beach was not spent laying on a chair with a frosty drink, but playing football with a coconut and taking turns going in the water since the waves were too scary for little man.  We had to rent a car with room for a car seat.  There were no leisurely meals.  There were no quiet moments.  We had very tired arms and backs from carrying backpacks, beach bags, and a sleepy boy.  It was trying.  It was fantastic. 

I imagine there are many adults without children who watch travelling families and thank their lucky stars that they are not going through the same experience.  I'm not going to deny that there are some times I wish I could be travelling without the added responsibility for someone else.  But an unexpected perk that I really came to appreciate on this vacation is seeing a beautiful, big-hearted side to a lot of adults that I would otherwise never see.   

What I expect to see when travelling is a mass of other hurried, self-absorbed people, and mildly polite customer service helping me get where I need to go.  But when a wide-eyed little person is holding my hand, all of the sudden I see amazing, kind, empathetic people, travelers and service staff alike, that are going out of their way to make sure he is happy and comfortable.  I can't even count the number of smiles, giggles, high-fives, silly questions, and sacrifice of time and effort that people gave.  Many of them were employees who were on the clock, but an impressive amount were other people in some stage of travel that could have just as easily walked right past or stood next to us in silence.  The five-seconds I had to smile and say thank you to each of them is never enough to show the gratitude that I feel for them making him happy. I think that is more than a fair trade for the challenges we had to face, and am kind of sad that once he's grown up I won't get to see that side of strangers anymore.  But I can choose to be one of those momentary heroes to someone else, and I think I would like that.


"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me." - Matthew 18:5

It's all in the eyes

There are times when I catch a glimpse of these eyes looking back at me from a mirror and it startles me.  You probably don't see it, but since I've been staring back at these eyes for more than three decades, I notice the changes.  Sparkle.  Dull.  Bright.  Bloodshot.  Baggy.  Lively.  Exhausted.  I see it all.

I have so many blessings.  Some days I can choose to look at all of my busyness as managing an overabundance of blessings.  Many days I am much less optimistic.  No matter how I choose to look at it, I am tired.  Not just long-weekend of college all-nighters tired, but something rivaling the first three months after birthing a newborn tired.  The kind of tired that comes from trying to do it all for too long.

But I'm also tired of feeling this way.  My usual reaction to long stretches like this is to try to fix it all at once.  No patience to do it right.  So this time, I am going to systematically attack it. I am not going to try and get sleep, work less, relax more, exercise more, stress less, and spend more time playing, cooking, and reading, all in one day.  Small goals this time.  Once I accomplish one, I will be better equipped to accomplish another.

I'm starting with rest.  As much as I am tempted to move straight to the other more fun fixes, I am being smart enough to realize it just won't work without rest.  So, next week, I am setting a time to try and leave the office no matter what is left undone, and I am setting a time that my body needs to be in bed every night. Neither of those sound like they should be very hard for most people, but since I have not been able to accomplish either for about four months, they may not be very easy for me.

We all have to start somewhere.  I choose Monday.

Little Victories

My mom is staying with us for three weeks.  It is admittedly some work to arrange the house and schedule ahead of time to accommodate a guest for that amount of time, but it is a welcome change.  It is 1:00 on a Friday, the groceries are put away, a loaf of banana bread that I baked is cooling in the kitchen, lunches are eaten, my son is sleeping, and I'm sitting here with music, a cup of tea, and my blog.  Win!

Visits like this one mean that my camera is never far away from my side.  Since our camera is on a slow, sad journey towards the electronics recycling bin, I imagine I am going to be frustrated with many of the images that I take. But I have started saving for a big-girl camera (one that is so cool it has an extra lens), so I know that better picture-taking days are ahead.  In the mean-time, I am excited to tell you that a picture I took several years ago when the camera was still new has been posted by someone other than my family.

The Norwegian Embassy in Washington, D.C. publishes a quarterly magazine with  articles about current events in Norway and in the US.  For the fall issue, they requested "readers to send in photos of places or things in Norway that inspire them."  Since I have spent a lot of time vacationing in Norway with my family, I had a lot of pictures to consider.  I will save you the suspense, I did not actually get published in the magazine, but they did include my picture in an online gallery of reader-submitted photos.  I'm pretty sure that they probably included any photo sent in that was of good enough quality to post online, but I'll take every little victory I can get.  The photos aren't numbered in the gallery, so I've posted it with this blog for you to enjoy, but I would recommend spending a few minutes on the gallery, there are some beautiful images there, and I'm proud to be included among them.

A different kind of church

Sunday mornings have never been about sleeping in around my house.  Except for instances of college, illness, or vacation, Sunday mornings have been up-and-at-em time for church.  Today, both my husband and I are under the weather.  Not enough to stay in bed, but enough not to bring our germs to church.  Which is good, because since my son is feeling just fine, staying in bed is not an option anyway.

So after breakfast today, I went out for a walk.  It's a sunny, cold morning, enough that I could cover my bed-head with a hat, but not so cold that it was unpleasant. I haven't been exercising much lately because of my work schedule, so it's just as well that I wasn't up for a full jog today.  With some good tunes in my headphones, turned down just low enough to hear the birds, and some alone time to hear myself think, I got to spend some time churching in a whole different way.  I missed seeing my church family today, but sometimes it's good to change it up a little and see things when it's quiet.  Happy Sunday, all.

Power (?)

I took a few minutes in between cooking and laundry, ironically enough, to read an article in the Chicago Tribune today about power.  The article, "Women and Power", explored the definition of power that is met by the women on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, and whether Forbes' definition of "money, access, and connections," is really the measure we should be using.  Not surprisingly, most, but not all, of the women on the list have more money at their disposal than the rest of us.

Of course, first there had to be some talk about the disparity between men and women, the difference in the standards to which they are held, the corporate boy's club, etc.  I didn't find this as interesting as I did the quotes from a few very intelligent women that were interviewed about what they thought of this list.  First, a woman named Nilay Yapici, who is a "postdoctural fellow in the laboratory of neurogenetics and behavior at The Rockefeller University in New York."  I'm going to go out on a short limb here and guess that this woman is brilliant.  While her point of view that there should be more scientists and researchers on that list is certainly biased towards her profession, I think she is spot on.  She asked, "Who is really powerful: the person who gives the money, or the person who has the idea and makes the discovery?"  According to Forbes it's the money.  But I tend to agree with her underlying point, the people that make it happen aren't given nearly enough credit.  Obviously the research doesn't exist without the funding, and having the position to control where the funding goes gives that power, but shouldn't the brain that solves the problem get some too?

Next they asked psychotherapist Simone Kornfeld, (again, probably pretty smart) about supermodel Gisele Bundchen holding the number 83 spot.  First she noted that while Bundchen may be a very savvy businesswoman, her presence on this list is an acknowledgement of the "reality that beauty is power."  Whether we agree that it should be or not, I would bet that most women who grew up in this American society would have a similar reaction to mine: smirk.....pppfffttt.......shake of the head......sigh.....ain't that the truth.  But where Simone Kornfeld goes next fascinated me.  The article says that having Bundchen on that list "probably provoked the most eye rolls."  She says, "We push women to have beauty all the time, and then we get mad at them when they do."  It's such a sad statement, but I believe she is right.  Girls are pushed to reach an impossible standard, and when 99% of us can't meet it, we respond with envy, anger, gossip, and rejection.

I will admit, I am happy to be nowhere near the top 100 list.  I don't want the power to make the decisions that those people have to make.  I don't want to spend hours on my appearance every day with the worry that I would be caught with a bad hair day.  But of course there is some awe (envy) in watching these power players live out their lives in very public fashion.  I think that I'm mature enough to be done worrying about meeting societal standards that I can't/don't want to meet, but I won't pretend that I don't slip sometimes and fall to the temptation of making fun because the internet makes it easy.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of it.

"Click"

We've all had those moments.  The ones where a small smile crosses your face and you know that moment, no matter how ordinary, has been impressed in your memory to last a lifetime.

Like when I was a freshman at Indiana University, on a sunny afternoon during finals week, and a gathering of people ended up on the roof of Briscoe Hall for a study break.  At the moment a few people started to dance around to Brown-Eyed Girl, and everyone joined in just because, I remember stepping back and looking over that scene, realizing it was a snapshot in time I would never forget.  "Click"

Fast forward a few years to tonight.  My son lounged in the bathtub, playing with his boat, singing loudly along to a song called "10,000 Reasons" by Matt Redman.  The refrain goes something like "Bless the Lord oh my soul, oh my soul, worship His holy name.  Sing like never before, oh my soul, I worship Your holy name."  He makes up his own live rendition, but it's close enough.  Watching that cute little dude sing at the top of his lungs with no fear or embarrassment, to music like that, well, that's a moment I want to hold onto forever. "Click"

Dear God, in 15 years when that cute little dude is sauntering in past curfew and giving me attitude, please, please help me remember that moment.

People Watching

For several years I've been in restaurants, catching flying splatters of food and asking my child to sit still and eat, while I enviously eyed those headphone-wearing, laptop-toting, coffee-drinking solo patrons relaxing around me.  Tonight I am one of them, and I have to say, it's just as awesome as I imagined.  These are the types of things I took for granted before I lost the option to finish a cup of coffee while it is still hot.  So here I sit, ignored by the constant flow of people coming and going, and have very wisely switched to decaf.

Even though I am attempting to "escape" for a little while, I notice that I keep getting distracted from my solitary screen-staring by the real life going on around me.  The young couple with a new baby and a two-year-old taking turns eating and parenting, strained smiles and sleepy eyes.  The very serious-looking teenager sitting with her parents and talking about very serious-looking things.  The twenty-something guy who breaks into a grin as he texts or tweets or posts from his cell phone while waiting for his dinner.  The fellow laptop guy who asks me to watch his stuff as he gets up from the table, since I must be much less likely to swipe his things while I am busy with my own.

Then there are those that catch my attention because they hit a little closer to home.  The high-pitched story-telling I can hear from the kindergartner talking to her mom about school.  Watching her bounce around her table and eyeball my coffee as her mom coaxes her back.  I can't help but smile at her, which I'm sure isn't helping mom's case.  I always find it comforting when I see other little people floating around and other parents futilely trying to pull them back, because at least I know it's not just me who can't do it.  I also find it both comforting and sad to hear the exasperated mom in the bathroom with two girls under 6.  Comforting because the words coming out of her mouth are so very similar to the ones I have heard myself using, sad because they are words like stop, no, child's name in an exhausted whine, repeating the same commands in a louder voice in the hopes that maybe it just wasn't loud enough the first time, etc.  The ugly is always uglier when I see it reflected by someone else.  Thankfully it is quickly followed by compassion and a vow to not be the mom that reminds other moms to stop being so cranky.

We could all learn a thing or two from each other.  I raise my cup to you, exasperated bathroom mom, and hope that you can find yourself restfully pondering other people someday soon.

Something from nothing

Back in April I spent a Sunday afternoon re-potting some houseplants that were long overdue for new homes and dirt.  I am so happy to be writing with good news.  All of the plants are happy and well, and it is still calming to me to know that they have recently been re-potted and the ever present to-do task is done for a while.

First, the most impressive before and after plant.  

Before:

                               

And after:

I'd say this one is thriving in it's new home.  And since I'm spending so much time at work lately, I guess it's nice to have it there with me.









But the most exciting progress is with the plant that I named the "5-foot-tall palm-looking-thing," because I still have no idea what the real name is. This is the plant that I couldn't bear to part with even though it clearly was not doing well.  I followed my husband's advice to lop off the top and put it in water and see if we could get the top to grow roots or the trunk to grow sprouts.  The top sat in a vase of water for at least six weeks. It wasn't droopy, but it wasn't growing, either.  Then the trunk got moldy under the plastic bag and nothing else happened and I had pretty much given up on both.  We got back from our summer vacation to Virginia in mid-June to find that the top in the vase had finally sprouted a single, white dot of a root.  Now there is a whole web of roots in the water and I think it is finally ready to have a home in a pot of dirt.

The trunk is even more amazing.  After a few weeks we basically stopped watering it, because the trunk was clearly not going to grow anything.  Probably the only source of water it had was the occasional glass of water being poured in by my three-year-old for fun.  About two weeks ago my husband very excitedly told me that something had sprouted near the trunk.  I have no earthly idea how this thing sprouted new growth from below the dirt with virtually no water, but it did.

The trunk on "lopping day"

And the amazing little sproutlet today:

 I thought I was going to end up losing one plant, and now we've managed to make two.  Never count out the underdog!

Keeping it simple

A handful of my mom-friends have spouses that travel regularly for work.   There are a multitude of single parents out there who always take care of their kids on their own.  I have nothing but the utmost respect and awe for all of them, because on the rare occasions that my husband is out of town for a few days, it gets challenging around here.  One positive thing for me, though, about solo parenting for a brief amount of time is that I allow myself to shut off the angry gnome and the to-do list, pretty much because there is no choice.  So even though it might appear to be hectic, it actually kind of calms down for me mentally.  But during this last week while hubby was away, I began to consider the simple things in my life that would disappear if I had to parent on my own for longer than a few days.

• Clothes without wrinkles.  This requires getting laundry out of the dryer, folding, and hanging as soon as it is done.  That rarely happens even with help.
• Meals made with more than four ingredients.  I barely even wanted to bother with cooking fresh vegetables, which adds two minutes to the cooking routine.
• Sleeping more than 5-6 hours a night.  Again, I find that challenging as it is, and it would only get worse.
• Gardening, weeding, watering, pretty much anything that requires regularly tending to the nature outside of this house.  
• Watching tv that is not animated.
• Shopping for myself.  Internet all the way.  Maybe it fits, maybe it doesn't.
• Printing the pictures I take.  No chance.
• Keeping plants alive.  What's the problem, I just watered you last month?
• Feeling relaxed.  Ever.

To all of you who do this on a daily basis and do it so well, many, many kudos to you.  Hubby, I appreciate all that you contribute to this organization and would like you to consider signing another long-term contract. You don't need any vacation time, though, right?

More than enough

I have reached my limit before.  In many ways, at many different times in my life, I've hit that point where it was very clear to me that whatever my limit was, I had found it.  I am confident it's not the best way to handle it, but it takes that point of explosion before I am able to finally hand over the controls.  This time, the limit reached was in regards to too many things.  Obligations, commitments, chores, tasks, work, hobbies, all of it.  It has been a frequent pattern of mine.  I say yes, I plan more, I underestimate the amount of rest I need, and it all goes great until it doesn't.

The past few weeks have brought some changes.  Work has gotten busier and later, time has decreased, stress has gone up, balls have been dropped.  Never in my life have I just completely forgotten plans that had been made.  I might confuse dates, times, need to look at the calendar a few extra times, cancel on short notice, but never just forgotten.  Until I did.  That was the limit this time around.  A kick-to-the-gut announcement that this just can't continue.  So I started making changes.  Things that I wouldn't even consider discontinuing a few days prior were suddenly the things that had to go.

I heard a story a few weeks ago about an Olympic athlete and the after-training recovery he endures.  Rather than ice packs or ice baths to soothe muscles and joints, he goes into some kind of cryofreeze chamber.  For 30 seconds, it gets so cold that the body abandons all hope for the limbs and pulls all the blood flow into the core.   When he comes out of the chamber, the blood that rushes back into the limbs has gone through a filtering process that has removed much of the lactic acid that causes soreness and swelling, etc.  I think it sounds absolutely crazy, but I like the metaphor that it creates.  I am going through my own similar process.  My limbs are important to my body, just like many of these to-do's are important to who I am.  But in a crisis, those to-do's need to be abandoned to take care of my core for a while.  And when I'm ready to start reaching out and getting back into some of those things, the energy I am able to put into them is increased ten-fold.

I am getting a lot of positive reinforcement that I am doing the right thing.  Have you ever had that experience where you hear something you've never heard before, and then all of the sudden it keeps coming up?  Ever since I decided to start pruning things, I've read blogs, seen pictures, heard stories, had discussions, all about exactly this topic.  And every decision I make to reduce the list makes me feel a little bit better.  I know I am doing the right thing, as much as I wish I didn't have to let some of these things go.

One of the blogs I read makes the amazing point that sometimes you have to get rid of some of the extraneous good things to make room to really enjoy the important good things.  That is a great explanation for myself of what I am trying to do.  I have been blessed more than I can ever understand with so many things.  Everything I am pulling back from is important to me somehow; I don't want to let it go.  But if I can't  truly be in the present and enjoying any one thing because I am focused on trying to juggle 50 things, then there doesn't seem to be much point in doing any of them.

I am on the right track and feeling better.  The long-term challenge will be maintaining a lower level of stuff so that I can go through smaller cycles of building and pruning instead of hitting the wall and sliding downward.  I'm not ready for that challenge yet.  For now I just have to focus on enjoying the important good things...

 ....and saying goodbye to some others.

...and then stop thinking.

I went for a run tonight with no distractions: no music, no GPS, nothing.  In the absence of distraction, my brain was overflowing with things I didn't want to think about, including the desire to be done running.  I have no idea how far I ran or how long I was gone.  But after about halfway of whatever that final distance was, I was too tired to focus on anything but my own breathing, yet not tired enough to quit.  So I kept going until tired was winning.  And then I went a little more.  In total brain silence.

In my life leading up to this year, I have never considered myself a runner.  I was a two-sport varsity athlete for four years of high school, and couldn't run long distances.  I kept in on-and-off shape in college, and couldn't run long distances.  I played beach volleyball for six months a year for five years of adulthood, and I couldn't run long distances.  I have been exercising relatively regularly for about seven months now after a two-year parenting hiatus, and all of the sudden, I can run longer distances.  It's certainly not magic.  I've been working hard, losing weight, building muscle, so it makes logical sense that it is improving my distance running.  But after a lifetime of defeat, I cannot wrap my brain around this new ability.

As I sat stretching and recovering, I considered what I just did, and was really fascinated about the idea that when I stopped thinking and kept pushing, it just worked.  Much of what I have been doing the last seven months has been P90X, which has done amazing things for me.  In the yoga workout, there is a point where you are standing tall on your toes and reaching toward the ceiling.  To help keep balance, Tony Horton (the guy responsible for the P90X workout), says "Don't think about your feet on the floor, think about your hands in the air.  And then stop thinking."  And it works every time.  I go from wobbly and shaky to stiff as a board, just like that.  The power of anti-thought.

Am I on to something here?  Is this what I need to do in other situations too?  Consider parenting.  A good friend asked me how it works, how you are able to put it all aside, the exhaustion, frustration, scheduling, etc., to be a parent.  I think about childbirth, sleep deprivation, hour-long temper tantrums, balancing stressful work days with calmer family time, and I know I have used that same strategy.  Too tired to focus on anything but my own breathing, and not tired enough to quit, so I just keep going.  I think this is a solid strategy for sports.  For other areas of life, I'm not so sure.  But it's an honest strategy, and I would hazard a guess that I'm not alone in using it. Unfortunately, it works well for the short-term, but completely unravels in the long haul.  It's helpful when your newborn is crying at 10 pm, 2 am, and 5 am.  Don't think, just do.  It's not helpful when your schedule is so full that you forget the plans you just confirmed 24 hours ago.  Must think, can't do.  There's a balance there somewhere that I just haven't found.  Better go for a longer run.