Fussy britches...

So, I was sitting in church before the service began, leaned over and told my husband, "Okay, today I just hate people."  He gives me a grin with that bearded face.  Asked if something specific had happened and I said that, no, I just hated folks.  Today.

Here's the deal.  I'm tired of people-pleasing.  Of so many Marthas at our church.  Such self-sacrificing women who just plain wear. me. out.  

I screw up.  Okay?  I really screw up sometimes.  And, you know, I don't have to bow to that pressure.  With God, I'm good enough right now,  Today.  I love that.  We need, as the body of Christ, to stop beating up on one another.  And do less, not more.  Take care of what's in front of us without fabricating more works.

There was a meeting after church about Christmas preparations and all the Advent goodness.  Gary was there and he volunteered to deliver the presents to the Neighborhood Christian Center in December, among other things.  Folks (the Marthas) were offering to do all sorts of things.  Okay, fine.  Be that way.  These are a couple of women who are already booked, but they just won't let up.  I promise, it'll get done.  But to load more on your already-weighted-down-backs is ridiculous.

I asked Gary afterward if I should've been there (honestly, I wasn't part of any committee who was supposed to be present). and he said I could've probably come and offered to do something, but to his credit, no pressure was laid on me.  He's a good man, even though he's got way too much energy.  I said I'd prefer to do things I felt the Lord setting in front of me than doing things just because of a void on the checklist.  I'm really big in following your spiritual giftedness, but really, anyone can take out the trash, you know?  No reason to be persnickety, but doing to be doing isn't the way.  And really, if some things DON'T get done, what's the worst that would happen?

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Sadly, though, we won't have a Christmas Pageant this year.  My favorite thing.  I'll just have to get over it.  Correction:  Oldest daughter heard Gary and I talking about it just now and will offer to organize it.  Thrills me to bits.  So like the pageant from Sam Elliott's movie Prancer, a personal favorite, for obvious reasons.  Ahem.  Focus.  Focus.

More joy.  That's what I need and want.  And anybody remember me telling what my mom said the day after her stroke two years ago?  She said, "I wish I'd had more fun."

Words to keep tucked in your heart.

(listening to Toto's Africa and Rosanna)

Week's end

It's a funny thing.  When you give your body a chance to rest and recover from whatever-it-is-that-ails-you, sometimes you feel worse than before.  I think it's our body's way of saying, "Hold up!  Give me some more time."  That's me now.  I don't have any disease, but just a continual exhaustion.  Better, but not cured.

And in my necessary quietness, I got to thinking about the Internet and how different our lives would be without it.  Blessed in ways, but cursed in others by being online.

If we didn't have the Internet:  So many books wouldn't be shared or even written.  So many narcissists wouldn't have an audience.  Children behaving better, marriages richer, but fewer recipes to make and fewer friends to claim.  See, good and bad.  And maybe one of the most significant---better self-images if we didn't continually inundate ourselves with comparisons to folks we don't even know.  Even this afternoon, I was looking at some blogs I follow, and after I turned off my phone, looked around and felt awful.  Like I was living in a dump, which I don't, but still, it felt like it.

* * *

Oldest daughter went to a tea party at a new friend's house yesterday and the husband was installing rabbit ears in their attic.  They'd just cancelled Comc*ast for their cable company and needed the antenna to get a signal.  Fewer stations, yes, but free.  We've done the same.  My husband got online and made from scratch an antenna for our bedroom tv and we'd never taken down the big old antenna on our roof, which is linked to our living room set.  Works great.  Not sure how many stations we get, but maybe ten.  It varies, to be honest.  

Our Internet connection is through our cellphones, with a gadget giving us a hotspot (using a gadget called a hockey puck or something like that), which allows us a certain amount of fast-speed, then unlimited slower-speed through our laptops.  In about two weeks each month we use up the fast, and now we're slogging along.  Like the old phone connection.  Don't load photos, watch videos, or hope for anything to load quickly.  But, so much less expensive.  Biggest plus, for households with children---you can turn off the hotspot.  Love that.

So many folks are going backward.  Less technology, more focus on less.  Think on that one.  We jumped en masse on the bandwagon with all that the Internet offered so many years ago, and later on (maybe) realized how intrusive that lifestyle was going to be in our daily lives.

Too much stimuli makes for a life feeling like a body after a heavy meal.  And all the health food you can stuff into your face won't remedy that unless a mental purge is engaged.

And so it goes.

Saturday afternoon

In the bedroom being quiet.  Oldest daughter's at work at the bookstore, and husband is at church doing some things to prepare for the Fish Fry that's tomorrow.  We'll go in a minute to buy flowers for the altar.  Cloudy day, sort of drizzly, not near as rainy as I'd prefer.  Just mostly damp.  There's rain in Texas which I hope will swing up here, not as boisterous as they've had, but we need it so badly.

That's my story.  Oh, but here's more.

Got up at seven to let out the chickens and oldest daughter said the hot water heater was leaking again through the hall ceiling.  Went up in the attic and bailed water from the drip pan.  Why is it those pans always leak?  It's the darndest thing.  What they're made to do, they don't do.  I guess when we replace the hot water heater, we should invest in a new pan.  Or fix the leak in it.

Problem for another day.

Seems everyone in this house has more energy than I do.  Youngest son is probably the most laid-back of all my offspring.  He'll be quiet in his room drawing for hours, just enjoying the silence.  Loves being alone, but fortunately with our church involvement, he adjusts to being with people.  He's almost painfully shy, which I totally understand.  Baby steps getting him out in the world.  Or maybe not steps at all.  He should be allowed his introvert status.  I know I wasn't allowed that growing up.  Have a mom who's an extrovert and try to not do stuff yourself with things to do.  Impossible!

Now will pause, get dressed (finally) and get the flowers done.  Probably will take them by the church and go ahead and arrange them.  A restful evening ahead.  I like that.

Monday morning

Woke up around 6:30am to take care of chickens and made my tea to have outside with them.  The city was just waking up, and traffic on our street hadn't taken hold yet.  Birds.  The last sounds of the crickets. Heavy dew on the grass.

Slowly the earth woke up.  Trafficky sounds.  Blue Jays squawking.  Lots of Sparrows, who come in droves to eat chicken feed.

It's a bit chilly today.  I wore my nightclothes out back and in a few minutes, after eating some bugs and such, Nora hopped up into my lap.  Snuggled down into my robe.  Milk followed a bit later.  Love watching their eyelids as they blink---backwards, with the main eyelid going up from the bottom, opposite of humans.  Their pupils dilate as they watch me watch them.

* * *

Wanting to take more charge this week.  Seems sometimes my life runs on its own speed, and I have little ability to manage it.  It manages me.  I've said this before, but it appears I tend to react to what's been placed in front of me, rather than initiating change.  I adapt probably way too well.  Have had to, first with so many children being born one after another, and also with our financial situation.  Figured I could either buck the situation or go with it.  Sort of weary of the flow, if you get what I mean.  Ready to change the river's route, so to speak.

You know, life has to be about making it work regardless of the messes.  I find that hard.  I want to have a re-do and clean up ahead of time the trials our children have forced on us.  To be warned beforehand that those delightful photos of the family when everyone was young and unlined were real, but now is real as well.  Not my favorite real, but nonetheless, it's my deck of cards.

Still, when I look at a blog of a mother holding fresh, young children I feel a catch in my throat.  I might always have that catch.  I want to tell that mom to hold onto that precious time with their young ones.  Relish it.  Breathe in the scent of that sweet neck.  Danger ahead.  You think it's hard waking up to a baby with a frighteningly high temperature---wait until they discover the world is bigger than you've shared.  They might like that big, dangerous world.  Well, we might never see the results of our hard prayers, but then again, it might happen.  Keep plugging along.  Be thankful for my tribe here.  For seeing Christ's work in my children at home.  See His work in their faces and their words.  I guess it's all a process.

But I only have to deal with today.  This moment is blessed.  Enjoy yours.

Tuesday morning

Yesterday I received an Interior Design book in the mail to review.  From the Apartment Therapy folks.  Beautiful.  Reminds me of my roots.  Degree in same subject way back in college.  Years previous to that filling notebooks with cutouts of rooms I adored, years since with gluing photos into journals, re-decorating our home, collecting magazines, etc.  Living in clutter.  My form of clutter.

Mothering has put certain things on the back burner.  I sort of admire women who can juggle children, and find time to do the things that inspire passion in them.  Privately think they were blessed with some sort of DNA I'm missing. I tend to have, pretty much, a one-track mind---oh, I can make dinner, read a book and answer the phone.  Simple tasks.  But things that require much mind work will demand a one-track mind.  Time set aside.

Segue.

I have a point, though.

Recently we were inundated with a fly invasion.  Had a problem of another sort in the crawl space under our house, and dealing with that led to the flies.  One day last week our kitchen window (thankfully closed) was full of flies.  Not pretty.  Actually, disgusting.  Anyway, now they're all gone (well, let's say they found a way out or are dead) and the previous problem is resolved as well.  Nature has a pretty cool way of managing, uh, nature.

So, second son who's still visiting is tall.  Like 6'-5".  This comes in handy when I can't raise the kitchen window.  I just couldn't get purchase on it.  No matter if I slung my leg up on the counter, used a screwdriver to wedge under the window handle or whatever.  I think it had swollen and just wouldn't budge.  Second son raised it and there were flies in all their glory inside the ledge.  Oldest daughter stood there for moral support, handed me the Mrs. Meyer's lavender spray while I cleaned out the window with a hand full of paper napkins.  Repeatedly.  After a minute or so of doing this, which didn't take long, she commented that it was restful to watch me clean it up.  Said it was calming.  Huh.  

Maybe I was deliberate.  I know I wasn't hurrying, just doing a task, but maybe I was actually doing it right.  Being mindful.  

That's the thing.  Paying attention to the little things.  Being present and not making a mad dash even at minor tasks.  

More and more I'm seeing folks with dazed expressions on their faces.  Engaging in conversations with people out in the world is getting more difficult.  The younger generation finding it more of a challenge to connect.  Reminds me of the Stepford Wives.  Cardboard cut-outs of humans.  I think we can thank too much technology for this tragic phenomena.  Begin to talk, get interrupted with those surreptitious peeks at the phone.  Won't abide it with my living-away-from-home children, but see it frequently at church.  And it's not just the younger folks.  A new regular (my age) visitor at our church has joined the choir and got privately reprimanded for playing Candy Crush during Communion.  Really?  Are we so addicted to the wrong behavior?

Connecting.  Engaging with life.  Stopping long enough to really pay attention.  Living your life.  Not allowing nonsense to overpower real life. 

So this flips back to my enjoyment of decorating, what I was trained to do, but which has gotten lost in the muddle of my middle years.  Now I appear to be waking up, taking life a bit more slowly and really, enjoying it more.  It just takes the time to take the time.  Dwell on that for a bit.

And enjoy your day.

Saturday at home

Nat'l Guard son called me last night.  He'd been at camp down in Mississippi for over two weeks, so it was wonderful to hear from him.  He got an expected promotion and unexpected commendation from his superior officers as well.  As hard as Basic Training was last year, he's grown from it, so it was all for good.  And he came by tonight, unexpectedly, as we were eating, and he had a plate with us.  Feeling blessed.

Also, second son called me from California this afternoon while I was out.  Sat in Fresh Market's parking lot (ate a delicious chicken salad sandwich) and talked for 45 minutes.  Another blessing.  He's a bit torn up about a girl he was interested in---she told him last week she didn't want to pursue a relationship, but he said she let him down very sweetly.  Doesn't make it any easier.  I told him I believed if God is over a situation like that, that you don't have to anguish over making it work. Not that it'll be pain-free, but a couple who belong together sort of meld.  I believe that.  From the start she was so hesitant, and he had to work so hard to keep her interested.  She was almost fearful.  But happily, he'll be coming for a two-week visit in September.  We're all over the moon.  His job there ends in early November and he'll be here (I believe he said) over the winter and may go back next spring.  Don't know and don't have to think that far.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Guess to set up a level playing field.  I'm so proud of my kids who are trying, really trying.  Balances out the ones who cause us to wrestle.  

* * *

Hot here.  So hot.  The poor chickens pant and hold their wings away from their little bodies.  We put frozen soda bottles underneath their roosting perch at night, and they actually seem excited to bed down at night.  I figure the cold air rises and cools their lizard-like feet.  At least that's the idea.

This is the heat that causes Southerners to go a bit mad.  Maybe that's why writers from here are all a bit strange.  All of them.  My favorite wonderful Faulkner as well.  Story has it he refused to have an air conditioner in his house, and the day after he died, his wife had one installed.  That's what we were told.  It's still there in the house.

Hoping the rest of the weekend is restful.  Gary's having some back pain which we're attributing to the accident.  He's not seriously hurting, but he just needs to chill.  We told him to stay at home from church tomorrow.  Sleep in.  Sounds healing.  Our sensibilities are so worn, we could all do with some idle time.  Easy to get ruffled with this and that, but for the weekend we're good.

Self-care

The de-cluttering book Your Spacious Self is so wonderful, I've begun reading it again.  The house has begun looking a bit unloved this past week, and it needs care once again.  Seems I have difficulty staying with a program unless someone's encouraging (prodding gently) me.  So, I got out the journal I wrote in while I was reading it, re-reading what I'd penciled in, and rejuvenating myself.

I tend to take things in too huge of a bite.  Figure if I can't finish whatever I set my mind to IN ONE DAY, that I've failed.  Failure is a key word in my make-up, not sure why.  Set myself up to fail, for some reason.  Think ill of myself, bad self-image, all of the above.  And a hard one to cure.

Most every week I thank Gary for being such an encouragement to our kids, especially the girls.  I think it's crucial for men to appreciate and compliment the females living under their roofs.  I never got that, and I'm not blasting my own dad, but it wasn't his way.  Never did I receive positive reinforcement from him, and most likely, it never entered his mind.  He was always working.  In his generation, that was the way.  Go to work, come home, shower, eat dinner, and then sit in front of the t.v. until bedtime.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Stuff spills over.  And in a physical reality I've learned that it's easy to pad your life with extra pounds to keep folks away.  Provide a barrier so you won't be approached and hurt anymore.  Thankfully my husband doesn't listen to that lie in regards to me, but I do struggle with loving myself enough to lose weight.

Seems this is the summer to slough off things, be it pounds or clutter.  All interconnected, I do believe.