Off The 110’s Neighborhood

Serendipity here on the web. I was checking in to Pioneer Woman to get my daily dose of humor and life on the ranch from Ree and there I saw a link for French Toast Girl. Not only is she an amazing artist (watercolor) but she also did a journal with sketches of her trip to Italy where she visited all my favorite places. So wonderful. Beautiful, fanciful pictures and so colorful and vibrant. If you have the chance and want a lift, check it out.

We turned off the satellite dish almost a year ago. I haven't missed it at all. Oh, occasionally, I wished we had DIY or HGTV, but it wasn't until this week for the DNC that I have really missed having that box to watch. Lucky as I am to have smart friends, I received this link this morning and I am in political junkie heaven. I have been able to catch up on all the speeches I missed and look forward to watching more tomorrow. Yay! It's so much better than reading the transcripts. Don't you just love technology?

Check it out.

http://cspanjunkie.org/

What's the saying, be careful what you wish for? For so long now, we have been dreaming of getting out of where we are, moving to a farm or piece of land to accomodate animals and peaceful solitude, away from the noise of the city. I think we are almost there. And I am scared spitless.

While the dream of the fresh air and trees was wonderful, now that we are waiting for the bank to accept our offer (should happen today) all I can think of is the negatives. It's an hour from here, great house for entertaining, but no one will come that far, I'll have to make all new friends, I won't be able to get in to NY in 45 minutes, I'll have to find all new grocery stores and thrift stores, everyone out there is "white bread and mayonaise". The list seems to go on and on.

The irony is that while I was selling this idea to my daughter as a chance to drive less, (because of her classes at the college) I will actually be driving far more to keep my kids in touch with their friends and activities here. Even in terms of Booneyville, the new house is the back of beyond. I seem to remember that was part of the appeal. The seclusion and privacy. And wildlife. I was thinking Bambi and Pooh's friends. Did I mention we saw bear scat while we looked around the property? And I'm pretty certain it wasn't from Brother and Sister Berenstain.

What was I thinking? Have I been deluding myself?

I think it's all the change that is frightening me. And right now, all I can see is change. To the good, we can't move in for several months while we finish work on the house. That will give Sadie a chance to get settled at her new library job before we yank her out to move in a few months. Major "Bad Mommy" guilt there.

I haven't even begun to obsess on what it will take to sell our house in this market. The whole thing makes it hard for me to breathe.

The joke is that most people who know me, would describe me as fearless. I appear to be full of brio and confidance. I feel more like the Wizard of Oz, petrified behind the scrim. 

I guess what keeps me going is the alternative. I really don't want to stay where I am now. I don't like the noise or the traffic. The city is nearby, but we don't get there very often. I just don't want to have this regret on my deathbed that I had a chance to take a new direction and I was too chicken to actually do it. I really believe it will be a wonderful thing for the children to grow up in nature and close to the land, hiking in woods that are ours, far from the clutches of evil Lord Waldemart. 

I'd love to hear from all my friends who have done new, scary, different things, things you've had to get out of your comfort zone to accomplish.  

So much has been going on in my life this week that I am just about cracking under the stress. Of course, rather than attack my to-do list, I sit here at the computer drinking my third cup of coffee and writing. Well, a girl has to have an outlet, n'es ce pas?

We finally, after almost 2 years found what we think is the house. Those of you who have read my other farm, or real estate posts may remember our quest for the house with the land to live the dream, not too far from the job. Well, it looks like our patience (or our agent's diligence) have finally paid off. We found a house almost two weeks ago and bid on it. Then we had to jump through some hoops because our pre- approval wasn't enough; it had to be a certain kind of pre -approval since the house needs work. We got all that, submitted everything, only to be told we had to sign an addendum which basically said the bank who owns the property is not responsible for anything. A little scary, because they denied responsibility for stuff I hadn't even thought could go wrong. Signed all that, and now we wait for their acceptance of our bid. I'm all about anticipation, but this is just stupid now. Each day we wait. Each night, I toss and turn wondering, thinking, planning and especially praying.

Ultimately, I know that God will give us the best in this situation. We have prayed for guidance and God's mercy at each step. I know it will be good no matter what. But still I can't unclench my jaw. My shoulders are up around my earlobes and my back is solid tension.

Then yesterday, I took out books on staging a house, and readying it for sale. I read them last night and then I really couldn't sleep for making mental checklists, shopping lists, honey-do lists. YIKES!

So now I am logging off, not looking at my phone to see if the agent called, and I am setting to work on my immediate list of to-dos. Then I will go the park with my kids, get some fresh air and exercise and talk to my momtourage, those women who sustain me on a weekly basis. I will not obsess about this anymore. Much. 

I read a piece awhile back that named Denmark as the happiest place on earth. Some of the reasons were obvious, at least to me. Some made me sad. For one thing, there is little consumerism. It makes sense that that would make people happy. The less you have a culture driving people to work more, earn more, buy more, own more, spend more, go into debt more, the more you will have calm, happy people. In our society, there is such a push to obtain and then the result is so fleeting and empty. Because let's face it, there will always be something else to obtain. The happiness of getting something new is at best short lived, because by definition, the new thing will be older tomorrow and hence less valuable. Throw in the component of others also obtaining things and you have a whole Pandora's box of envy, anxiety, jealousy, and resentment. Hardly emotions conducive to happiness.  

The aspect of the study that saddened me was that the findings show that the very homogeneity of Denmark's people contributed to their happiness. It's hard to have hate crimes, bias incidents and scapegoating when pretty much everyone is the same. That's all well and good, but what does it say about where I live? We have people from every continent and many countries in my little Tri-City area. We have Asians, Latinos, Europeans, Central Asians, Africans, Islanders, and Arabs galore, every religious tradition and some pretty vocal pagans too. It is this diversity that gives the area its flavor. I love the fact that I can hear so many languages spokes, read so many languages on signs and in newspapers. For us, it's wonderful that we can see scarf wearing Muslimas and have our pick of halal restaurants, butchers and specialty shops. In short, it is the diversity that makes me happy. Am I just a multi-culty weirdo?

I was thinking of all this the other day as I pulled in back of a Jeep on a main road. The driver had a number of bumper stickers on his car, things like Aryantogs.com (who knew skin heads needed their own clothing shops?) pro-gun bumber stickers, and one that said "Don't complain, just fight" All I could think was "EWWWW! But you are in my territory now, boy, driving toward the more colorful section of town." Then I noticed the patches on his visor. Lots of police force patches. Yeah! Perfect. A neo Nazi, gun toting, Yankees fan with lots of friends on the force. Is it any wonder we have the brutality statistics we have? Just then he looked in his side mirror and spotted my scarf wearing face and shook his head to indicate his disapproval. GRRRRRR. As if I am the one who is objectionable! Maybe in upside-down world, Buddy! I stared him down to indicate he didn't scare me, this overgrown boy/man with testosterone poisoning, misplaced priorities and a probable propensity for violence.

I guess the Danes are onto something after all. Only instead of people who look like me or have similar DNA, I want to live in a land where everyone is smart, compassionate, loving and well read. The various colors of our skin and texture of our hair will make a beautiful mosaic as we solve the world's problems and help the world's children.  

School supplies

So the backpacks are bought, stuffed and ready to to. No, not for my kids, for the annual backpack drive at a local church. I first heard about this church and their community outreach projects in grad school when I had to study local resources. They do wonderful things. Not only do they have a food pantry that feeds the local poor and working poor, they also have a homeless shelter that houses up to three families at a time. The thing I love about it is that they focus on quality of help not quantity. So while they certainly won't be able to stem the tide of homelessness in the area, they help each family until they can truly get back on their feet. Sometimes it's a matter of weeks, sometimes it might take a year but they are there for those families.

Several years ago, the church started a backpack drive for underprivileged children, (some from the families they had previously helped at the shelter). I was hooked. I always loved going back to school. Getting new supplies, spending hours arranging the sections in my looseleaf, making sure they each had exactly the same amount of pages, and writing my name on the spiral notebooks, sharpening my pencils and filling my pencil case. It was more like new year for me than January 1. I lived for going  back to school. Yeah, I know I was (was?) such a geek.

The thought of poor kids never knowing that joy was heartbreaking. If education is the key to escaping poverty and deprivation, then getting kids pumped about going back to school seems like a logical first step.

My children, thank God, have always had every sort of school supply so it only seemed natural to get them in on planning and packing the bags so they could "share their wealth" so to speak, and in fact, to realize that it is a form of wealth.

So tomorrow is the day we will drop the bags off at the church. The director and the pastor will invite us in to look at the room where all the backpacks are kept in anticipation of the kids coming on the 23th. I will smile and then cry as I do every year, imagining all those young lives given a doorway at least to the orchard where the tree of knowledge is kept. Perhaps encouraged that someone thought enough of them and their education to make the gift. And I will pray as I do every year, that a few children's lives will be improved as they head back to school with a bag of shiny new supplies.

Okay! Just climbed the homeschool equivalent of Mount Everest and have to share. I finally finished (except for final editing) three of my four children's annual reports for their transcripts. Sadie, entering her last year of high school, has the job of putting together her own "credit report forms" for high school credit so I just have to deal with the middles and little.  Each year, as the rush to summer fun arrives, I put it off and obsess about it daily until it is done. I fret that if anything were to happen to me before I filed this document with our umbrella school that my children would... I don't know... forget how to read? have to all go back to kindergarten? not know anything? Of course, it's all on paper and in my head, but every single cotton pickin' year, the idea of it hangs over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles. Each day that goes by is just another day that I didn't get the dxxn things done.

Every year I wish I were organized and on-top-of-things like this:

Organized files

Yes, in my perfect world, all the information I need about my children's aptitudes and accomplishments would be neatly alphabetized, placed in color coded folders, ready to be recorded.

Then I woke up from that dream.

Our lives are much too frenetic and fun filled (yeah, right... maybe frantic might be a more apt "f" word) to keep up with it all. Okay, the real deal is that I am frightfully organizationally impaired. And so my dining room looks like this instead:

Paperwork

Yes. I must go through our calendars, my phone organizer, various scraps of paper and all the books we used during the year to get it all down on paper. (And I don't even list all the hundreds of novels and trade books we read together and individually.)To be honest, I do use a template of what they should have learned during this particular school year and then edit that according to the truth. Okay, so little Lola Foxmill didn't master long division this year; she did learn all about characterization and theme. You get the idea.

Once I have finished, I then borrow my kids' brain space and see if I have left anything out in terms of activities, classes, museum visits and plays. The usual reaction is, "Wow! I didn't even remember all that stuff. I really learned a lot this year!" Since we tend more and more toward unschooling, where we count everything as a potential learning experience, and dispense with curriculum as often as possible in favor of experiential learning and real books, it all comes together.  

The end result, (that would be NOW!) is that I am a happy mommy, feeling full of myself and my children's accomplishments, ready at long last to fully enjoy the summer break. Until tomorrow. When I have to start planning for next school year. *Sigh* 

Nothing can stop the power of millions of voices calling for change.

There is nothing false about hope.

Barak-obama

A recent comment by AngeDe Terre got me reminiscing. I was born in the early 60's and my earliest memories are of my mother getting ready to go out. She was always on the go in those days. People said she looked like Lana Turner and while others who had come of age during the Depression, practiced thrift and economy, my mother's creed was quite different. She clearly remembered what it had been like to do without, and later to have to paint lines up the back of her shapely legs when silk stockings disappeared during the War. By the 50's, as a single mother slinging hash to make ends meet, she had to put her luxuries on lay-away. So by the time she met my father, she had clearly had enough of the "do without" lifestyle. With my dad to bankroll her, she more than made up for her early deprivations. She had accounts at all the best shops on the Square and her favorite words were, "Just put it on my bill. Matches will stop in and take care of it later."

I remember  her as she sat at her vanity applying pancake with a natural sponge and crimson lipstick with a retractable brush, putting on a Merino wool knit dress, and slipping on her alligator pumps, checking the lift on her beehive; but it was the smell of her that will probably stay with me as long as I live. After she had dressed, she would spritz herself with her signature scent, Youth Dew by Estee Lauder from the blue enamel bottle that fit just right in your hand.

Youth-Dew-Blue-Bottle

The Oriental spiciness of it mingled with the SenSen breath mints and tobacco smoke, and she would envelope me in all of it all as she bent down to kiss me goodbye and remind me to be good. Then off she'd zoom in her '65 baby blue T-Bird. She was quite a dish, I think.

It's interesting to me, that all the old ads I 've seen for that car, when they featured women at all, always had them waiting expectantly in the passenger seat. Lois expected a lot, but she never waited for anyone or anything. And she certainly didn't travel in the passenger seat. She was a force of nature and loved nothing better than cruising in her "Blue Bird". 

If I were to pick one legacy she left me, it would be that sense of brio and verve. She always appeared so strong and confidant. Later on in life, as her beauty, health, and finances waned, her outlook changed somewhat. But those earliest impressions stayed with me and made me a little more daring, a little more fearless than I might otherwise have been. I learned that women did drive fast cars and drive them well. They were strong and sure of themselves. If I am lucky, I may be able to pass some of that on to my own three girls.

Tbird

This morning I have so many wonderful, if mundane, things to be grateful for. No scratch that. They are not mundane even if I, in my embarassment of riches, have come to view them as such. They are all miraculous and glorious and by acknowledging that, I can only enrich my life. No, I won't go all "Norman Vincent Peale" on you. But it stands to reason that the more we accept and attend to the good things, the more we will become better able to survive misfortune and pain; so much of life is how we perceive it and what we choose to do with that perception. So as a reminder to myself and a shout out to the world, here is a (very) partial list of my grateful things:

My faith which frames my life and gives it meaning, purpose and hope

My children and their health and continuing well being

Honey, who is my rock 

My own health... mental, physical and spiritual

My intelligence, which enables me to see the world and understand some of what I see

My compassion for others

My willingness to try each day... something new, something good, something helpful

My kids' hugs

Our home, which not only protects us from the elements but surrounds us with comfort and security

Our wealth, because we have so much while others have so little

Our ability to see our wealth and appreciate all that we have been given

An absence of envy and the ability to be genuinely happy for others which increases my own happiness a million-fold

Cooler weather today

All the ethnicities, skin colors, cultures, and people of the world, all the variations and spices

Good friends who know me best and love me anyway

Books, books and more books

A new craft project to work on

Access to art, culture and news

Access to clean water and indoor plumbing

Technology which enables me to learn new things, keep in touch with friends, do "instant" research so I can quench my thirst for knowledge, and "meet" friends from all over the world

The fact that January 20, 2009 is only 179 days away

Likeminded, left-leaning, compassionate, green friends who remind me I am not insane (well, I might be, but not about what matters)

The rising cost of energy which may finally get the ball rolling on r&d for sustainable energy sources and praise God, get some of these hulking, resource sucking, Hummers off the road

Enough of everything I need and a surfeit besides

The fact that Sadie borrowed "Dark Side of the Moon" for me from the library

The fact that my kids thank me and say "I love you, Mama" everyday, many times