Living-Deliberately.com

I know there are readers out there who are wondering why I would consider the disclosure that we are in the process of becoming a two-income family to be “safer in the closet”. Why such a strong term?

It is interesting to me how quickly my fear of rejection and belittlment bore out regarding my hesitation to say out loud what has been true for a few months: We are a two-income family. The first comment there was one placed by an old friend and her husband, who among other things, are the epitome of the kind of viewpoint I thought would respond with hostility: the single-income, homeschooling, uber-right-wing christian. This camp is where I got my start so I know it inside and out. I know the lingo, the sterotypes, the judgements, the haste.

I knew that they would assume if I was doing ANYTHING more than a hobby aside from full-time, single-focus mothering that I was harming my family. I know they see the woman/mother as a one-dimensial being who has “one-purpose” and that anything else is seen as a dangerous distraction. I knew they would see any success at what I did as a threat and a perversion of what I claim to want, and that the first attack would be to insinuate that I’d already started the process of becoming something I didn’t want to be.

Knowing this, I posted. Seeing it, I find that, most especially because of *whom* it came from, it still smarts. But I still posted. Heck…just a year ago I went to a church with this mindset, was excommunicated, and was accused of “leading my family into damnable heresy and idolotry”. Those in that camp see a big threat in a vocal woman; that excommunication and the following accusations sprang mostly from the fact that I BLOG.

And so it must follow that this rejection may have been predicatible but it does not change the fact that they are wrong. That *I* was wrong when I was in their shoes, looking down on women who work from home. And it was that look into the mirror that drove me to seek to be open and authentic with how our lives are changing, come what may.

I know who I am. I know my core beliefs very, very well. I know that I not only believe Moms can be the best Moms when they are home with their kids, but that Working Moms have it harder than those who stay home. I know that for a decade I gave myself to birthing, nursing, grieving, teaching, growing, feeding, nurturing, reading….and that this next decade will look different than the last because I’ve not got a household of babies anymore. I know that my family’s needs are changing AND that we’ve been equipped to meet those needs. I know that adjusting to parenting older children has been not unlike it’s own transitional labor. I know that there is nothing wrong with hard work and that teaching-by-doing that our family is a team will be a good thing for all of us.

And I think there is virtue in living honestly. Not letting fear of rejection or unfair judgement stop me, I am going to share, as best as I can, why and how we are going through this change. We don’t live in a little box, even the little boxes we once tried to put ourselves in.

So to some of you, who are familiar with the idea that there are strong opinions on whether or not Moms should work outside the home already well-presented elsewhere, I present you with the reality that there is a more extreme camp: the one that says mothers should not work at anything not related to childcare, being a wife, or a distant hobby (that also should have some home-keeping related value). I think this lifestyle is a beautiful one, where it’s possible, and one I fought hard to maintain, and for, while my children were babies. I will explore it more heavily in coming posts, but I also likewise feel that the pressure to stay within that lifestyle, to the ruin of finances, maternal health, and familial impact when either the needs of the family have changed, the circumstance demands it, or the family would corporately benefit from it, placed by an idealogical group, is an abuse.

I had to come to terms with all of that over the course of this year, as I started and then grew, and now hope to continue growing, a business that in some ways takes, and in other ways gives, from and to my family. To single-income legalists fond of scripture-charged arguments, may I suggest proverbs 31. The girl worked at home alrighty. That she did.

If ever a week had a theme, that would be what this week’s was.  The message was everywhere: a week ago this town had a festival and the Three Who Speak To Us did so and then Became Five, resulting in a dinner invite. And who knew kindred spirits were so close all this time?! Best: they have children the ages of our two who had no friends here at all and all of a sudden the world around looks different.  New friends came via email, old friends came via phone. Our homeschool group’s newsletter came out and the first image to appear was a scene of a village. I spoke with a new potential client who’s theme is “people connecting to make something better together”…collaboration at it’s finest.  The first cub scout activity of the year was this week and I was amazed at how comforting it was to see a group of familiar faces, though distance is changing the dynamic that once was. That new friend up the hill has already introduced us to more potential new friends and when I woke up this morning after the season’s first chilly night, I realized that  in the course of a week our outlook had changed.

It matters that our friends and contacts are not just *only* close to an hour away. For the past year, our church has been far away, our friends far away, our resources far away. Readers to this site know that what has been close by, in contrast, has been less than peachy.  It occurs to me that meeting a friend can be just as life-altering as the “turn on a dime” sentences; I envision one person struggling to move a large load and feeling an immediate boost (and making more progress) with the addition of just one other person who has come along side.

On Wednesday I saw a sticker on a truck that hailed back to an old youth group slogan they used to preach to us: “I Stand Alone”.  I know the intent of the message is to show strength of character in the face of negative peer pressure but this week I only thought, “how sad”.  Standing alone is not nearly so productive or gratifying as Standing With. No one is an island right? The sticker only reminded me how lonely it can be with no one at your side.

We’ve long suspected that there were little pockets of so-called “outsiders” around here, all feeling pretty close to the same thing, but not connected together very well. It appears such is the case and we wonder if there isn’t more truth to the advice we were given that it would take a few years to “settle” into this environment. We didn’t want to believe that but maybe we were wrong.  This place sans friends versus this place with them is nearly unrecognizable to us and we at least know now to take our time in making upcoming decisions.  Things look different indeed.

We are waffling in the Land of If. It’s not where I like to be…not what I like to be about. I’d much rather chose a path, funnell all my momentum into it, make it the best it can be, and deal…for better or for worse. When we need to carefully weigh a situation, I then shift to preferring a deadline…some end in sight to the lists of pro’s and cons. For me, the worst place of all is having to analyze something, with an open-ended time frame, with nearly equally “doable” options, yet with still high stakes on the line (because I don’t bother with this emotional destination for the little stuff. C’mon…does it really matter if I wear the green dress or the blue? Have steak or chicken? No paralysis there).

Maybe that’s part of my discomfort: I’m unpracticed with choices. Some things are just of little consequence and I’ve found it easier to just do them and let my energy be directed into dealing with the result than sit and wonder endlessly. A lot of life is wasted that way…trying to decide, rather than just deciding and doing.

Still, seeing as I’m not the only person in my little family, and seeing that my needs are not the only ones to be considered, and seeing that God in Heaven decided to pair me with a deliberator (iow…a voice of caution for my tendancy towards heedlessness), we are weighing options. We had a time line but it was self-imposed and as such, becomes more and more flexed as we near it. Our lists of pros versus cons grows daily. Emotions are all over the place. “Enough Already!” I want to scream. “Let’s just DO IT.”

Which, of course, is not entirely true. I am tired. Today, rather than be disciplined with my to-do list, I want to nap. Deliberation, it turns out, also provides a bit of a grace period. What I really want I think, if I am honest with the mirror, is to “be there” already. Like the sweaty little kid in the back seat whose legs are sticking to the vinyl asking, “are we there yet?”, I’m ready for the next turn to be the driveway into home. I’m sick of the process and also suspect that the very process I’m tired of remains in order that I may learn something.

And so the mapless Land of If is where we currently reside. It’s quite hilly terrain….and curvy too; one can never quite see around the bend. Every road seems to possess a fork of choices. Some of the signs are askew and mangled. I suppose if every forest has an edge, so too must this. I wonder what’s on the other side.

I think I may know too many “Sarah’s” because when I first saw this post with the tan minivan photo at the top, I thought of another Sarah…the “SmallWorld” Sarah with a similar van (or maybe that was her old one?). Anyway, I read this STUNNING story with a different Sarah in mind and I was laughing my head off imaging that Sarah in the story…she totally has the moxy to do something like this but probably wouldn’t have taken it so far…..plus, she’s in the middle of homeschooling today.

Anyway, my other friend Sarah, obviously also rich-with-moxy, is the writer of this story. Reminds me of Fried Green Tomatoes, Towanda The Avenger…. may prostitutes and the sleazes who hire them BEWARE. Live Deliberately girlfriend!
And a darn creative blog post too, I may add.

Time for a check in! And he’s smokin’! Cookin’ with gas! On  a roll! (quick, quick… find me s’more cliches for rock-and-roll success!)

Here’s a chart that shows how Ron has done in the various straw polls around the country. Go Ron!!

I took a look at the evidence: I wanted to get out of the hospital…but I didn’t want to go home. I knew what waited there for me was an overwhelming project list and that “the only way out was through” because letting it go was not sustainable. And how. We left, rather abruptly, Friday night and after getting groceries, walked in just before 11pm. The fridge, which can’t hold it’s temperature and leaks water both inside and out, had “peed” rotten veggie water all over the floor. Since no one had been home to clean it up through out the day, the cummulative effect of 3 hot days was all over the green vinyl. The kitchen lighting was burned out. There was a mountain of clean-but-unfolded laundry covering the entire dining room table, Everest Style. That was what I could see from the door, without actually stepping inside yet.

What followed was a room-by-room assult of Things Needing To Be Done. I guess at the top is the room division project that continues to drag on; splitting one long room into two bedrooms divided by closets started in May (April?). This has the entire house in disorder: rooms that already serve many puposes now serve more and the result is chaos, a lack of structure, and disaray. Add to it the parade of “little” fixes that are necessary if we sell in the coming year…only late at night after a long week in a hospital and news that we are still adjusting to, they didn’t seem so “little”.

I had my moment of wanting to drop a match and walk away. I had my cry. I had a few hours of sleep. And then I got to work.

All day Saturday and into the night I worked. Sorting, washing, folding, ripping out the last of the carpet, padding, and tack strips, scrubbing, mopping…in between feeding a ravenous little boy on Steroids, talking on the phone, and ignoring my back injury. Two large van loads of stuff went to the dump and a third went to Goodwill. I stayed home from church, cried some more about missing communion and fellowship, and welcomed home the kids, who immediately went to work with me.

By last night we had a handle on things; the list is still quite long. The oven still doesn’t work, the wall needs building, walls require painting, thresholds and screens need replacing and something will have to be done with that fridge. There’s a stopped up bathroom sink, toilets that need new seals, siding that must be replaced, a broken window… and of course the Mt. Laundry will replenish itself, food must be prepared with care, meds needs to be handed out 3x a day, school for hungry minds, the grass is knee high, the garden swallowed the sidewalk, animals to get to their new homes, more animals to find homes for, and a new business to take care of….

So I took a look at the evidence. Life change is necessary when the status quo makes you want to flee; when it has reached a point of unsustainablity. If “The Only Way Out is Through” then pick something and get to work. My mom said, “this has ‘come to pass’, not ‘come to stay’.” Indeed. Inside of me there is a neat and orderly person trying to crawl out past the layers of mayhem; my outer doesn’t reflect my inner and it feels disingenuous and frustrating. It’s time to change some things.

Onward~

I am used to a mindset of “cures”. “Getting better”. “Do this and it will equal that”.  What I’m finding with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, from numerous books and personal testimonies, is that this is different than just about anything I’ve managed before. Even with our daughter’s heart defect, we could be reasonably sure that certain meds would produce certain results. Surgery would be needed at definite benchmarks. When we have a cold or a virus, it’s pretty straightforward: drinking lots of water loosens congestion. Take a pain reliever for a headache. Get some rest. It will go away.

But chronic disease? Well, it seems highly individual. Some go into remission, some do not. The two could have done the exact same things and just gotten a different result. Lactose-free helps some and not others. Ditto controvery over fruit/no fruit, fiber/no fiber, antibiotics for maintence/or only for flare ups. “Diet matters somewhat” said my doctor, who prescribed a soft-foods, lacto-free diet but saw nothing amiss with a chicken breast, bacon, and margarine on a previously empty stomach.

The truth is…..no matter what we do, he could get sick again. Take all the meds on schedule, do a home stool-blood test regularly,  eat a pure diet…it’s a disease, not an allergy or obesity issue. He looked great for two years but was developing thousands of dangerous ulcers at the same time.

So I’m making a grocery list with the best of what I’ve been able to read about, already know, and have been told by those who live with their own conditions. I’m trying not to be afraid of drug side-effects and lurking dangers from ulcers and inflammation that may not be overtly obvious until they are quite serious. I want to believe that enough effort (a) + the right diet (b) will equal = a cure (c).  And I’m not sure that’s what life is going to look like anymore…

I’ve been thinking a lot about my title question, “What if you wanted to change your life?”. We never are able to control everything that comes into our lives…and that isn’t what I’ve ever wanted this blog to be about anyway; the controlling of what comes “in”. Rather, it’s deciding how best to live with what I can change. What I do have some say over…and right now, it’s not that chronic disease has come into our lives but instead, the question is how will we change what we can in order to support what we can not.  I’m reminded that Living Deliberately does not mean living without spontaneity or surprise or even calamity; it means we can intentionally adapt our habits so as to live responsibly, with dignity, grace, and gratitude.

Onward~

Want to read more about our efforts to live deliberately even when life throws you a curve ball? Subscribe to my feed .

“Woo hoo! I get to eat breakfast! Did you hear that monkeys???” (said to the little group surrounding my favorite 6 year old).

In response to the many notes and emails…what we need or could use:

• Wheaton can not eat at least for the next week. If you come by and bring food, we are trying to keep the food items in the Family Kitchen near our room and out of his sight.
• We will need to find homes for all of our animals except for our dog. This means four puppies, 7 kittens, 1 cat, and 3 chickens. If the puppies and kittens are to go to shelters, we’ll need volunteers from counties who have shelters to take them there themselves; as out of area residents (and our county has no shelter) we can not take them ourselves. If anyone is interested in adopting one, please let us know.
• Wheaton is finding comfort in playing with toy monkeys and dinosaurs. Rather than sweet treats, if you want to send him something, anything with monkeys or dinosaurs will be sure to entertain him quite a bit! Cards and pictures will also be quite welcome.
• Mom and Dad are doing okay for now…big brother and sister are with grandparents in Mississippi and little brother is running amok hither there and yon. With Ronald McDonald House, more grandparents, a flexibile employer, a helpful parish family, and “village” friends we may have a gameplan for the coming days. There are gaps here and there so if you are willing to help but wonder how/where, please let us know. One thing we are running low on is creativity and ideas.
• As ever, prayers are covetted.

It’s funny to me sometimes, taking a look at what I’ve been given: on one hand, I’m a home and water birthin’, breastfeeding, homeopathic treatin’ Momma in birks and hair to my waist. On the other hand, I’ve been deeper into the world of medicine than many would ever guess, and I consider a handful of men who wear white doctor’s coats to be some of the most signifcant people who have ever touched my life. And somehow, within my redheaded-and-sometimes-crazy self, the two worlds co-exist.

So regular readers have heard the story before… pregnant with my third baby, we found a broken heart. The doctor who found it was kind and compassionate…somehow understanding my natural inclinations and handling me with care as I made the swift transition into a world of high intervention. Later he would just as compassionately and thoroughly scan my belly during two other pregnancies, knowing that if he found anything, his one sentence could radically alter our lives once more.

Sentences…and those who utter them….this amazes me about life change. Looking back, I think every major change that has happened in my life has spun on the axis of a single sentence.

“I can’t see you anymore.”

“Will you marry me?”

“It’s a boy!”

“You know we only see two chambers here?”

“I’m so sorry.” (said the first time; after that, you’re just numb)

“He hasn’t grown in at all since he was 4 months old.”

“Come to Tennessee!”

There are others of course, both sentences and life-changing doctors. Dr. Kantor fixed my little girl’s heart so that she lived. Dr. Cuadrado held my little girl’s heart as she died. A few years later, a seemingly endless parade of lab coats looked at my little boy, inexplicably starving to death…those luminous and huge blue eyes staring up and almost never crying, and gave up. They had no ideas. They didn’t know what was wrong. And we were running out of time.

I had to go to an evaluation that would get us to a therapist who thought she could try to help. I played and prayed; they watched on the other side of the dark glass. Someone was watching and he wore a white coat too.

And so we met Dr. Perszyk. He’d seen this before, he knew what to do. I won’t go into the long story but this is a doctor who called me at home. He met us in the ER and got us right back. He worked with solutions until we found the right one. Ultimately, he saved Wheaton’s life.

Four years later and things have looked very good. No one looking at him now would know how sick he once was. I’ve been more on the natural side of life than the medical end, save for a little visit here or there. Wheaton himself has been very healthy since our move. And as cute as his comment about viruses and computers was the other day, there’s a lingering dark cloud around stomach pain and I know better than to be naive.

And maybe we stay here, maybe we don’t. Life with children who’ve faced critical illness has this tightrope constantly woven through it. You deal with what is given. Only today I got to remember how grateful I am for the awesome doctors we’ve come across along the way. Out of state? No problem…he’ll call. Can’t remember the med that worked two years ago? No problem…he’ll talk to the new doctor and ease the transition. That alone will probably save us from another foray into tests that aren’t necessary but are standard protocol…unless one has someone in white watching out for them. I’m sure we have many; and with some of them, I know their names.

W, who is feeling increasingly under the weather, was cuddled up in my bed.

Me: “‘I’m sorry you’re feeling puny. Maybe you’re coming down with a virus.”

W: “Mom…only computers get viruses.”

Happenings:

On my microfarmsteading blog, I’m asking for help in the naming of our pups ! Wanna throw me some suggestions? Even better… are you interested in adopting one or know someone who might be?

Dr. Dunaway, one of my blogging clients, has started podcasting…and his first one after the intro cast is hilarious!

Tim blogged about some neat stuff this week: the oldest blogger, an inspiring young man born without limbs who does more than some full bodied folks I know, and goosebumply video on the difference one more degree of effort can make.

Fr. Stephen asked for stories of where readers had found beauty. The responses are…beautiful.

More Deliberate Every Day has had some great stuff on this week on the Farm Bill and today, the Slow Food movement in Italy and the effort to bring it into hospitals there.

Ordinary Days has got her One Hot Mama Revolution going in full swing. Check it out (Moms)!

Wanna share what’s going on at your blog? Link in the comments!

National Review Online had an article yesterday on the “Ron paul temptation“, a piece that felt lukewarm and almost condescending, at least to this Ron supporter. I don’t jive with the idea of, “gee he sounds great but…I’d better go with someone more mainstream” (or, “more likely to win”, or “closer to what we’re used to”).  Today National Review Online blogger Todd Seavey wrote an argument that’s worth reading…especially if you *do*, at least to this point, personally jive with the idea that Ron is “great, but…”.

I find it intriguing (and a little discouraging) that Ron’s bigggest climb does NOT seem to be the national election but rather, his own party’s primary…and not on voter support nor issues…but because of politics and fear. Making change happen will take courage and bravery, and belief that it’s really possible.

“Well dear, I popped a cat’s head.”

“You what?”

“I popped it’s head. With the van. The kids favorite kitten.”

“How?!?”

“It was under the van and didn’t move, even when I backed out slowly. I didn’t see it. Didn’t know it was under there.”

Sigh. That was MY day. How was yours?

I’ve been thinking a lot about personal reinvention: the decision to change one aspect of life intentionally and taking the steps necessary to bring it into fruition. It’s essential to Living Deliberately…we see what we want to change and we set out to do so, one element/day at a time.

A while back a friend clipped the following quote from an issue of Sky Magazine. I’ve had it taped to my office wall and read it frequently.

“…the fine art of reinvention- that is, what can happen when circumstances permit you to evolve. Or, perhaps, force you to evolve. By ‘reinvention’, we mean specifically taking something that already exists and seeing what it can become. The creative process is very well-celebrated. Less so is the reinventive process, the adaptation….”

I am adapting a few things in my life right now…. designing a career, learning on a sharp curve new things every day, reducing distractions so that we can stay focused….

Anyone changing things in their lives, reinventing themselves or choices intentionally? Care to share?