What I love

I love winter for many, many reasons.  Which is a good thing since I live in the frozen tundra of Minnesota.  I love days like today that are so very, very sunny and blue and beautiful…and then you step outside and are frozen to the spot.  I love cold weather, because you can always put another layer on but only take off so much in the summer, know what I mean?  One of the things that always warms me is this image:

I love the way Minnesotans don’t seem at all effected by the cold.  And when the boys (and girls, I am sure, but my neighbors are boys) walk over to the local ice to play a pick up game?  Not anything you’d see outside of the frozen tundra.

Let’s see.

I will give this another shot.  I will start with a photo from Christmas…and then another from a few days later.  What is the difference?

Shine the Light

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

a return to love – marianne williamson

PS:  I have been trying to remember where I heard this as I had it written in a notebook that I have not used in a while.  A variant of it was in the movie Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson in 2005, and then again in Akeelah and the Bee in 2006.  Both good movies, just so you know.

So as not to post without a photo…

Our dryer is on the fritz.  At first I didn’t really realize what was happening.  Like most, our laundry is located in the basement.  So, I go down, change it, come back about an hour (or more) later and wonder why the clothes are still wet?  Rinse, lather, repeat.

It took me one entire day to stand down there and wait (patience is not my thing) to see what was happening.  There is a little button that has to be depressed in order for the machine to think the door is closed and it can dry the clothes.  Once I figured this out, I went into the tool room and grabbed a piece of that stuff that can fix ANYTHING.  A small square of duct tape later and my clothes were on their way to being dry.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I went down for my daily dose of housewifery and found this sight:

Long Time Gone…

Last November I signed Randy up for Hockey school.  I kind of knew at the time what I was getting into, although not quite to what extent.  However, I knew that my turn would come and it has.  I took classes and subsequently joined the Minnesota Boat Club.  I love to row.  I enjoy the rhythm of it.  At first I had to concentrate on getting everything in the right order, but now it is easier to just do it.  I am far from perfect.  Far from an Olympic 40 stroke rate, but it is the first in a series of things lately that seem to fit me well.

When you spend a majority of your life trying to fit in, it is still a little surprising to me as an adult when a decision seemingly so far out of the box gives me such peace.  This is not necessarily related to rowing, but I do think that rowing was the catalyst.  After (only) 4 years of complete devotion to Ellen, I am remembering what it was like to look out for me.  I feel selfish, but I think that is just a fact of motherhood.  I am not sure any time would be right.  I have enrolled in St. Paul College to seek a Sign Language Interpreter/Transliterator degree.  I have always been drawn to ASL.  I cannot remember the exact moment I knew I would do something in this field, only that time and again it gets dropped into my lap in various forms.  I have always envied people with a passion for something.  I have never felt this way about anything, but maybe I have and I was just not aware.

Wish me luck.  I am going to go distract myself so as not to lose my nerve…

Mmm…food

We had a friend over for dinner on Sunday and Randy grilled ribeye and corn while I stayed in the house and made some killer bruschetta and potato salad. Food and friends. Is there anything better about summertime?

I also cooked the last three eggs for breakfast this morning. I always save the prettiest ones for last. Who knew I would ever refer to eggs as pretty?

So conflicted.

Alas, despite my best intentions I still leave you all (7?) in wait. Summer.

I cannot explain what it is that makes me so blasted aloof. I love people. I love to socialize. That crazy Meyers/Briggs thing? never taken it. But if I had I know I would score…wait lemme call Dana and ask what one I am. EPMD? Wait, No. ENFP. Yup, I am that one.

Point is, I am that one who gets the energy from others. So summer? When I scarcely see another soul from sunup to sundown and spend the entire day with my four year old? Not pretty.

And yet.

Do I call Sarah, or Dana, or any number of friends that I have? No I do not. I sit here and fester in my rotten excuse for parenthood. A.K.A Noggin. Check it out. Moose A. Moose? Good stuff, people. Educational programming.

There is a certain amount of ignoring that occurs in all of our lives, despite out best efforts. I think we should FEED those things. Where will they take us? Who knows? But at the end, we need to insure our happiness.

Because in the end, isn’t happiness our ultimate prize?

Fancy

There are many things that occur in this house that I have no explanation for.  Sometimes (okay, often times) “the borrowers” of the house move things that I know I left right there.  There are funny noises that are ever-present in an old house (ours was built in 1913).  In short, the usual list of maladies.

Then there are the happenings that I know the origin of, and yet still have no words.  For example, I know where this hideous pink feather monstrosity came from, I just have no words to express my feelings about this picture.

Alright, I joined the herds.

Everybody over at Flickr is playing the game. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and thought about doing it, but then lost interest when I decided it was too time consuming. I finally broke down and did it, so here is my re-re-re-re-re-entry into the blogosphere. You can play, too.

Oh, and Randy just played along, too.  Here is his.

Keeping afloat

I have to admit, keeping my head above water is often a really difficult thing for me.  It is funny, when you compare yourself (as I often do) to all of those other mothers; you know the ones you think are better than you at whatever parenting task at hand; and realize that we are all one coping mechanism away from disaster.  It is merely the coping mechanism and the definition of disaster that varies between us.

Take, for example, my mother-in-law.  I get the feeling, however unfounded, that she thinks of me in some ways to be inadequate.  I am, frankly, when you define adequacy by her terms, but I want to assure you that I am loved dearly by her and while we have our very glaring and obvious differences, we are learning to live together with some semblance of grace.  We are very similar, as much as I hate to admit it.  I believe that her coping mechanism has something to do with how others see you, similar to Bree Hodge on Desperate Housewives.  I am in the same book, I am just in another chapter.  Our disasters are the same – failure in the eyes of others.  The funny thing about that is that I often feel like a failure, but then others see me a different way.

I guess this is all convoluted and not really making sense, but I will say this.  There are moments of sheer sunny happiness.  As I sat out in front of my house today, two beautiful girls passed by (I live right by a college campus) and one was weaving together a dandelion rope.  I was all, “come here and show me that!!!” and she did.  She also sat down and showed me how to make one, something I have always wanted to know how to do.  God bless her, she really made my day.