Change

I was channeling my mother this week.

My mom has a gift for arranging things and making them look good. She has an eye for balance and color and style and can whip up a beautiful bouquet out of WEEDs found on the side of the road. She's always done this. She tinkers with her space constantly. Growing up I would hear my dad complain on the morning after coming home from a business trip that he bumped his knee on the sofa/table/lamp in the night because my mom rearranged the furniture. again. Every time I come to visit her, the first thing I do is walk through the house to see what is different, to see what she had shifted or switched out or brought out from the depths of her storage to have a new life on the shelf or wall.

This is the mantle display she did this year.



She will hang a picture on the fireplace and you will think that it is the BEST picture to hang on the fireplace EVER! because of the colors or the subject or something and you will be in awe of how perfect it seems there. Until you come the next time and she's hung a quilt there instead, and IT is the perfect thing to be on the fireplace.

These things are easy for her. Part of her makeup. She does it all the time.


I think it is a dormant gene in me until a situation arises and then it pops up and I swing into action arranging those flowers/pictures/teapot display like nobody's business and then it goes dormant again.

It hit me this week as I was visiting with a friend and we were standing in her kitchen and she was lamenting how tired she was of looking over into the playroom and seeing all the toys out and having to walk through them to get to the laundry room and I popped up and said: "maybe you should move your playroom into the dining room and move your dining room in here!"

We talked about it for a moment and then I said, "Let's just move the table in here NOW!"

3 1/2 hours later we had rearranged her entire house. Loveseat goes here, bookshelves go there. Bring in the plant from over there to here. And it really had been transformed - we could feel how the whole energy of the house had changed and we were amazed and surprised. It looked totally different and it felt really really good.


That experience made me think about change.
I could tell my friend was a little hesitant to try out the dining room in the new place, she was unsure. It's like that in our personal lives too, isn't it? Something happens in our life, an opportunity comes along or you have to make a big decision and we hesitate, unsure of this change, afraid to move forward, because it is a change and that can be scary because it is unknown. But like with my friend, once we moved that huge, heavy dining room table (even getting it totally stuck in the kitchen for awhile) once we did that, everything else fell easily into a new place.

I'm looking forward to making some changes and letting things fall easily into place this year.

One of my favorite things

To watch the end of day succumb to dusk....

Hmmm

What does it say about me that I have more movies lined up in my netflix queue than I have friends on facebook?

tell not what, empower how

I went to church today. A first in a long time. Maybe it was San Diego that I last went? (And that church was a treat in La Jolla, California. I don't know how quakers got that real estate, but let me tell you, THAT was a lovely place to sit and wait upon God.)

I went today because I am really trying to listen better. I am easily distracted, unfocused, pushing to the next thing I need to do or say. Even this morning, with 5 minutes left before I needed to leave, I dove into cookbooks in the pantry looking for a dinner recipe, rather than spending the last moments with the people in my family. So I felt it was time to step back and go hard core, go to my unprogrammed church to sit in silence for an hour and wait. See what there was to hear. (ha ha, my little quaker joke.)









[here's where you, yourself, would sit in silence for say, an hour or so...I'll wait.]








Than towards the end of that very quiet hour where tiny sounds and smells are magnified and time can be measured by a shift in the shadows, a man spoke about listening. (which was a little different, usually the phrase about this type of worship is about "waiting.") But he talked about listening to God and listening to people and listening to God through people. (Which is exactly why I was there! cue the angels!) And one phrase is ringing through my head from his spiel: Tell not what to do, but empower how to do. It resonates so well because that is exactly what I try to do as a parent. And what the kid's school strives to do in the teaching of them. I had never thought of that as a means to listen better to friends (the people in my life, not necessarily the religious group.)

So here I go.


(I will save my complaints about the weather (90 to 35 in a day!!) for another day, because that is totally lacking in the empowering department.)

Why

It has been an exciting week. There is something about a grand bit of ceremony that makes one feel proud and excited and yes, hopeful. I am usually wary of all that pomp and pageantry, but for some reason this year I was fully relishing it; even down to the little presidential seal flags on the trumpets.

I was explaining to the boys the events of the day on Tuesday - because I'm sure in their minds Obama has been the president forever by now. I was also explaining why so many people seemed excited about this new president.

"Not many people liked our previous president Bush." I started.

"Did you vote for president Bush?" Nbear asks.

"No, I didn't. I respect him because he is our president, but I don't really like him as a president."

"Why?" he responds.

and here I take a long breath. Where does one start here? And what can be digested appropriately by a newly minted 6 year old? I started some discussion about his environmental policy. That seemed to satisfy him, but it left me wondering a bit more. What exactly/specifically/precisely was it that bothered me the most about Bush?

One answer came to me on DAY TWO. President Obama reinstates our nations compliance with the Geneva Convention rules about torture. Our previous administration seemed to take the low road on this count. I can understand the anger and fear that followed September 11th, I really can. But that fear and that anger and that desire for revenge should not have seeped in to our dealings with other human beings. Terrorists? yes. But still human beings. I'm not saying we have to coddle them by any means, but there is a level of human decency that I had always hoped we as a race had evolved to. The policy of allowing torture just made me feel sad for all of us - it proved that we were no better than "them." And we should know better. But I am an idealist, I know. But it's a little like the parenting advice that comes from school - strive for perfection, know that you will not always get there and be perfection, but at least have in your sights what you are striving for.



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And now a birthday interlude! Complete with cocktails!







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In other notes, my hair passes muster with my mother. It was my intention to go to Houston last weekend and get the official "sniff-test." As a teenager in my house I could come down the stairs in the morning and my mom could take one sniff and ask "have you already worn that shirt? It's a bit stinky." Yes, I know as teenagers we are often stinky, but my mom's nose has always been very sharp. So I wanted to see if my shampoo-free hair was starting to reek. Because who else can honestly tell me? Smith, gawd love him, is cursed with a non-smelling nose, so he is no help. And most friends aren't going to pop up and say "gee, your hair smells less than terrific!" Close friends may count but, Sinda is on the same experimental hair ride so she's biased and Lisa (whose nose may rival my mothers) is far away in Colorado. (When WILL we get the smell-a-phone!?!)


"So what's up with you and not using shampoo?" my mom asks.

"Well, I'm using baking soda now, instead of shampoo."

"But WHY?" she wants to know.

and honestly, I have no good answer for it right off other than, "Why not?!" No better than my answers when I was a teenager. I suppose to most people my hair looks exactly the same. To me, it feels different. It feels better, but I can't say that based on anything. Perhaps I'm still in the throes of "my hair has so much more volume and shine since I started this new shampoo!" sort of honeymoon. But I like it. We'll see how long it lasts.







Lenny asks, "what's that smell?"

Since We Last Spoke (entry #3)

I went to Denver!

You may vaguely remember 2 years ago Sinda, Lisa & I loaded up for a mother's day trip to Houston to eat and shop (for several hours at IKEA) and overall be leisurely. I really like the idea of completely stepping out of the role of mom to celebrate it. And what better way for your spouse and children to really understand all the myriad things you do for them than to leave them?

So off Sinda and I flew to Denver to see our newly transplanted friend, sharing earbuds to watch 30Rock (with Matthew Broderick!) along the way. Those gals took all the pictures and posted almost daily about our exploits. We got little sleep - staying up late eating fabulous food and fancy cocktails (I could go for a little damselfly right now: pear whiskey, plum puree and gingerale) and then waking up early because we are just wired that way. Not even a real nap snuck in anywhere. We got to see Lisa's photo show up at the Boulder coffeehouse and a bona fide chick flick (sadly, SEX I.T.C was not yet out; we happily settled for Baby Mama.) And Sinda says I flirted with the Prahna sales chick from Tyler, but really? it was just leaving her a little note in the dressing room that we had occupied for the entire duration of a parking meter. (They had a white board in there - what else are you supposed to do with it?!)

I also got to catch up with my old buddy Liz (aka the other Liz aka Elizabeth) from high school. We stayed up late talking about all the people we'd stay up late with in high school.

You should look at Lisa's pictures of the trip here and here.
Sinda's account is here.

You will note that both accounts record the green frog wallpaper - which was my startling discovery during a slightly tipsy trip to the restroom. I was uber focused on the plastic changing table directly in front of me. There was like a novel's worth of braille on it. What could they possibly be telling the blind people about the babies? Does a blind person instinctively know where to find the braille or do they have to feel around everything and hope that they don't stumble into something gross? I was deep in the wonder of it when my gaze slowly shifted outward where OH MY GAWD THERE ARE BRIGHT GREEN FROGS EVERYWHERE! How could I have missed the frogs?!?

I wonder what we'll see in the bathroom on Mother's Day 2010!

Happy New Year! Poop!

Leave it to me to start my very first blog entry of 2008 with poop. I feel so dooce. (scroll down, she's got a category just for poop.)


Nbear has started a spanish class and it's one of those classes that is 40 minutes long - which I'm sure is just perfect scholastically, but logistically, it's a bit of a pain. As in, it is not long enough for me to actually GO anywhere and do something, nor am I at leisure to pack a book to entertain myself in the car as I have a 2 year old kicking the back of my seat and hollering.

Luckily, there is a playground nearby. So with some relief I released N to his class and wound my way out of the labyrinth of a building to find the playground. I spotted something that resembled a bathroom, but J was fighting me to get outside to the playground. So about 5 minutes in, I'm the park mom totally on the phone when Jmonkey gets "the look" and "the pose." Of course I have left his spares in the car. So we must walk forever back to the car. He waddles and complains.

At the car, I remember (with a smack to my head) that I have no plastic bags and no fresh underwear (that's another story there, but much less interesting.) Alas. At the very least, I have wipes and some pants. But then I take off his pants and his underwear and I'm trying to locate the poop before it falls on a vital part of the car and I can't find it. I'm shaking things and shaking things and nada. I even bother to look in his shoes.

"J? Where did your poop go?"

"The sidewalk."

ah. okay. The case of the mystery poop solved!

Of course, now I'm in a quandary. I have no idea WHERE and no means for removal. sigh. And then my 40 minutes are up and we retrieve Nbear who then must go explore the playground too. At the end of that, we hike back to the car, having almost forgotten the poop. Until. I spot a large object on the sidewalk and think it must be a big, muddy rock. And as I get closer, I realize, oh no, that's NOT a rock, that's THE poop. Which is then pointed out by my proud 2 year old.

It was HUGE. Grapefruit sized.

And all I could do is keep walking. Would someone else just assume it was dog poo or is there something that screams: "I came from a human!" about it? And does that make it worse? Is human poop on the sidewalk worse than dog poop? I want to say yes, but can't figure out why. So I just left it. And I have this feeling that karma will return the favor to me; but part of me (knowing just how much poop I've cleaned up in the last 5 years) wants to believe that I am just facilitating the karma for someone else. I sincerely hope that it's not any of you.

deep thoughts with little bear

"how can the Earth be in space? but we are not in space?"

Happy Birthday Dad!