Wednesday~September 23, 2009 There are dust bunnies. So many. They are under the bed and in me, scurrying across the wooden floors of my home and my heart. They are moving much too fast through the empty, bumping into toys and crayons and dried up play-doh, then coming to a weary stop. It seems no matter how we try to keep up with them, they are winning. So we sweep up only the ones that are out in the open and then we leave the house, coming and going with the living of everyday life. We could hold them out in the palms of our hands to show that we have them, but the bunnies float and they spin and we can’t seem to catch them. We push them under the rugs to hold them still. We ignore them. We force them to unnoticed parts of our cluttered minds, and move on to […]
Tuesday~September 1, 2009 I’m going to have to do it. I’m going to have to put my fingers on the page, lifting it up and over, turning to September. School, schedules, activities, the cold settling in and stealing Summer, making it seem even shorter than it was. Minnesota is as abrupt as she is indecisive, when it comes to the changing of seasons. I love the Fall colors, the crisp leaves underfoot on long walks, and the need for a cozy sweater. I love that Fall means I’m about to pull out more blankets, throwing them over our beds, soft and colorful, something that feels new. But so soon? I don’t like that Fall means Winter is peeking it’s huge noggin around the corner of the next calendar page, ready to pounce, stealing the beautiful colors from the trees, making their visit even shorter, and then staying just a moment long enough to […]
Wednesday~August 12, 2009 Most of what I remember from when my boys were babies is a blur with flashes of emotion. I hate forgetting even the things that I try so hard to relish. Some of the things I do remember, I should probably forget, but then again, I don’t want to forget the things that hold us tight together for the enduring of them. With Miles I remember one particular day with crystal clarity. We were taking a nap when I woke up to strange gurgling and choking sounds. He was vomiting in his sleep, eyes slowly pulling themselves open, a look of nothing on his face. I sat up and turned him on his side and more and more the gasping and choking came, covering ourselves and the bed in wet. I picked him up and it just kept happening. I walked to the neighbor’s, asking if I was being a […]
Friday~August 7, 2009 Controversial, confrontational, argumentative… things I’m usually not. I guess I don’t really have a problem with butting heads just a little, and I don’t mind when people have a perspective that’s different than mine, I just don’t like the feeling that takes over my gut when there’s a loss of respect. When I watch people totally not hear the person they’re arguing with, all stubborn and pig-headed. So I don’t really like bringing up topics that make that happen. If only everyone could act like a grown-up, take turns, be kind, and play nice. You know, with some true respect. But people don’t often do that. What usually happens is that one or the other holds so tightly to their perspective that they just simply cannot help but get all fired up, shutting their ears and heart down in the process. Of course, I’m guilty of this too at times, […]
Monday~July 6th, 2009 (photo courtesy of flickr) I want a cottage style house built by my Dad near a lake. I want salvaged barn doors to pull to the side, heavy and creaking. I want built-in book shelves filled with colorful stacks of my favorite reads. I want a cute little breakfast nook and a center island where I can pack lunches. I want a pantry off the kitchen and plenty of space to cook. I want to hang and place all kinds of vintage things, picked up at estate sales by Ryan’s parents. I want a really big garden full of fruits, veggies, herbs and flowers. I want a cozy space for guests to stay and kids to play above the garage. I want all of that, and yet I still want the house to be small, holding us close together so there’s nowhere we can go to end up feeling like […]
Thursday~July 2, 2009 Sometimes there’s just no better word than gross. I feel it. The gross. I’m acting like a pouty teen around my husband, flustered around my children, and overwhelmed by every little duty around me. I was totally distracted by some new writing opportunities yesterday, and shot off to bury my nose in the screen, pounding fingertips on the keyboard. This is what I do a lot when Ryan comes home. I plant myself in this place and something in me tells me I’m simply claiming my time, a little piece of me that is just for me rather than more giving and giving and giving. But I know that sometimes I spend far too much time here. Ugh, the fight for balance. Gross. Then Asher stood on the bench of the small table in our backyard and from his cry I knew how bad the fall was. Ryan was calling […]
Wednesday~June 24, 2009 “And this is grace. An invitation to be beautiful.” ~Sara Groves I started stripping the beds this morning, contemplating seeing the whole bed washing process through from beginning to end. I got to the part where I piled the blankets and sheets on the floor after pulling them from the bed. Then I flopped down on my back, smack in the middle of the bed and stared up at the ceiling fan, thinking on all the piles in my head, the way they overwhelm me like housework sometimes. Regrets, lists, ideas and feelings. There I was, just me and the fan and the mattress and my thoughts like piles. Until someone small and lanky threw himself over the edge of the bed and THWACK! his knee interrupted my thoughts as it met my cheekbone. Miles said, “What are you doing, Mommy?” “Nothing, Sweetie.” THWACK! There Asher came, not to be […]
Thursday~June 11, 2009 I’m sitting in a coffee shop by myself. That’s always good. I’m a bit bogged down, but light at the same time. Ryan and I have finally made the decision to put our house on the market. That means lots and lots of work, getting ready to sell and then packing up and moving if someone happens to buy our humble abode. (My insides just did flip flops, just so you know.) I’m feeling lighter at the same time because we’ve finally started moving forward with something we’ve been terribly indecisive about. Sometimes moving along in the unknown feels much better than not moving at all. We’re looking to move back to the area I grew up in, and we’re excited about this adventure. I’ve become a city girl only to an extent, and we love it here in so many ways, but we want to be near my family, […]
Wednesday~June 3, 2009 I come from a long line of reactors. (No offense, Mom, it’s just plain true.) We have a tendency to panic in response to pretty much anything. Or at least have a bit of an extreme reaction. Like if someone says, “Oh, I forgot the camera,” we’ll say, “OH MY GOOOSH!” (Gasp, shake head, humph) (My poor husband.) I’ve gotten a bit better about this over the years, if I do say so myself. But it’s especially hard for me to remain cool and calm under pressure. And since a mother is pretty much always under pressure, this is something I struggle with. I heard something recently that I immediately wrote in big letters and stuck to the fridge. It goes like this: DON’T REACT, RESPOND. Um, yeah Heather. That’s kind of obvious isn’t it? Well, for me, NO. I’m someone who needs to mull over what words mean for […]
*If you’re new here and don’t know much about our youngest son, Asher, this post may be a little confusing. If you’d like, you could catch up a bit by clicking on The Noggin under Labels in the sidebar. There are plenty of Noggin posts there, and I’m sure they’d love to fill you in. Yes, they’d love it, because obviously, my posts have feelings. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday, at my parent’s cabin, Asher woke up at 5:00 a.m. I didn’t want to wake up the rest of the house with screeches and screams, so I put Asher in the van and we went for a drive, not really knowing where we were going. We saw the sun rise, some sheep, some cows, and long stretches of road. It was a beautiful start to the day, even if I wasn’t at all happy to roll out of bed before the sun. We drove to town […]
Tuesday~May 19, 2009 Sometimes I feel like I say the same things over and over. But I’m realizing that’s because there are some things that I’m always going to have to keep reminding myself. Forgive me, I’m a slow learner. It’s that way with my boys too, I seem to have to say the same thing over and over until one day it finally clicks. It’s easy to figure my words hold no meaning, but I hope they always do, somewhere along the way. ~~~~~~~~~~ As I type this, I’m sitting on our patio, watching Asher play and keeping him happy and occupied with bubbles. The keyboard is getting sticky with soapy slime, and I’m thinking about how much multi-tasking a person can do in one day. This juggling of things can be messy, but especially in mothering, it’s just plain necessary. Our days have been long and full. Summer brings so many […]
Tuesday~May 12, 2009 We sat on the side of the hill in the grass and the sun. I thought,This is all I want to do right now.This is the only place I’d like to be.We talked about family and faith and life.We shared a burden or two,A laugh and then a cry. It’s different now, you said.We email, we text, we tweet, we facebook, we blog. It’s true.We don’t sit on the side of a hill in the grass and the sun.Or not enough anyway.No.Not enough. We’ve got just one more thing,Always another task.Send this messagereturn this texttweet tweet tweetwrite a postforward an emailleave a voicemail I miss the time when we took the time,To sit on the side of the hill in the grass and the sun.More often. I want to see faces.I want to hear voices.More often.At my tableor in my car,Around a campfire,or on the side of a hill in […]
Sunday~May 3, 2009 I was driving along in my very spacious and rockin‘ cool minivan the other day, happy to be off running a few errands solo. At an intersection, I started thinking about how the other three drivers at the stop signs surely had no idea I was BLASTING Love Lockdown by Kanye West. At least I’m pretty sure they didn’t guess my thirty-something shoulder shimmy was timing itself to the Lockdown beat. (You can scroll down to the bottom of the post and click play if you want to hear Love Lockdown. I dare you to try not to shimmy.) I love all kinds of music. It’s powerful, it changes moods, makes a person think, and as my friend Jo of Mylestones said, “When memories mix with music, they can create an explosive concoction of emotions. They become a potion to transport us from faded to vivid, from far away to […]
Posted on Friday~April 3, 2009 After publishing my post on Mom Guilt yesterday, I felt uneasy about something. (No, surprisingly it wasn’t the fact that it takes me 427 paragraphs to say something. I felt fine about that.) But I felt a little off about sharing a quote from the person I had emailed while I was having a mothering meltdown without identifying who that person is. Something was gnawing at my gut, saying, “Isn’t it possible that many of your readers will know who this is, and you’re not giving her any credit at all?” So I said, “You’re right gut, I suppose there’s a small chance some people will know who she is, so when I share the advice she gave me, I should maybe give her a mention, just in case.” I did ask her permission to share her identity, just in case you were wondering. I’ll show you her […]
Posted on Monday~March 2, 2009 But Randi, what if I really don’t want to post this one? Randi at Is It Just Me? had this idea to have people use a random number generator to choose one of the drafts in their blog archive to finish and post. (I have no idea if that made sense, I’m sleep-deprived.) Anyhoo, I know I don’t HAVE to play along, but I thought it was a great idea and I said that I would do it before I really took a good look at the draft that the stupid number generator chose for me. As you’ll see, I’m struggling through thoughts in this post…and I think A LOT. (Please don’t tell me to stop thinking so much, I’ve tried that and I can’t. I’m a born ponderer.) Here goes: There are a million thoughts banging around in my head and heart. I’ve been thinking a lot […]
Posted on Saturday~February 7, 2009I sat on the floor next to the open dresser drawer, trying to match socks to no avail. “I think I’m actually really totally and completely losing my mind,” I said. Ryan calmly responded from the next room, “What’s going on? Are you losing your mind over socks?” “No. I don’t mind the socks today….But our life is so busy and hectic and it’s been so stressful, all this medical stuff with Asher, and how we have no time for each other, and you travel for work… and even though I know all of that…I still want to have another baby.” (He bursts out laughing.) (I do too.) I still can’t find any matches for the socks, so I just sit there and look at the drawer full of small things, and I talk about how having kids just keeps getting better. I fall more and more in love […]
Posted on Wednesday~February 4, 2009Some lovely blog friends of mine have given me some accolades recently here on the world wide inter-web (as my dear Ryan likes to call it). That sentence was extremely uncomfortable for me to type. Because it sounds showy and a bit brag-ful (another hyphenated and made up word I enjoy). The words of these accolades and the sincerity behind them are a beautiful thing. So thank you to those of you that warmed my heart (you know who you are). You said the things that you’ve noticed about me that you like. Which makes me think you’re the ones that deserve the accolades. Because we all want to be heard. We all want to be seen. We all want validation. We want someone to simply notice. And you noticed and then you said so, and that makes me think you’re pretty selfless yourselves. Hopefully we don’t want to […]
Posted on Sunday~February 1, 2009 From the archives of If Life is a Highway; originally posted 5/13/08:Grief is a bit like being sucked into a vacuum. The brush has pulled you under and in, and by no doing of your own, you are swept away. You’ve entered a whole new space in time. Everyone on the outside is going about business as usual. You wonder why they don’t seem to notice that you’re covered in dust. I suppose this hateful grief is good. It pulls you through. Grief’s impact forces you to take a look at how you feel. It pushes you through the sadness that would overtake you if you were left in the midst of your profound loss. The loss of a person, or a place, or a way of being that felt like home. There is an utterly unthinkable void, sucking you into a period of grieving. Grief will not […]
Posted on Monday-January 19, 2009 Some friends and I were working on a project, helping a church finish a banner to display in the hall. It had phrases on it like “Encourage each other” and “Listen to one another.” These sentences were repeated over and over down this banner made of fabric. We were enjoying this particular project since it gave us the opportunity to talk as we tried to color inside the lines. Our kids were in childcare, and there was a lightness to each person there, having a little free time and some listening ears. We put some big pieces of paper under the fabric so our markers wouldn’t bleed through to the table (we have a lot of practice at thinking ahead and preparing for disasters, we’re moms). When we finished coloring the letters in, we carefully lifted the banner, pulling it off the table. We looked down to find […]
Posted on Saturday~January 10, 2009 I find blogging to be a fascinating study in human behavior. When I wrote my first post just over a year ago, I had absolutely no clue about the millions of blogs out there. I didn’t know blogging could be treated as a business. And I certainly had no idea that blogging is a popularity contest, leaving people to feel bad about themselves if their stats, comments, or followers are lower in numbers than the next person. In a way, this is like a virtual high school, or a playground, if you will. Complete with bullies and cliques, gossip and power struggles. Like I said, an interesting study in human behavior. I had been in a bit of a blog-related funk because of this as of late. As the blog world grows and changes, I was afraid the beautiful things that come with it were getting all covered […]
Posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009I will focus my efforts on helping them build character. I will structure their lives to ensure that when they’re grown,they’ll be successful people. I will read them stories and play them songsthat teach them right from wrong. I will sign them up for activities to make sure they’ll be well-rounded,the type of guys who play sports and at least one instrument. I will take them to church every Sunday,dropping them at their classes and picking them up,to make sure they’ll hear how to live their faith. I will fight to get them into a school that’s just right for them,and then stay on top of homework and grades (and teachers). I will tell them what shows they aren’t allowed to watchand why, and I’ll monitor their computer time. I will feed them fruits and vegetables, whole grains and proteinsto help their bodies grow….. Yes, that’s what I […]
As we traveled to my parent’s house for Christmas, skidding along icy roads and coming across over-turned vehicles, I quickly became annoyed, jumpy, and irritable. I would snap at Ryan for nothing, and couldn’t handle any kind of fuss from the small people in the back seat. I was anxious, gripping my door handle and intently watching the road in front of us. As I sat there playing back-seat driver, I started to think about something a friend and I were talking about recently. My friend said that she’s sometimes blown away by how quickly we age, and yet how slow we are to grow up. We carried on then, laughing about all the physical changes taking place, scorning our naive presumption that we’d always have flat stomachs and zero wrinkles. Then we laughed at ourselves a bit more as we admitted how often, despite our sagging bodies, we feel like we’re still […]
I’m thankful that Asher is about to get some relief. More thankful than I can say. But I’m also finally allowing myself to feel, and it’s really scary. Yesterday, the nicest lady I’ve ever talked to called and gave me careful directions so we could find our way to the right part of the hospital tomorrow. She gave me a whole lot of instructions and gently prepared me for what Asher might look like after the surgery. Then she apologized for her next question, carefully choosing her words to ask if the doctors should do all they can to save Asher should something happen to go wrong. Yes. During that call, I had the sinking feeling that hits you in the gut when you finally realize something is actually going to happen, whether it’s comfortable or not, and you don’t know if you can do it. I started to allow the anxiety to […]
I’m sitting in my Dad’s home office. The boys are at my feet, playing with paper clips. I’m letting them. (I’ll keep one eye on them to make sure they don’t eat them.) Miles could make paper clip chains for hours. I’m all for anything that occupies him for longer than one minute. It’s a busy Thanksgiving week for us, which is turning into a short blogcation for me. Ryan is in North Carolina for work, and I have a funeral to go to here in my home town. A life-long friend of mine lost her dad to cancer this week. It will be a sad day, mixed with the joy of seeing faces that have known mine all these years. My lovely friends and their families. People that know my history and I theirs. I love home. Even if our hard times are heavier for all the memories we share. I want […]
From the archives… In my former life, I was a case manager, working with people struggling with mental illness. I had a favorite (yes, I had favorites!) client named Paul. He was about sixty-five at the time and the spitting image of Yoda. Only his head wasn’t quite as wide… but he was very short and super cute in an odd sort of way. His look was not the only odd thing about Paul. He showed up one cold night at Regions Hospital and ended up in the behavioral health unit (that’s the pc term for the psych ward). It turned out he’d been homeless most of his life and had never gotten caught up in “the system” before the ripe old age of 65. When I got him an apartment through the program I worked for, he had no idea how to live in it. He lined things up all over the […]
No matter how it seems sometimes behind my weary eyes and sighs,I love being with you. You are perspective and pure joy. You are bringing me to my knees,exactly where I need to be. You are beautiful, just as you are. You are me. You are Daddy. You are yourself, and that’s my favorite part. You are ours. You are His. You are light and grace and warmth,all wrapped up in skin and bone.You are forgiving and unconditional.You are examples to me of how to live. Because you are everything I may have forgotten.Things all covered up by the hardness of living.freedom, joy, peace, dreams…you are. You smell like it. You live it. You exude it.You are love.———They say I’ll want these days back,They go all too fast. But I’m starting to realize I won’t.No, not the days.I admit they’re too hard and I’m tired.I won’t want the days. But these tiny versions […]
I was shaking my jeans out before putting them on. Snap! Snap! Miles said, “Why are you doing that Mommy?” “I don’t really know, sweetie. It’s just something I do before putting my pants on I guess.” He stared at me blankly. I thought about this for a little while and then it hit me. How many things am I doing that just really don’t make sense? You know, the things you do that are simply because you do them? Not for any other reason. It’s not like shaking my jeans is really going to take the wrinkles out. I would need to iron for that. But every day, I stand and flap those jeans violently in front of me, as if I’m accomplishing something. And in this same way, most days I walk around with an edge of anxiety about me, snapping at the silliest of things. Someone spills water and doesn’t […]
Yesterday I asked moms two questions. I’m excited about some themes I saw in the answers. There is a common thread that I think is truly interesting. I’ll get to that hopefully in the next couple of days, but let’s start with a bit of a lead-in, shall we? A lead-in to what I’m discovering, and an explanation for my cheesy blog title…——-A friend and I went for a walk one evening over ten years ago. We were roommates at the time, spending our days sleeping in, waiting tables, and hanging out with friends late into every night. We were walking down the sidewalk near our apartment, past house after house, all lined up with their fences. My friend stopped suddenly. Her face expressed her fears as she looked over the fences. She said she didn’t know if she could ever do it. She spoke of feeling a bit panicked when picturing herself […]
Warning: If you’re not in the mood for a sad story that leads to a rant, you should probably go read something else. Just sayin‘ OH! And also, all of you sweet people who said my rant the other day wasn’t a real rant. You are so right. Because this one might be more along the lines of a real rant. Don’t say I didn’t warn you and don’t be mean in the comments. Thanks.——————————–I really haven’t been making it up when I say that I don’t have “regular” TV on during the day with the boys around. So it’s rare that I see daytime television. But somehow yesterday it worked out that I found myself alone in the kitchen at 4pm. Uncle Kevin had taken Miles on an adventure, and Asher was playing quietly in the living room. (Weird.) I turned on the TV and started thinking about dinner. Oprah (maybe you’ve […]
I hit the pillow last night with a whole lot of shame and frustration. I don’t know what it is about Tuesdays. When Ryan is out of town for work, Tuesdays just totally stink. I think it has something to do with it being only the second solo parenting day and feeling like it’s more like the fifth. Then I’m hard on myself. I can’t figure out how I could be so impatient and crabby, barking at my boys every thirty seconds. When it’s only Tuesday. Long story short, I didn’t handle things very well. I was just one big ball of uptight tension and negativity. So I woke up (still exhausted and much too early) this morning and I looked up and thought something toward God, “I can’t do this alone. I stink at alone.” Not even the slightest moment passed and I was flooded with a fullness of knowing, “You’re never […]
