FundyNutter

From yesterday’s Bible reading:

“Do everything without complaining and arguing so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.”  Phillipians 2: 14 & 15

I can see the value of clean living–or, conversely I can see the damage that dirty living causes.  Foul language, rotten attitudes, gettin’ inta fights, none of that is any good for community.  And the more contentious part of the non-believing world is always waiting with baited breath for just that kind of stuff so they can throw the hypocrite bomb at the church. It’s more than bad press, it really turns people off of God.

But complaining?  Even when the kids get me up three times in the night? At 1:30, 2:30 and 5:30-”Now now, Traci. Without complaining!”

but…what about when the dishes are piled so high that they topple over and break but there is a kid with poopy pants who needs to be changed at the same ti-”without complaining!”

but! What about when they throw tantrums in public and-”without complaining!”

BUT But but but what about how kids ages 2 and 3 are dreadfully boring and playing ponies with them all day long actually robs your brain of oxyg-”WITHOUT COMPLAINING!”

without complaining?

But but but but but

if I have to live without complaining, whatever will I blog about?!

(and if I can’t argue either, what is the point of logging into Netzero at all?)

I believe Daniel had an hours sleep last night. He may have gotten a little more at the funeral home. Since he eta was 4:30 am, he decided to stay there and crash on the pews for a while, rather than driving the extra hour home and back.

THe 4:30 am eta came on the heals of an all night on call evening.  Some highlights of the evening where when the worlds worst hospital insisted Daniel take a deceased person to the funeral home at 11:30 pm only to discover after he got delivered her safely that the tissue and eye donation people hadn’t had their turn yet.  Stupid hospital.

Another highlight was when the world’s worst answering service called Daniel three times (8pm, 10:30 pm and 1am) to tell him that he did not need to come pick up a different body. A call that needed to be made? I think not.  And of course that was followed immediately by the 2 am call that asked “Where on earth are you Daniel? We (at the hospital) told the family you would have their loved one at the funeral home by dinner time.” yeah…the idiots at the call center gave Daniel the wrong message 3 times. And why…why could this beloved person not stay overnight at the hospital morgue? What on earth was the hospital thinking offering an afterhours pick up they hadn’t confimred?

Daniel’s boss is on vacation this week. So, in the great tradition of funeral service, his all nighter is followed by an all-dayer, no comp time anywhere to be seen.

But this all brings me to the point of the van.

Have you ever been sitting in traffic in the dead of the night, maybe stopped at a light next to a Ford astrovan or windstar with smoked windows? Did you look over and see a man driving by himself? Perhaps you dismissed it as a midnight milk run. Perhaps you wondered and wondered and couldn’t come up with a good reason for a family van to be out at all hours.

Well, last night at least, on behalf of just one funeral home (out of dozens in our metro area) three such vans were running around carrying various parts of people to their final destinations.  And I imagine, there were others on behalf of other funeral homes doing the same thing.

Personally, I plan on passing away during a morning nap in my late 90’s.  It may be less mysterious but it sure is nicer on the funeral director’s wife.

Anything from Spoiled Chef to Bunco counts as one of these, since the purpose is to throw Norah off the track. I don’t want her to know that we will be laughing and playing games and eating a lot of sugar, you know?

And yet yesterday, it was mostly true. There was a bag of M & M’s involved and a box full of my homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, but the events were literally meetings, and at least one of them had lots of boring talk.

I was so angst filled, bitter and irritated earlier this year. I had been basically begged to take over the chair position of the missions commitee and then told, when I grudgingly accepted, that I couldn’t. It was weird, confusing, and annoying. I didn’t want the job anymore than anyone else on the committee, but I was willing.  And then, when the idea was run by the elders (which technically it doesn’t need to be) they said, “ummm…no. Not Traci.”

I looked for and seemed to find a pattern of disappointement at our chuch, where I disappointed leadership and vice versa.  Wise, kind people from church told me I was being silly, that our Pastor invests in us and everyone, at some point or other, has had a “talking to.” Well, anyway. I was missing what should have been obvious in that situation.

First obvious point: I didn’t want the job and the Elders didnt’ want me to have it, so apparantly God didn’t want me to have it either.

Second obvious point: When God has a servant willing to do stuff that needs to get done, he uses them.

Which all brings me back to yesterday’s boring mommy and daddy talk meetings.

At the Sunday School meeting I was welcomed whole heartedly as the Children’s Ministry Director (a co-leader with my dear friend Rachel.) I have a vision of what ought to be done and now have full reign to function as the Teambuilder/Encourager.

I probably wouldn’t have felt like I had time to do it if I was slogging through  mission budget and meeting minutes every month.

And then, at the Business Meeting our church approved the begining of a Spanish ministry.

I speak Spanish.  (I have a long way to go to improve, but still. I speak Spanish.)  Daniel and I have both been personally invited to join the leadership team for the Spanish ministry.

I have about a thousand reasons I said no, the first being I want to focus on the Sunday School work. Also, I am very opinionated and talkative–not the best qualities for a smoothly running leadership team.  So long as someone (Daniel, I hope) joins the team, planning can get done and they can delegate grunt work to me. I am happy por asistir servicios espanol, and do grunt work. But I don’t want to hinder the planning with my opinionated chit chat.

So it turns out I have plenty of work to do, plenty of responsibility and the folks who decide things at church trust me plenty well after all.

Which brings us to our Lord, as it ought to. He said, after all, “Why worry about tomorrow? Today has enough worries of its own.”

I intend to stop worrying about why or why not something is or is not going to happen in the future. There is plenty enough to occupy me right now.

Most of my days are made up of: Cleaning (house, garden, children), cooking, fixing, reading, going insane.  Things that seem like great big insane things to a person with such a limited scope of activity likely seem mundane to the rest of the world.

Yesterday I moved three beds, four dressers, a couch and a big tv.  I moved all of the flotsum and jetsum that accumulates under said furniture as well. Somtimes I get a bee in my bonnet and move my furniture around for aesthetics or cleaning.  This time I was rearranging my whole life.  In italics.

Our house is a ranch with addition. The addition is a huge master suite with access to the deck and huge bathroom…well, bathroom, laundry room combo. When I shut myself up in our bedroom I can feel like I live in a giant house.  I don’t. The original footprint of the house was about 1000 square feet, so all of the rooms, barring our love nest, are pretty small.

A couple of years ago I read an article in a homes magazine about a family that turned their master suite into the family room, because it was so big and comfy.  “Lunatics!” I thought.

And yet, that is what I did yesterday. My girls share a room, because they want to. So I shoved them and all their stuff into the small bedroom. Then I shoved me and all of my stuff into the medium bedroom. Then I put the tv and couch (which Daniel made and I had to unmake a little bit to get through the door) in the master bedroom.

Our den which, two decades ago, used to be the masterbedroom, is a pass-through room to the now-family room.  It has the computer and boxes of jumbled toys in it right now.

I like the new family room.  On the one hand, it is much bigger then the old den.  On the other hand, in this era of the great room, it is still sort of smallish for a family room.  I like all of the sunshine that the two big windows and the slider door give that room. It is nice to share that with the kids and the tv.

On the other hand I think I hate loosing the master bathroom.  I haven’t showered yet, but I am going to have to bring my clothes with me into the bathroom. Bah.  And, since the largest room in the house and the largest bathroom in the house are now public spaces, I will have to keep them both clean. Double Bah.

It feels counter cultural though. Like I’ve done something big and unamerican. After all, don’t we move and move and move until we finally have that magnificent home which boasts a master suite with a reading nook, a spa-like bathroom, and direct patio access? What kind of person trades all of that for a pink 12 x 9 foot rectangle with balloons on the ceiling?

I told myself I would keep it like this until the end of summer…give it a real shot. Make today’s backache from moving all of that furniture by myself worth something.

The best I can offer now though (as I anticipate the first inconvenient shower) is, “We’ll see.”

Seven years ago, a warm afternoon.  I wore a thin t-shirt and lightweight, khaki shorts.  My cross training shoes were still new. I was as stress free as a girl on the countdown to her college graduation and wedding can be.  I was fueled with a small bag Trader Joe’s corn chips and was ready to climb the mountain.

It was just a foothill, really, of the quite respectable Mt. Hood, off to the south and east. There were no glaciers to be conquered or pending snow to bundle against.  It was, however, the mountainiest mountain I have ever climbed.

This climb, called Angel’s Rest, is a popular climb on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge.

The trail was carved on the sheer sides of the mountain. The forest sloped steeply down to the river, not inviting hikers to explore the woods. The view to the river side was beautiful. The forest in June. Tall new-growth evergreen trees offered the idea of shade to forest visiters. Sword ferns, maiden hair ferns, piggy-back plant and trillium gathered together in small groups, chatting about the pack of hikers tromping around.  I’m sure they found us large, garish, and remarkable mobile.  Here and there an old snag, split by lightening, was enjoying its midlife career change as a caretaker for forest life of all kinds. On an old snag, small birds, slugs, worms, bugs, lichen and moss and other small green things lived together, a miniature forest in the forest.

This particular trail is just under five miles round trip.  It has an elevation gain of 1880 feet.  At the top, after enduring the endless switchbacks and scrambling over the great feild of basalt boulders the resting place of angels greats you. The beauty of the forest that surrounded us was more than enough, and yet at the top, God chose to reward the  determined with  an astounding view.

On the hill top we found a rocky field, open and free, no barrior between climber and the almost 2000 foot fall to the river below.  I sat near the edge, stretched out my happy muscles and was amazed at the greatness of creation.  In front of me was stretched the glories of hillside and mountain and the river that was carved through it. Thy sky was cerrulean, dappled with white clouds–the innocent, decorative kind. The river, far below was saphire. No wind to encourage the wind-sailing that makes the area famous, but the still waters were so far below and so deeply colored that they astounded.  The hills, on all sides of us were emerald green, daring Ireland to be as beautiful.

As we wended our way down the hill, back to our flat ground, boxed in behind, before and above with fir trees and clouds and buildings, I tried to appreciate the forest around me. I chatted with the other hikers. I noticed that changes in the woods as we lost elevation.  I noticed the funny noise I made while I was breathing.

wheesze, whisze, wheesze

It caught at the back of my throat. My breath felt, I don’t know, incomplete. What a funny thing for my throat to do.

It made me think “Health insurance would be really handy about now.”

Later in the week, at an urgent care clinic, I explained to the doctor what happened on the hillside.  He asked questions about my history of allergies.  He suggested the cold I had been fighting for two months was not a cold. He sent me away with Zyrtek (enough for only a month, the most an urgent care clinic can prescribe), albuterol, and the words “exercise induced asthma.”

Earlier this spring, I spent a rather scary afternoon turning my house updside down to find the blasted inhaler (because, um, since I don’t tend to exercise, I don’t need it much.) The doctor told me the next day “asthma can change. It sounds like yours has increased from a relatively minor problem to regular asthma. ”

He sent me on the way with new prescriptions and an annoyed attitude.

My alergic triggers are grass, fir trees, pollen and of course, exertion.

I spent the afternoon yesterday in my mom’s grass lawn exerting with the kids under the fir trees in the pollen.  I still can’t breathe just right.

I didn’t even attempt a  gain of 1880 feet in elevation under the canopy of the forest.

wheesze, whisze, wheesze

I’m glad I climbed the mountain when I did. I plan on climbing more of them.  I plan on spending hours on my own grass lawn under the great fir tree sundial planting things that will make pollen.

I climbed up the mountain, seven years ago, with trepidation, wondering if I could really do it and what I would see at the top. I came down the mountain with asthma.  If I can make it through this post I will get my inhaler.  Then, I’ll plan my day in the garden.

(please visit : www.danbalogh.com/hikes.html for some amazing hiking photos, including angels rest.)

Sadly, I didn’t win a years worth of free baby food and a picture of my story illustrated by the “Where’s Baby’s Belly Button?” lady.  I would have donated the baby food to a shelter and put the illustration up in the front room.

Our Sleep Ritual

Our second daughter, Lucy turned two today. It has been so long since she fell asleep in our arms–almost like she has been two for a very long time, our active toddling, growing girl.

She had a birthday party today. She played and jumped and danced. In honor of the day, she would not nap. Practicing the independence she will develop in the coming year.

And so she was exhausted tonight. Her head, resting on her daddy’s arm as they sat together, watching the tournament. He said, “Lucy can watch this with me, we’re buddies.” And she looked up at him, stars in her eyes, and said, “Daddy is my buddy.”

When I returned to the scene, she was sound asleep, on daddy’s lap. So different, this night from most.

She likes to rest her head on my shoulder, most nights. And we dance. Maybe it is not the most original way to go to sleep.

Her big sister has stories in the next room. It is a holdover from the days when she nursed at bed time, Lucy clinging to me. Every night we dance.

She is wrapped in a blanket, in my arms. She sings all the words to first song, or tries to. Then she pulls on the blanket. She likes it over her head, safe and dark and warm. Much like when she nursed.

I can’t help myself but kiss her soft warm hair before I cover her head and we sway together, a tired two-step. Her grip relaxes some, around my neck. She starts to feel soft and heavy in my arms. Not quite asleep, she pulls the blanket away, just a bit and says, “I want go in my bed.”

I lay her gently in her bed and cover her again with the blanket.

Every night we dance.

Today she turned two. And she fell asleep on her daddy’s lap. So much like her newborn days, a small warm little person. But at the same time, we didn’t get to dance tonight, which feels so much like the not-so-distant future.

It was Fathers Day yesterday. So we girls made a picture of a necktie on a card with a silly poem and gave it to Daniel with his breakfast.

Daniel and I, pathetically called our own dads and left messages for them.  No construction paper or glue involved.  Poor dads.

My Dad deserves at least a gluey construction paper necktie.  He is a really great dad. (And so is my Father-in-law but that is a post for another day.)

My dad does the Dad-provider thing exceedingly well. In the first, and traditional sense, he is an exceedingly hard worker.  He does more at work than any of his co-workers. At a time in his life when he could expect a nice ergonomic chair in front of a computer screen he does his best to lead by example at work. He does everything there, from locking up at night, to taking in the freight. He has his time at the desk of course, doing work he is very good at.  But he serves others at work. He provides them (and us) an example of the kind of man that God wants us to be.

When he’s not washing his coworkers feet (so to speak) he is hammering away at the house (his or mine.)
He does the grocery shopping for my mom, saving her the effort and lots of money with his crazy couponing ways.  And like all dad’s ought to be, he’s a great hand at the grill.

I was going to go on and on about how funny and entertaining he is too.  It is a special gift of his, the gift of the storyteller. And good humor and being able to make people comfortable cannot be under rated.  But on considering his character carefully, I think I want to leave this the way it is.  That he makes us laugh is obvious.  But that he serves others in humility, putting the needs of his boss, his business and the team before himself, that is spiritual gift and above everything else that could be known about him.

Thank you, Dad.

Much to the harassment of Lucky, our dear neighbor’s fluffy, but elderly, white dog, two years ago our beloved garden was being ravaged by wild and illicit pit bull dogs. Had Heff or Jeather who owned the house from their comfortable but distant acre in Phoenix known of the trouble, they would have evicted the renter and her unpermitted dogs.

Instead, last year, they sold the house to us. Lucky showed signs of overwhelming relief, but it was too late all the same. Comfortable at last, that his dear owner was safe from the beasts, he laid his head down for a final rest.

And safe she was, our two wild animals don’t bark and only bite each other.

Though peace has reigned supreme the gardens here at the Sundial are war torn. It’s no Jazz age in our personal economy though, so restoration is slow work.

There is promise in every nook of the place though and where there is promise, even my ignorant good intentions can’t entirely spoil things.

We haven’t actually named the place yet. Our last home became the Lake Cottage. It was 900 square feet of cottage-y goodness and a short two mile walk from the rustic boat launch and riparian comfort of Lake Vancouver. The name was more obvious, than anything else. For the sake of the post, I’ve called this place The Sundial, because that is its most obvious feature.

Our lot is a quarter acre in the suburbs and shaped like a fat piece of pie. The house sits at the tip of the slice with a comfortable sized front lawn set like a stage, a bit inclined from the street. To stage right is an almost ancient oak that keeps the front lawn dappled in shade and littered with leaves all of the year.

The house and its oak-leaf clad front lawn take up very little of the parcel. The back portion of our pie-slice gives me the feeling of living on a minor estate. A minor estate that needs restoration. But that suits our Yankee ingenuity and the bootstrap pulling we are prone to.

Perfectly centered in the back garden is a 200 foot (Daniel says it’s 180 feet, but that is 20 feet less romantic) fir tree. Hence, The sundial.

As the shade rotates evenly with the hour around the back garden I am constantly scratching my head in bewilderment over where to plant what. Every stitch of the yard is in shade at some point for a good part of the day.

In light of that, I planted the kitchen garden in a spot convenient to the kitchen. With the tree to the east and the house to the west I do theink I picked the second shadiest spot in the whole of the property. I realized this only after I doubled its size yesterday. It is now a sweet little “L” shaped patch with the leg and the foot both two feet by four feet.

I suppose I will move it next year.

In the meantime, the altogether lack of wild dogs at our house has helped the lawn repopulate. It is a lush, thick thatch of grass everywhere i want to dig a planting bed and a wild scramble of flowering vines everywhere else. This particular blend of lawn is perfection for two and three year old mud pie afficionados.

We have cyclone fence along the north of the yard. This is what gave Lucky such a terrifying closeness to the pit bulls. Along the whole of it at intervals of a few feet were cinderblocks and paving stones, the less than decorative way the renter plugged the holes her bulling dogs dug as they terrorized old Lucky.

The other two sides of our garden are also fenced. The devil dogs had their way with those fences as well. frankly, I’ve decided that the grizzly holes they clawed and scratched into the cedar boards are more comely that the chicken wire and particle board the renter had screwed in as patches.

We have bigger plans for the garden than budget. But inch by inch we are reclaiming it as a place for aesthetic life, rather than wild life. We have put our strawberry and hosta garden under the fir tree. The traditional suburban fence-boarder flower bed has replaced the cinder blocks. We have a small river rock bordered wild flower garden where the children can sow and gather. I have torn down miles of chicken wire, cleared acres of blackberry and put in my ill-fated kitchen garden. The green green carpet of grass and sundry has replaced the dug up and dog path worn lawn of just a year ago. It’s an encouraging list of improvements, I think.

Hopefully, next time I bring you all to the garden with me I can offer you a seat on our new, almost finished patio of Port Orford cedar and offer you a glass of strawberry lemonade so we can admire the view of the Forest Walk that has been growing steadily all year in my imagination. The beginning is there now. I’ve torn out the blackberry Mirkwood and transplanted three tiny firs, one pine, two branches cut from a pussy willow and two lilac volunteers. That’s where I want to take you next, to show you how my own Sherwood blocks the view of the eternal Tyvex house from us and the view of us from their menacing and noisy mutts. But as it will be quite a while before my infant trees block anything out or are joined my more mature friends I promise to have you back as soon as the patio is done. We’ll have our lemonade and check the status of the watermelons.

With some careful, creative thinking,  about a million phone calls, and some quality delegation I have made my wee to-do list tons more managable.

This is what it looks like with its changes.

• Rewrite VBS teaching materials
• Recruit (half of ) an army of nursery volunteers
• Prepare curriculum for summer nursery program (ages birth through 5, in three different classrooms) Picked a handy dandy lesson book and selected one quality head teacher who can do her own class prep.
• Prepare the teacher packet for the volunteers I need to recruit Make two small changes to indicate the change in classes scheduled for summer
• Review Missions Policy
• Create guest list for appreciation event Scheduled it for right after church…everyone is invited!
• Find decorator and speaker for appreciation event Got decorating instructions and panned the speaker idea
• Create bulletin insert
• Convince Daniel to create power point slide Ask Sharon to create power point slide.
• Figure out what on earth kind of food to feed the Sunday School teacher to make them feel appreciated Cookies! And Cheesecake! yum!
• Create some kind of take home package. Delegated to the talented Ruth

Phew.

Three cheers for gettin’ things done!

I’ve spent about an hour online this morning, Not so long for me, actually.  Of course, I am just now getting to the end of the things I wanted to get done, so I could be here for a while longer yet.

As usual, I needed to read a couple of blogs, check the Fredders, read my email (responding only if something really, really called for a response,) write a post here. I also needed to check my banking and learn as much as I could about (John) Beverley Nichols. And I did. He’s a deceased gay, british, garden writer, playwrite, gardener, and man who tried to kill his father. Not what I expected to learn.  Although, reading his gardening books, the only part I couldn’t have guessed was the murderous playwrite part.

And now I am writing the post…that’s the talking with my mouth full part. In that, I may have bitten off more than I could chew, volunteer-wise, and yet hear I am chatting away.

Yesterday was the Vacation Bible School meeting.  I volunteered to do the teaching part of VBS this year. It suits my schedule for the week, as well as my temperment.  I will teach the Bible lesson first thing in the morning and then get to spend the rest of the time in the Nursery with Lucy.  They will let Norah go with the Kindergarten group, so I don’t have to run a pre-school program this year.

The teaching…it’s a pretty big job this year. I have the curriculum, but I need to re-write it to be a narration of the life of Paul with the high point of the action dramatized by a rowdy group of Youth.  It’s well written already, I just have to create the transitions between the narration and the acting and turn the high point into a dialogue driven five minute sketch. It seemed like no big deal until I got a chance to check out the materials.  The last two days of teaching jump around in Pauls life quite a bit, so I will have to decide which is most exciting on a given day–the storm, the ship wreck, the snake bite, or the miraculous healing of all the sick folk of the Island.  And then I have to create some kind of high point in the following day which is Paul rotting in the Rome prison, hanging with his pals and preaching the word.  We’ll see what I can make of that. We’ve got about five weeks until VBS. So I should get it written up in the next two weeks to give time for the youth to practice. I’m hoping for three rehearsals.

That wouldn’t really be too much bitten off, so to speak. But at the meeting last night my summer nursery schedule suddenly reappeared. Without any new helpers signed up.  I’ve got one week to fill up a million volunteer positions.  And all of my stallwart teammates, the folks who work together so nicely throughout the year, are “taking the summer off.” That means, no help from them for recruiting, filling positions, or preparing curriculum.

Okay, so that feels like a lot of work, I still want to spend some time parenting my kids, after all.  And I still get to wash all the dishes and cook all the meals and wash all the clothes and then look at them with a sense of shame and guilt as they lie there, unfolded day after day.

But of course, if that was all that was on the agenda, it would be a sad, small agenda indeed. I had the great idea that the Sunday School teachers needed an end of the year appreciation event. I do, really, truly, think it is a great idea.  “We” think a good time for it would be the first Sunday of the summer schedule. Yup. Two weeks from now. An event. With a speaker, desserts, decorations, some kind of token of appreciation, a bulliten insert, and a powerpoint slide.

As soon as I get the mission policy reviewed with my notes on needed changes for the meeting on Monday next, maybe I can start one of these other things.

And just for my own edification, here is the list of all of the tasks that I need to get done in the next two weeks.

• Rewrite VBS teaching materials
• Recruit an army of nursery volunteers
• Prepare curriculum for summer nursery program (ages birth through 5, in three different classrooms)
• Prepare the teacher packet for the volunteers I need to recruit
• Review Missions Policy
• Create guest list for appreciation event
• Find decorator and speaker for appreciation event
• Create bulletin insert
• Convince Daniel to create power point slide
• Figure out what on earth kind of food to feed the Sunday School teacher to make them feel appreciated
• Create some kind of take home package.

Phew.

Oh goodness, I just realised the first Sunday School meeting for the next year is June 22–the day we wanted our event, which is right before the church business meeting. So no event that day…

And what am I doing with so much on my plate? Blogging. And reading gardening novels written 50 years ago by a man with more than questionable morals.