Monthly ArchiveNovember 2005
Life before 2008 28 Nov 2005 09:29 am
We’re moving!
As in, this week!
The location: a cute little white house, in town
The pros: a great yard, beautiful trees, a bit more privacy, a third bedroom, a very nice landlord who cares for it well, hooks for my beloved porch swing
The cons: not much more square feet than our apartment, a little more money out each month, not a whole lot of time to get moved, and, in typical “Gift of the Magi” style, I have hooks but no swing, whereas in Jacksonville I had my swing but no hooks!
I forot my baby’s first birthday, thinking it was tomorrow. We have Celia’s birthday coming, want to attend the Messiah concert at the college, have a few parties, church membership followed by a dinner that is also a quadruple baby shower…and oh yeah, christmas in some capacity. It ought to be an interesting few weeks!
Life before 2008 27 Nov 2005 02:49 pm
Living Out Loud
I feel like shouting. Like running and feeling the pounding of my heart as the wind catches my hair and my kids stare in amazement as I scream and laugh and defy age and stress and limitation. I feel that dry-mouth anticipation of being in a cage and having someone approach the door. I’m ready to bust out, to explode in living color, and either take everyone with me or leave them gaping at my back as I fly past. Days like this, I know only one speed.
In response to this welling of emotion, I had a carefree day. I had THREE eggs benedict this morning, ’cause after two I’m always wanting “just a little more”. I did TWO shampoo cycles in my hair, just because I like the feel of my soapy hair just before it’s completely rinsed clean. I used hot rollers and wore black because it makes me feel smart and strong, even though that horrid book long ago in childhood said redheads should never wear black; it’s not “thier season”. Hooey. I tipped my chin up when the pastor said “Now stand up and hear the good news!” and I raised my fingers higher as we sang the Gloria Patri.
I kissed him who I love when he didn’t see it coming. I kissed him again just for good measure. We took the kids to the park and He took the long way around, so we could explore Maryville College. We might have been tresspassing…who knows? But we followed the sign that said “House in The Woods” just because it was too intriguing to pass up. Who said great big grown up parents to many littles didn’t still love a bit of semi- dangerous adventure or were too tied down to investigate what’s around that blind bend in the road? At the Greenbelt we kissed some more and reminisced about how the warm day felt like it did when we’d go to the park to play frisbee when we were dating. Right out there in public, as our kids climbed stone walls and splashed in the brook, and threw golded ginko leaves on one another.
Old people powerwalked by and smiled. We ran and laughed some more. We had a Walnut War at the Old Bridge. Dad on one side, the rest of us on the other, meanandering falls inbetween. Walnuts are like black limes and make great bombs. Andrew has a arm on him like a grown man and Wheaton is right behind. David never had to worry about my attempts…I can’t throw in a straight line to save my life. We shreiked and scampered up and down the leaf-covered hills till our lungs stung and the sun started to go down. And then we ran some more.
Dinner was huge Ice Cream sundaes. Yes, you read that right. Chocolate Chip ice cream with sliced bananas and homemade chocolate sauce and whipped cream and cherries on top. I forgot to get graham crackers because we wanted those too; they would have been a groovy addition. I made them in wavy layers in big cups, the one rule being that “everyone must eat every single bit of thier dinner”. When we were done, we all wanted something salty, so I made french fries.
Celia said she would remember this day for the rest of her life. I hope she does. This year I’ve seen a new side of christianity…an adventurous, conquering, victorious side of God that I’d heard talked of but rarely seen. In the bible, when God’s followers experienced this side, they FEASTED. They celebrated! Dancing through the streets (yes, even the grown ups) and shouting and palapable joy. Pounding on their chests and yelling! Jesus himself used his FIRST miracle to make water into fine wine at a feast…the good stuff! Not the watered down koolaid! This was the kind of feasting and celebrating done by none other than a man called “one after God’s own heart”.
I’m gonna bust out of my cage alright. I’m going to investigate what all that feasting was like. I”m going to TASTE a bit of that JOY. I’m going to live out loud and take as many with me as I can. Watch out.
Life before 2008 25 Nov 2005 05:49 am
We named him “Jed”….
He was a relaxed looking bird, as if he was very resigned to his fate, simmering in pan juices, slow roasted over night….
turns out Jen put him in the pan upside down, but for her first real bird, she did a FANTASTIC job! He was very, very tasty and when I left last night, smelling his remnants simmering on the stove to make broth, I knew Jed had done his job very well.
Yesterday was cold and clear. I spent most of it inside, with glimpses and little gasps of air when I got out for bits…we took a group picture under the bare birch tree in the white, early winter light of a November dusk. The kids were scarce most of the day, running through the woods, playing in the barn, or chasing around the kittens.
Speaking of kittens, the Pierces have two little barn cats the rescued a few weeks ago…Jasper, a lazy, sleepy boy, a bit clumsy and slow, and Miss Bianca, who has a bit more pep in her step. Not, however, after turkey and a high dose of Triptipan! The girls fed them turkey from the table and those kitties just callapsed. At one point, Scott held Miss Bianca in the palm of his hand; she was completely folded over on herself, wiht her nose down between her tail end, asleep! They were like putty as we played and rolled with them and they spookily slept through it all.
In typical fashion, dinner took much, much longer to prepare than eat, but it was a good one. We had everyone’s favorite. The kids ate quickly, too quickly for us to have much order about the table. We all just looked at each other and decided to remain flexible. We enjoyed ourselves and the men sank deep into the couch cushions to watch the baby and process thier meal while the women…headed back to the kitchen! I’m thankful for my Daddy and my hubby who in years past have treated the women to a chance to sit. Jen and I had fun though and laughed much. There is something right and cozy about being sock footed and aproned in a warm kitchen when it’s cold outside and little ones are fed and happy, shrieking up and down the hills.
Leftovers, some much desired and some that will wait to rot in the fridge to be scraped out a week from now, soup on the stove, a hubby who had to work today, kids who are in stocking feet and pj’s watching cartoons and stealing sips of eggnog, a baby who is napping…this is Friday. I will sew hats and mittens, take the chickens to the park, check the paper for rentals, avoid the shopping crowds, and snuggle when day is done. If there is still snow in the mountains tomorrow we are going to play.
I miss my family. I’m thankful for provision and for the gracious, wonderful friends we have here. I’m hopeful for the future and the culmination of sacrifice, dreams, and plans. This was Thanksgiving 2005.
Life before 2008 23 Nov 2005 05:45 am
“Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.”
Van Goethe? Stolen yet again from a most inspiring blog.
No blog for almost a week. Yes, well. I’ve learned not to write, or call anyone for that matter, when I’m in a funk. There’s no faster way for me to sound like a faithless, whinning, creaton than to try and talk about it during that strange time shortly after the crisis yet before the calm really sets in.
Much better to wait until things really settle! Which usually means, after a few laughs with him who I love. The sun is shining by then (most literally this morning, as the grey has cleared to a brilliant hue of blue).
“hue of blue” hee heee. That rhymed. hee hee. Oh, somebody stop me….
Okay…so the crisis, in an acorn shell because a walnut would be Too Much Information:
On friday, Mom and Dad, with everyone else in the building, was kicked out of thier workplace (and homeplace) in a most fascist way. The building, which passed inspections every year, had suddenly become “condemned” and everyone had two hours to get out. Fast forward to monday: they are back in to work, not live, on a restricted basis while the building is inspected in more depth.
Que the music, “Who knooooooooows” from West Side Story here.
We’re making plans to get our stuff out. In other news, an exciting rental possibility came to naught, we may choose to delve back into the job market, and holiday plans change daily.
I know why the Grinch lived in a rock. I wanted to join him this week. Cindy-loo-hoo might be cheery and sweet but the rest of the town has been hijacked with the “gimmee gimmees” and lust for all things plastic.
So last night the elders came by and talked with us about church membership. We’ve hestiated a bit to take this step, not because we don’t ADORE the church and feel like it’s the right place for us, but because we took these two-way vows before. Took them and moved away and the other half of our vow has never called a single time. We barely got a “good bye” from our shepherd and the burn spot that was left was indented on our hearts. Wolves could have gotten us and they wouldn’t know or care. Forgiveness moving towards function requires an effort we’ve taken in steps. Fortunately, it seems these elders know that and care and have battle scars to show it.
We had alot of fun talking with our first official apartment visitors. They stayed a long time and we had a lot of good laughs together. And when they left, he who I love and I giggled and rested and talked too long into the night while little fat baby snored nearby.
As I’ve written this, the sun has gone again; guess it will be streaky grey yet again. That’s okay; I think the sleepy tranquility is profoundly beautiful. I love to remember that this is the time of descending darkness, before the soltstice, and we are to Watch For the Light, the Advent. One is not as brilliant with the other to contrast it. So let the trees be bare and the color fade. The wind can howl and the water can ice over. It’s the time for that.
Today will be cozy and warm as I make the corn bread dressing, the cranapple relish, the pie, the chex mix, all in preparation for our day at the Pierce’s tomorrow. It promises to be cold! The kids have found a dead thing, a skull they think may belong to an eagle or a hawk, and are fascintated. We may need to run to the library when we head out for the inevitable trip to the store…any woman who thinks she’s *really* gonna avoid the grocery store the day before thanksgiving must have gone and hit her head……
art 18 Nov 2005 05:40 am
Muse in the Sacred Wood by Maurice Denis
I was all set to go hunting for an image to share this morning, that captured how I feel on this cold, autumn morning. I’m going through my routine, same as always, and my brain is just working on overtime, thinking, thinking, thinking. On my blog-run for the morning, I saw this, and knew it was perfect. Feeling a little guilty…I steal from Jeanette’s blog often!
Life before 2008 16 Nov 2005 02:24 pm
about that Bonhoeffer quote…
On the site where I first saw it, my friend Rachel had this to say about it:
“
When we step back from evaluating performance, we can see with compassion not only the frailties of others, but our own as well. An eye that sees suffering sees the personal cost of life–what living takes out of one, what living in community requires of one, what it doesn’t give back. It sees hearts, not products. A product mentality cares only about successes and failures; compassion cares about fellowship and bearing one another’s burdens, finding someone to help us bear ours. The incarnation is a perfect picture of this–God with us, not God measuring us. “
One thing I really miss that’s in storage is my Advent devotional book, Watch For the Light. Especially on a late autumn day like today, grey and cold and windy, with Thanksgiving and the begining of Advent quickly approaching, it seem like quiet comfort to ponder the incarnation and what it means, how it is suposed to change us.
Life before 2008 15 Nov 2005 08:03 am
Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote, from another website…
There is a very real danger of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity. We know full well that it would be very wrong, and that it would lead to a sterile relationship with our fellow men. …The faults we despise in others are always, to some extent at least, our own too. How often have we expected from others more than we are prepared to do ourselves! Why have we until now held such lofty views about human nature? Why have we not recognized its frailty and liability to temptation? We must form our estimate of men less from their achievements and failures, and more from their sufferings. The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, that is the will to hold fellowship with them. Even God did not despise humanity, but became Man for man’s sake.
Life before 2008 14 Nov 2005 07:02 pm
God is in the details…
- woke up today at 7:16 to the sounds of Wheaton playing a growly game of peek-a-boo with Rowan
- oatmeal with applesauce for breakfast; hot coffee for me, and a fairly hectic pace getting everyone up and out for co-op. It was rainy this morning; we took rain coats. Rain coats and boots really get used here! What fun! I can’t wait to get them all yellow coats and red boots!
- Andrew continues on his Gary Paulsen marathon in the car. Now he’s listening to The Island. What a great author; we love every title we’ve heard, starting with The Hatchet, then Tracker, The Rifle, A Soldier’s Heart, Tucket’s Gold….they’re all great. And books on tape are the secret to getting kids to quit fighting in the car!
- Met a new friend in the nursery today and ended up talking with her through the second hour too. She’s a nurse and lactation consultant and very experienced with the birth scene here. Loads of fun to talk with! And she let me know of a good place to get great bread, with freshly ground wheat for those of us who believe in eating that way without the space in our lives to actually grind and bake ourselves. She had lots of encouraging things to say about my nursing Rowan into his second year. So good to hear.
- Drove through the rain, listening to the sound of tires on wet pavement, and seeing wet leaves everywhere, to Chick-Fil-A for hot chicken and fries, cold lemondade, and fun with the kids. I did the unusual and skipped the drive thru. We ate inside and relaxed and laughed together.
- The library today was *heavenly*. Absolutely silent in the children’s section; we had it to ourselves for over an hour. I had a hot latte, read a great article about Green Day in Rolling Stone magazine, picked out some terrific titles for school…plays and fairy tales, mapping, skilled listening to music, the seasons, animal tracking….the kids played on the computer, worked a puzzle, and sat cuddled up in the window seat while it rained grey rain outside. Somehow grey days with vibrant red and yellow trees everywhere can’t be gloomy.
- We had a cub scout field trip to the TN Division of Drugs and Alchohol. Andrew was especially talkative; everyone seemed to think he was great and very, um, “interactive”….but I was on a nervous string knowing how fast he can go from that to down right obnoxious. But even I laughed out loud when the doctor asked him how a forest fire started. He was of course expecting a short answer like, “someone threw down thier cigarette”. Instead he got a very lengthy description of, “well some idiot got careless and there down thier cigarette butt and it fell on some old and dry pine needles on the forest floor and they smoldered and spread to the nearby trees where they caught on fire like a chain and the whole forest burned down and the animals got hurt and……” all the while waving his hands.
- we came home and snuggled on the couch to read library books on music history, listening and sound distiction, and math riddles. They worked cuisinairre rods while listening to a guitar CD and Andrew practiced his violin. I caught up with my friend Marlene while I made a new cookie of my own creation, “Apple Snickerdoodles” for tonight’s award ceremony, made a big pot of baked potato soup, and got uniforms ready. It was still raining but a fog was rolling in; it’s beauty made me speechless! I couldn’t see the distant mountains but the hills looked like a layer cake…fog, trees, fog, trees, and so on. Grey and brown, and purple and yellow street lights here and there. Beautiful.
- David made it home in time for soup; didn’t sell much today. Everyone wanted to be home in bed or somewhere other than work and no one wanted to think about what they needed for the coming month!
- Off to the American Heritage Girls Fall Awards Ceremony. The fog was so thick that standing by my door, I couldn’t see the van where we park. There was better visibility at the bottom of the ridge.
- Celia won her joining award and her fitness badge. The cub scout brothers all formed a “line of honor” for the girls to walk through to get thier packets. Made this momma proud and weepy. Rowan sat on my lap either pulling my hair, his hair, or our little friend Evelyn Richardon’s.
- lines full of gooey brownies, desecrated bags of chips, and red punch are becoming a staple in our weeks. We never would have thunk….
- home in the rain and fog. More purple and grey haze and wet tires on pavement. Tired and hyper kids who talked the whole way home about the pros and cons of a christmas tree. The UT cows in the field were trying to huddle thier entire selves under one tree. David has a head cold, so Rhus Tox remedy and hot tea for him, pj’s and bed for the kids, and some computer r & r for this tired girl. It was a full moon tonight, barely visible through the clouds all around us.
Life before 2008 11 Nov 2005 04:15 pm
Happy day…
We, Rowan and I, wake up before the dawn these days. He bats at the mini-blinds behind our headboard and giggles at….fairies? The sun comes up slowly and the light is purple. Blue-purple in the mornings, and orange and red-purple in the evenings. I never knew purples and violets were fall colors but they are everywhere here. Snuggling my face down into his fleece sleeper and the covers and begging for a just a few more minutes sleep is usually the last thing I do before crawling out and dragging myself upright.
David comes in for a hot breakfast and coffee, feeling good about “the workout they are paying me to do”. He likes this job and other than majorly fouling up our Thanksgiving plans to visit family, it seems to be a good and fairly nonobtrusive addition to our routine. He dropped the vacation bombshell before I was out of bed; within 5 minutes I’d planned a cabin rental and ruled it out, an overnight drive to Alabama, a trip by myself (not so great because we can’t very well celebrate without David), and came up empty for a viable alternative. It seems swapping out christmas might work….we’ll have to wait and see. Sometimes being Gazelle Intense is harder than we would have thought.
It was a well paced day, cleaning the nooks and crannies, changing sheets, washing diapers, reading to chickens, and taking the occassional deep breath of autumn air. We had a 25 or so degree drop this week and it’s pretty cold. A quick inventory and memory of what was in storage revealed we have no winter blankets. Will have to do something about that rather quickly. Polyester and acrylic make us sweat; I guess I’m a bit unversed when it comes to winter things. I was wondering about flannel sheets too…they sound so dreamily soft and cozy!
The chickens played in the woods alot, and with the neighbor’s Lab, Petey. The littlest one got rosey cheeks this afternoon and I heard the oldest remark how adorable the baby was when he didn’t think anyone was listening. The other day he told a 13 year old girl how nice her braces looked with her hair…she probably didn’t realize what a high compliment that was!
Wheatie-Tom was quite indignant today when Mr. Rogers was an entire episode of The Land of Makebelieve. “What?! No Special Deliveries? No feeding the fish?! What is this?!” It was a foot-stomping fit to be sure.
Rowan has discoverd the apple basket. Beautiful Cameos, the perfect combination of tart and sweet…just biting into one is like a breath of autumn. One expects to open thier eyes and see a picnic blanket on a leaf-strewn yard and to smell chimney smoke with the next inhale. I don’t know if Rowan quite expects that, but I’ve got quite a few apples with tee-tiney bites in them, so he must be blissin’ out with something!
Dinner was just the epitome of cozy tonight. I made my perfect, perfect buttermilk waffles with steak and eggs. David picked up real maple syrup and whole cream butter on the way home because I was out. I almost made coffee to go with it. I have the absolute privledge of using my great-grandmother’s waffle iron that she made my mom waffles in as a kid. It makes wonderful waffles, just crispy enough on the outside and meltingly soft inside.I love cooking with it and imagining both the kitchens of the past and my farm kitchen yet to come, with a big wooden table off to one side and hungry children all around.I tried not to eat too fast and just savor the sigh of the end of a day, the end of another week. Each buttermilky little square had a puddle of melted butter and syrup within and I could have easily had seconds. But my recipe makes just 6 and now that the baby eats a whole one, there were no leftovers. Will have to start doubling it… Our eggs were just right too…a cushion of softness where the yolk had cooked on bottom but with just enough fluid gold to dip our steak chunks into. Streaked through with a little syrup and butter and it was just heavenly upon our forks. No need to rinse plates tonight!
Kiddos in pj’s and slippers…they’ve been enacting nursery rhymes in play-form. They are ready for snuggles and tuck-ins and promises of “what’s for breakfast”. Waffles and sausage….we just can’t have it enough!
Life before 2008 06 Nov 2005 05:10 am
Little Beauties for the Morning….
- the soft wind out on the balcony this morning and the tinkle of the windchimes
- standing by a gently warm oven, making buttery hollandaise and poaching eggs
- the smell of my shadegrown coffee beans mingling with the warm butter of the sauce; feeling the comfort of this weekly ritual of an excellent breakfast. To quote Maroon 5, “Starting slow on Sunday morning, I never want to end”
- seeing my babe all curled up on his side, asleep in our bed, with his donkey under his arm. He’s so gorgeous when he’s sleeping.
- little giggles on the couch as Celia sings an Anuna song in Latin rapidly and cracks Wheaton and Daddy up
Coffee’s on…..wish you could c’mon over.
Life before 2008 05 Nov 2005 05:40 pm
S-A-TUR-DAY
- Who knew that living here would hurt sometimes? Not the kind of big, major, catastrophic hurt…I do have more perspective than that. But maybe the best way to describe it is the discomfort and longing felt at oh, say, about 8 months along in a pregnancy. We are close enough to living one part of our Dream For Life that we can taste it, smell it, see it when we close our eyes and inhale deeply. But there’s still some things that need to come to pass, some time that needs to tick. We’re close enough now to know it’s going to happen; the mother *will* birth that baby and smell it’s sweet head. And what comes after won’t be all roses. After all, the best dreams are those that have enough reality in them to actually be attainable.
- Today I took my girl to a movie about horses. Dreamer, starring Dakota Fanning. What 8 year old girl isn’t in love with horses? She laughed, I cried. It was a good little heartwarming story with a pretty horse, beautiful country, a soaring soundtrack…what really got me though was all the dewey fields, ranch fencing, and gorgeous barns.
- The Greenbelt is positively pulsing with autumn energy. Leaves in more colors than I knew…today I saw a leaf that was green on the edges, then red, then yellow in the middle and light brown along it’s viens. Amazing. After a good walk we ended up at the swings, and I got on. I used to love to swing but probably haven’t been on one since David and I dated, a honkin’ eleven years ago! It was glorious…blue sky, damp air, all those leaves. My hair is to the middle of my back and it was down today. For a few short moments I didn’t feel anything like a thirty-something mother of five babies. Not that there’s anything remotely regretable about actually being one but it was freeing and transformative to fly through the air like that and feel so young!
- I realized that in this area, where the kind of land we want to end up with is down right common, I can NOT fall in love with every single house we look at. It doesn’t matter how optimistic I can be, instantly seeing past a house’s faults to what it’s potential is. The bottom line is that there is ONE great place for us and lots of “good enoughs”. I need to toughen up a bit!
It’s been a good day. Tomorrow my parents will be here for a quick trip through town. It’s suposed to rain and cold air should be blowing in. This week we want to gather acorns, go rollerblading, bird watch, and paint. I can’t believe it’s the end of the first week of November already. And so it goes…
Life before 2008 04 Nov 2005 09:44 am
God of our Fathers…
Wheaton did something wrong today, and in talking to him about it, I asked him what he needed to do….
“Go to my bed and think about it?”
“Yes…”, said I. “Who do you need to ask to forgive you?”
“God”, he ventured.
“Yes. Who else?” I asked.
“Abraham????” he said with a satisfied grin.
Very, very hard to parent with a straight face sometimes….
