Wednesday night

Got out the embroidery that's been sitting in my red glass bowl on the side table (bowl courtesy of Gary going dumpster diving a few years back), and did a square for the Pugs.  Had forgotten how satisfying that a needle and thread is in my hand.  Soothing.  I realize that's not the way with everyone, but it seems to work for me.

And with today being very busy, with the three youngest going out with me all day, it's nice to think of sitting and stitching some more tomorrow.

Hauled the kids to a library a distance away, just to get out of our regular stomping ground.  Then got home to rest and eat a sandwich for about 30 minutes before it was time to go pick up fourth son at work. Then to the store for my mom, then to her house to deliver things, then Gary came by to get us back home (after borrowing my mom's car).  So extraordinarily glad to be back here.  Deliriously happy.  Thinking with a few groceries now in the house again that tomorrow will be spent totally at home.  Not a step off of our property.  I don't think I could bear it.  Might just explode if someone makes me leave. Don't even try.

See, I enjoy being home with little variance.  Home is good.  Tease me with an every-so-often visit to a bookstore, and I'm fine for a looooong time.

Besides, as I've said, going to my mom's sort of wigs me out.  Now that she has groceries as well, we probably won't be back to her house until Saturday. She'll have therapists tomorrow, and one brother will take her dinner on Friday.  That means freedom for me for two whole days.  Cause for celebration, I'm thinking.

Besides, I've got a book to finish reading to review---Myquillyn Smith's book called The Nesting Place, and am reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way---curious about her take on creative usage of time, and will begin tomorrow writing 3 "morning pages" as she calls them.  Words to get out of our heads before the day begins.  A purge for the head, I reckon.  And I got my head into a library book for awhile as well, and it's called Starting from Scratch by Susan Gilbert-Collins.  So far, so good.

The kids already have their assignments for schoolwork tomorrow, so I'm free to do as I like.  Delicious.

Muttering to myself

When you have younger kids at home, the hormonal disturbances of the older ones are diverted just a tad.  But, when your remaining children at home are feeling their oats---well, let's just say that an evening out with a husband is a welcome diversion.  Hope tonight is that night, or maybe tomorrow, and at the last resort, Thursday.  Madness will ensue if I have to wait any longer.  There's a magazine at Barnes & Noble I want to see called Daphne's Diary.  Not sure if it'll be in stock, and unfortunately the two locations of B&N aren't near, but it'd be a nice outing nonetheless.

Add to that a stroke-surviving mother whose requests are short of bizarre.  My brain can't keep up. Yesterday she said her next door neighbor had made her some soup.  But the neighbor has a sore bunion and couldn't bring it over, so she asked if Mom could walk over.  Insert maniacal laughter.  Mom says on the phone she wants me to come over and get it for her.  I ask why the neighbor's husband can't do that. She laughs.  I'm not laughing.  I have no car, and have to oftentimes leap tall buildings to do what my mom needs.  So, asserting myself, I tell Mom we'll see....Turns out hours later the husband toddled over and got her the soup.  End of story.  You think?  The real clincher was Mom saying I could come over and borrow her car, which means someone has to take me over there to get her car, which has nothing to do with soup, but in her head it all makes sense.  See what I mean about bizarre?

Yes, my mom had a stroke, but this is a small example of what I call her princess mindset.  She's always very grateful for whatever we do, but is often unable to see that it's sometimes a case of 'one more thing' that gets me. After weeks of going to 'tuck her in at night' on a regular basis, I realized (through the wisdom of oldest daughter who'd been watching my mental state begin to sag), that I can't keep up with a daily visit to my mom.  Besides it being hard on my emotions, the constant requests get to me.  Nothing is of a desperate need for her, but she acts as if everything needs to be done NOW. And it's those little digs about wondering if certain things have been followed through on---even if they're insignificant, that hang onto me.  Yeah, I need a date night.

About to pull out my embroidery, a sure cure for what ails you.  I tend to tune out the world when I have a needle in my hand, and can't for the life of me figure out what keeps me from it.  I have the same amount of hours in the day as I always have had---don't spend an inordinate amount of time online.  Just don't get it.  I think I must sit in place with a dazed expression on my face. Life is just sometimes a bit more than I can handle.  I think God invented hand sewing as a coping mechanism for females.  Not kidding.

My scattered thoughts...

Rattled today.  It rained all day yesterday, which was so restful, but woke up this morning to very heavy wind.  And as I was hearing the tornado siren, the wind changed and began to sound just plain odd.  It sounded wrong, plus the sky was light green.  Not a good thing to see when a tornado siren is blaring. Found out a bit later that a tornado had been spotted going to the NE, and it's very possible the sound we heard was the edge of that.  Unsettling for sure.  At the time I was unaware of the damage and lives lost in Arkansas to our west.  Too much bad news.

Then Gary's truck wouldn't start, and it turns out his distributor was full of water from the rain.  He fixed it later on.  Also got a call from Joseph and he's been the target of a prank at the Base.  Just nonsense, but it makes me anxious.  Glad he'll be done there at the end of May, but still, that's a few weeks away.  And his birthday is tomorrow (Tuesday) and I've never been separated from my children on their birthdays. Darn it.

Sometimes life is too full of uncertainties, and with daily (or almost daily) strange conversations with my mom, the weather today, plus Joseph's struggles, I'm a bit overdone.

I believe some hand-sewing is in order for tomorrow.  The clouds should have blown away by then, and maybe the day can be peaceful.

A restful Friday

Lit some Frankincense/Myrrh in my little incense burner in the window. The breeze is moving it around the room....bliss.  We had a refreshing storm last night, and the air is cool. The curtains are blowing.

Had tea out the with the chickens, and listened to the men talking and hammering on a new roof a couple of houses down. That's an encouragement, knowing a vacant house is being restored.  Wild birds about, chickens not eating the banana I cut up for them (go figure), greening trees, blossoms falling off of the Dogwood that hangs over our fence....just a quiet morning.  My legs got cold, even though I was sitting in the sunshine.

And I got out two books to look into for the spring.  One is At the Still Point compiled by Sarah Arthur, it's one to read once Ordinary Time begins on the Liturgical Calendar, which is Pentecost (June 8th).  Looking forward to this one.  She puts together a devotional using Scripture, poems, and literature and while I've saved the book and hardly cracked the cover, still, it looks dishy.  I'm making myself wait before reading too much of it.  Bonnie, it makes me think of you. :)

Will read more of Breathing Room:  Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home by Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green as well.  I'm reading that one in fits and starts.  They talk about the emotional attachments we have to our things, and explain how to peel off some of the baggage that causes us to retain items we really ought to let go of.  More than any other book on the subject, I'm understanding how to decide which things are keepers and which are better tossed.  And why a radical throw-out isn't the best idea.  You have to deal with the sticky parts of our saving....the why's....or we'll just save more stuff we don't need.  It's about getting to the bottom of our issues.

So...

For the rest of the day will make a batch of peanut butter cookies, put on a dear little chicken to simmer (shhh, don't tell ours...remember, we don't eat our friends) in my cast iron pot for Chicken Curry tonight. And will help the least one get down the steps out back.  She twisted her knee the other day and is having to hobble around on crutches.  Thankfully she's better and we already had crutches.  No doctor visit necessary, just rest, ice and the like.

Will go now.  Nothing pressing, but a quiet day of home doings.

Beauty

~from the church's website

"Once in New Hampshire I had contrived a Sunday outing to the Church of the Transfiguration in Bretton Woods for Evensong.  I wanted to hear the boys' choir which sang there.  I shall never forget that afternoon.  I was at once in paradise and hell. I thought I had never seen and heard such beauty: the mountain valley, the brown-grey stone of the little church, the handsome congregation, the candles and crosses and dark wood, the beautiful faces of the choir boys and the seraphic music.  We sang "Saviour, Breathe an Evening Blessing", and, during the recessional, when I was in an agony, knowing that it was over, and that I would never see this again, we sang "Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand".  I was in a transport of grief, frenzy, and ecstasy.  I felt that I had suddenly stumbled across something that had been there all along and that I had missed.  Something had pushed open the tiny door into the garden, and I would never be consolable after that glimpse.  It all had something to do with beauty and loss and antiquity and irrevocability and desire and vision."~from Thomas Howard's book Christ the Tiger

Mid-week

Put up a post here about my mom, but just moved it over here.  Hadn't put anything up there in about a week, and had sort of forgotten I had a dedicated spot to chatter about her stroke.

I talked about taking time away from my mom, which is very healing.  I think I'll re-schedule how I manage my visits with her, being that they really take their toll on my mental/physical health.

And, I realized I'd not processed our son's Nat'l Guard life.  With her situation being so mentally exhausting for me, I've not given myself time to think about Joseph, and that's why I've posted photos of the graduation here and on FB. It came to me that it'd been shoved aside when the girls and I recently took dinner to my newly-widowed aunt.  My cousin was there and she asked about Joseph, and she said she didn't know how she'd deal with having a child in the military.  I sat there and thought about what she'd said, finally sinking in that I've held onto a brave face, and likely needed to deal with some stress related to his choice of lifestyle.

And when things make me cry with little effort, figure they need time to be resolved and tended to.

So yesterday the kids and I cleaned up some outside.  I took off one storm window, wiped off the spiderwebs and washed it down, and put it back up.  A small step in tidying my nest.  Didn't have much energy for much more, but it was restoring.  I need to plan more of that.  So necessary and refreshing. While the kids do their Spanish CD in a minute, will scurry around and do a bit. Cleaning can be a pain or therapeutic.  Today it's the latter.

My boy

Just posted this on FB via our son's request. This was Graduation Day last month.  Best hug EVER. And that's Gary patting him on the back.