Can't Sew. Drooling......well.... Google-ing.

Having recently PURCHASED A PINK SEWING MACHINE!! ... I think I may be ready to call it a life. This proud new owner has been Wasting ... Investing an impressive amount of time on the internet, and have yet to find that anyone else in the human world has a pink sewing machine by the name of "American Home". Never mind a PINK sewing machine that is also DELUXE, and has PRECISION!

Here's how it all went down. Our humble town has become somewhat of a suburb of late. We've got all these swanky new uptown developments with cul de sacs and fancy bay names and goose dropping lakes behind walk-out basements. Keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak, our humble little thrift shop started to feel a bit cramped and inferior. So it did what any good money scrimping Mennonite organization would do. It bought the old chicken murdering spot and covered the blood splatters and wet feathers with new carpet and lead paint. Then the volunteers and cast-off distributers hoarded stuff for a few months and carefully arranged it tidily in the killing-field-turned-mission-field thrift shop.

Much to my dismay, I couldn't make it to the grand opening on March 11. I did a great deal of deep breathing (and even considered deep knee bends but thought better of it), to ward off the stress- imagining all those less deserving people scooping up all the good stuff. As soon as possible, I did make my way downtown to check out the new digs. There, way up on a self above the fortrel fabric scraps was the most beautiful piece of machinery in the whole world. I almost had to walk away. The visual stimulation was too much, and I was already clutching the mother load of old carded buttons. "Self", I said. "This is a machine. This machine is much bigger than a button, or a bedspread that you could at least justify by turning into a Darfur bag or a summer tent, or a parasail or something. One does not simply wander into a store one day and pick up a sewing machine. It is not done. It is not sensible. It is not necessary".

And so I listened. I took my buttons home, played with them, lined them up, put them in a pretty coloured dish and feasted my eyes on them.

And then I thought about the pink sewing machine.

The following week, I went back into the store. I wandered around, chatted with the townspeople, kissed the babies, and pretended to be casual about the machine high up on the shelf. "Probably really heavy", I told myself. "You already have two sewing machines, you know. You've got your bernina- undeniably the least stupid thing you've ever invested in. You've also got your old black singer that came in the great old treddle cupboard. Now you're just being ridiculous. Go home, make some borscht or something".

So, once again I listened. All the way to the following Saturday- when some mysterious gravitational force propelled me back down main street, entirely against my will. I pretended to look at the dishes, the bedspreads, the toys, all the while knowing that I was being controlled by a force much greater than my own. A force so powerful, that I soon found myself not only standing beside the pink beauty once again, but reaching upwards to lay hands upon it. "Wouldn't hurt to look at it. I'll see that it's much too heavy to be sensible, that the price is inflated, and that the bobbin winder is hopelessly broken. Then I'll go home and do something sensible like sew nappies for the poor or something. On the two machines that I already have".

I got it down from the high shelf. I laid it on the floor. I chewed my cuticles. My heart began to sing and pound and I felt I could have danced all night. (but then I reoriented to time and place.... BAD idea.) There was a piece of fabric underneath the presser foot that indicated perfect tension. There was a lovely metal banner splashed across its bosom boasting "American Home". There was no price tag, so I thought it best to approach the manager. Surely she would see that I was interested in the thing and she would automatically inflate the price, being mindful of those far, far away mission places that needed my money more than I do.

She didn't.
She whispered "twenty-five dollars" into my hungry little ear.

I remembered that I had four children to feed, Easter lillies to buy, and soccer, basketball, flute, and youth retreat fees to pony up. I remembered whining about those very things only a few short lifetimes earlier. They rang emptily in my head at I gazed at that little vixen.
I simply had to have it. Sure, I had a white one, and a black one, but a PINK one? Never even seen such a thing. I remembered that $35.00 I had won in December for the local paper's writing contest. I remembered saying that I would use that money for something monumental, since I would always think of it as the first money I made piecing words together.

Surely this was providence.

Surely, this machine could not belong in any home other than this one. Not only is it precise, and deluxe, and pink.... it operates like a dream. I kid you not.

There are a few quirks. The foot pedal is not a foot pedal at all, but a knee pedal. In its original form, it came in a sewing case or cupboard and the pedal was mounted to the side for the right knee to operate. Because the cupboard is no longer in existance, but my determination is in season, and abundant... I spent some time learning how to hold the fabric with my left hand, and operate the pedal and the reverse button simultaneously with my right hand.

Might have to look into the feasability of grafting a third arm onto self.

Old Dog: New Trick

For an indecisive girl; I can make some pretty good decisions.

When I first embarked on operating a home daycare, I opened the door to any age and stage of child. I had a small group of kids who came here in the morning on their way to school, and I had another small group of children who came to spend their days with me. The mornings were very busy, and typically loud. The television would be on, the frying pans and milk would be out, and large children would be outside bottoming out the trampoline and wrecking my little tykes wagon. (yes, that's bitterness that you sense). Then summer would come along, and I'd have this disparent bunch of kids ranging from diaper-poopers to wagon-bashers. I did my best to grow an extra two brains, seven more arms, and rig up some sort of program that made the older kids think this was a stellar place to play, and make the younger kids make happy sounds instead of whiney, needy sounds.

Mostly, all eight of my heads would hurt, and I felt chronically incapable at following the bouncing babes.

I don't like to say "no". And I don't like to give the message of rejection.
But. I like liking my job.

So, I began to fine tune. First I received no more school age children. Then I encouraged the ones I had to find other arrangements. Then I just started chasing them down the street screaming unkind things like: dummy, yella-bellied snakeskin, sissy... and your mom. And I'd throw moldy baloney sandwhiches at them. Okay, I never did those last two things because I figured I wouldn't get great references that way, and that's what it's all about.

Slow and steady, those spots got filled with little people. My favourite. Kids who play puppy, think a walk is comparable to a week in Cuba, kids who are so secure in themself that they see no issue in pooping their pants, or puking on my $25.00 couch. I thought it was mostly all adorable, and much prefer it to wagon-crushing fifth graders. They think it's hilarious when I answer their "What's for lunch?" question with the politically incorrect retort; "Lips and bums!"

This morning at 7:00 am as I melted into the couch sandwhiched between a cabbage-patch faced little toddler, and a slobbering, furry little puppy, I revelled in the loveliness of it. I didn't miss the plate spinning mania of the years before. I didn't miss the couch lined up with big kids making fun of Sesame Street. In fact, the tv stayed off, and the house was so peaceful that I had to go wake up the daughter not once, but three times.

The puzzles and the blocks would be exciting enough entertainment today. As would animal crackers and fruit and veggie juice served in mini happy face mugs. No one would be bursting in the back door at 4:00 expecting a craft and a snack that rivalled what they'd had in their lunchbag hours back. My jokes would be funny enough, my videos wonderfully lacking in suspense.

No matter if I'm a late bloomer, it's mighily rewarding to get a little assertive, make some changes, and learn to say "no" when it's the correct answer.

World of Warcraft

Slowly and repeatedly, some things dawn upon me. For one- I am not ill. I, for numerous reasons need to see myself as ill, and as one who has not recovered from a lifetime of food and body issues. But that's just not true any more. No matter what size I wish I were; I am not in an unhealthy relationship with food any more. I don't struggle with it any more. Alone in a kitchen does not make me afraid that I will begin to eat and end up 600 lb on a gurney en route to gastric bypass. Sitting down to a meal does not make me feel afraid or panicked. Snacks are not the boss of me. My bathroom scale is not my disapproving sargent. Weeks can pass by without me fighting the urge to stand upon it and measure whether I deserve to live or not.

I struggle with feeling that I am a failure. The truth is that I am a success. It's difficult for me to type that, as we've been trained that shitting upon oneself is righteous, whereas measuring one's true abilities and making an honest evaluation is a dangerous practise. It's the pride that comes before the fall. I just can't carry on indefinately believing that I am a flop and will never amount to much. It's tiresome. It's a lie.

The truth is that we all play world of warcraft. There is a whole fleet of rubbish getting thrown our way on a moment to moment basis. And there is an army of good stuff. Life giving stuff. You just get one pack of lies beaten down when you turn around and see another fire breathing dragon. You think.... "I CAN'T EQUIP THAT". I must be a failure. I must be stupid. I must have skipped that class and gone to 7-11 for slurpees and menthols. But the truth is that you're in a battle and it's just not tidy and linear.

The more that I learn and grow, the less time that I can really spend believing rubbish about myself. It just doesn't ring true any more. I've seen too much that contradicts those lies. I also know that if we are community, we do one another no good if we stay as small as possible. We are susceptible to depression and disappointment in self. That seems inevitable. To a certain degree we need those moments for balance. But to be deceived about who we can be in all our giftedness (read: God) is nearly irresponsible. It doesn't put your skills out there to serve the community. Nor does it make God look good.

We can only know in degrees whether we are successful or failures. In the day to day, we must ask ourselves: "How have I loved today?" We must take honest evaluation of where we need to make peace with others. Where we need to defend someone, where we need to feed, water, love, or listen.

I remember a pivotal moment many years ago in therapy. My counsellor looked at me and said; "Today you are not bulimic."
Here I had been striving and waiting and wrestling for years for the moment when I would no longer be ill, so that I could begin to live. And all we really have is today. If today I am not ill, how will my day look? There is no default, no excuse to wait, nothing to blame.

When I write the words; "I am not ill", I am filled with the strangest sensation. Like I am on the first square of a brand new game, ripe with possibilities. I don't have to be handicapped by my twenty pounds. It doesn't limit me from being well today. But if I believe that I am ill, then it is no wonder to me that I've made little of myself. It's a familiar place to be- one where you believe that you've been cut off at the knees and you just can't walk the same any more.

What I actually believe is that God has more for me. I know that sounds trite and maybe contrived. But when I trace my finger along the map of my life thus far, I see how things went when I carried on doing what I felt in my heart of hearts to do and be. I like the way that Jesus did only what his father asked him to do. And I want that. I'm not interested in a life lived outside of Jesus because I don't see anything there except the absence of God. Now, I'm miles away from the whole blessing theology. Therefore I don't believe that me doing the correct behaviors, praying enough, or praying correctly will iron all the kinks and unpleasantries out of life. The Bible I read tells about John the Baptizer's head being served on a plate. That was no punishment because he didn't pray hard enough or tithe less than 10%. It's just life. And I imagine that at the end of John's life as his head was getting sawed off, he didn't wish he had gone into business or farming instead. He was sold out- he knew who he was in the context of marching relentlessly after God.

In this world, with its warcraft, getting distracted is absolutely constant. Getting confused is a useful tactic. Having a form of godliness but denying its power is trendy and current.

We are all normal. There is a range of psychoses that falls within what we deem as "normal" in our culture. The truth is that we all battle demons that take upon themselves different forms, depending upon what our life story has been thus far. We all struggle with issues of identity. We all wonder about significance. Some of us are aware of these dramas, some further along in their resolution of them, and some up to their nackers in la-la land denial.

But I have a hope that they can be beat down. Well, maybe not beaten down, because maybe they'll keep hanging around and baring their teeth and snarling. But I think that in the battle, one can get to the point where the messages no longer seem personal. They are no longer defining. They don't have to be wrestled with for months or years because they will immediately be recognized as UNTRUE and therefore POWERLESS.

*thanks to my friends this week, many of whom were Jesus to me. Constantly pointing me to the truth, sharing their stories with me, feeding me cinnamon buns, drinking my coffee, invading my inbox. Jesus was really onto something when he said that strength lies in weakness. Always surprising, always miraculous to behold.

Writers Club

With the calendar indicating that my fortieth birthday was imminent, I wanted to do something stick-neck-out-ish to challenge myself not to get fat and complacent. So, I joined the Steinbach Arts Council writers club. I felt sort of shy about pretending to think of myself as a writer, and wondered if I'd feel stupid and naked there, much like I did in science, geography, and history (oh, and math...) throughout my school life. But the point was to challenge myself. Stick my neck out. Take some risks.

The first challenge was the Carillon News annual Christmas writing contest. I couldn't think of a thing to write. But I got very stern with myself and had myself a bit of a talking to.

"Self.

You MUST submit something. It does not have to be brilliant. It only has to be written, and submitted."

In the back of my mind, I knew that if I sent something in and didn't get so much as a nod, I would know for sure what a boneheadlosernogoodgoodfornothingwannabe I was. So, it was pretty easy to beat my own personal best. So far, my personal best had involved staying small so that there was no question about it- I could not succeed.

The other, much larger, much scarier, much more tear-inducing concern was that two Decembers ago, my brother Ken had won first place in that very same writing contest. He wrote an incredibly brilliant, layered piece that was so loaded in symbolism that much of it embarrassingly sailed right over my head.

I felt really intimidated to swim in the same pool as my really smart, really talented brother who I'd never see again on this side.

The day before the deadline, I still had no epiphany of brilliance.

So, I tricked myself. I logged into my blogspot, and just did what I do: Open the gates of neural pathology and semantics, and let my fingers do the talking.

I couldn't get the dang laptop to connect to the internet. But, determined to beat my pathetic personal best, I phoned the editer and asked for an extension until the following morning, so that my less electronically crippled husband could help me out with the internet issue.

A few days later, I received an e-mail from the fearless leader of the writers club, congratulating the media winners. I anxiously scanned the names in the e-mail and found that my name was not in the mix. Now I was really starting to feel like I was back in grade 11 geography. Plus, I was ashamed at my selfishness. Here I was part of a secret club- kind of like a writers cult or something, and I ought to be thrilled for all the cult members who had gotten their names in print. Instead I resented and envied them.

But then.
On the first Wednesday of the month of December, I got a phone call from my mother.

"Well.... You made it!" she chirped.
"Made it through what, mom?"
"You made it in the paper!"

Here's where it gets all layered and weird and holy and Anne-Lammott-ish.
All the layers started floating and intersecting and a whole bunch of them got bunched up in my tear ducts and clogged up my throat and my ability to breathe. I couldn't speak. I began to fear that my mother was victem to the dreaded dementia and she was hallucinating.

I made her read the name out loud. Tell me the page number. Tell me she was sure. And I wept. For my brother, for me, for life.

But what about writers club? Well, it turns out that they had done an internal review on each other's work and voted in the best pieces to be sent to the editer of the paper. I hadn't been able to make it to that month's session, and just assumed that I ought to send my work directly to the editer himself.

Which meant that I was the only member of the cult to get paid for the honour of seeing my name in print. I was like some kind of writer snob now, who could write off huge portions of her house, due to being a writer and all. I would have to claim the thirty-five big ones on my income tax receipt, look for tax cuts, try not to let it all go to my head- remember the small town from whence I came...

What I really learned was this: Time will continue to pass in 24 hour segments. You can live small, offend no one, not even dare to take any risks. Or you can celebrate. Embrace. Live out loud. You may or may not get your strokes, but at least you know you challenged your own status quo.
At least you get to know your own heart.

Who's In Your Audience?

*its been done before, but the audience has shifted somewhat. Allow me to introduce the new gang. Why? you ask? I find myself doing extensive mental reviews of my audience these days when I sit down to express my thoughts. It's somewhat debilitating, and needs to be defined so some meaning can be attached to it all. Then I can decide if shunnings need to occur.

God.
And I want to take that one seriously, and I already know I won't want an eviction for that box seat.

"Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously towards others, the way God lives toward you. Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it- quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out." (Matthew)

Family.
We share parents, history, current events, genetics. But that doesn't mean we share perceptions. That doesn't mean we live in the same reality. And when you come from family, there are certain things that constantly require redefinition.

Somehow I have to know how to express my reality without disrespecting others, or disregarding their need for privacy. I have to figure out where my role in the family is appropriate and acceptable to me, and alternately where I can hand myself a pink slip.

The legalist.
The legalist regularly hangs over my shoulder and notes my wrongful thinking. My sins. My soft spots, my vulnerabilities. Then the legalist tiptoes away softly and goes to someone else to review all the areas in which I am failing. What really bothers me is that this bothers me. I still want the legalist's approval.

The lurker/supporter.
Maybe at some point I said something useful. The lurker/supporter comes back hoping for more. Then it turns out that that was the bottom of the well. Turns out that instead of remaining silent and benign and leaving the possible illusion of brilliance, I've opened my big snout and removed all doubt of my ignorance and stupidity.

The reader/writer.
This is where I want to apologize endlessly. I keep writing, but I can't keep up with all the reading. So, even though there are many blogs out there that I love to read, I just can't do it all regularly any more.

The openly hateful.
Scarey. And the very fact that this audience wants me to shut down, live small, be quiet; brings out a more mature thing in me. I say No. But I'm really sad about it. The old me still wants to keep asking for permission to live out loud, to learn, to grow, to disagree. And so there is this constant struggle.

The big thinker.
Smart, you are. And responsible, integral, even intimidating. You think and live in ways that inspire me, sometimes frighten me. I don't want to bore you, annoy you, but I'm afraid it's just a matter of time.

Blasts from the Past.
Some of us were kids together, some of us were young adults together. For all I know, I dated some of you. Creepy. I'm sure there is bushels of stuff on this blog that's news to you. It's definately news to me that you would choose to come back. Yet, I'm glad you do. It's incredibly validating. It has meant reconciliation and new relationships, and new constructs in which to mentally file things from the past.

And then there are the seats who are occupied by goodness-knows-who-or-why.
Some of those spots have become clear to me since the last time I wrote about my audience. Some of them were just waiting for me to slip up. Some others graciously came out of lurking. I guess the fear is that I just don't know why the heck you are taking seats. I'm afraid of attack, I suppose. But I wish I had the backbone to not be afraid and not desire your approval.

So, those are the nails currently hanging around my coffin.
How about you? Who is in your audience?

Friday Fifty: Possibly Using the Word "I" Fifty times

I may post fifty times today.
I may have fifty things on my mind.
I may feel fifty today.

I had one of those nights that lasted fifty years. Training for a new job, I had to go to the bathroom, I had brought six kids with me, I packed a broken stroller and a backpack and a wheelbarrow full of stuff to take with me. I had chili slow-cooking in the microwave in the conference room. There was a very boring church seminar going on in that room, and the boys were being embarrassingly loud, there were piles of lego and game pieces spread across the room, between chairs, and occasionally I'd look up from under someone's chair, smelling of chili, picking up lego, and recognize a boyfriend from my youth. How dorky did I turn out?!

I blame it on my back. It hurts. Brian won't massage it because of his stupid splinted finger. (handy, faking that whole ligament/snappy/splint thing..... LIKELY STORY).

Today is Sam's fifth birthday. Maybe around the forty-nineth post of the day I'll write something sentimental and poetic but not now. My back hurts. Did I mention that the backache makes my head ache? And that it would be easy to resolve- take some tylenol for the head and do my pilates DVD for the back? But I don't want to . I'm tired, and my back hurts. And I'd rather whine about my back and my fat thighs than do an exercise DVD. That's how crazy I am.

BUT.

Do rush out and buy the wpg free press tomorrow morning. Then look up the DETOUR section. You'll see a much more joyful version of joyce over there. All decked out in her red ugly sweater, surrounded by her ugly friends.

I've got a housefull of kids today, for which I'm grateful, since Christmas is coming up and I'll be taking a week and a half off. Without pay. (duh). But did I mention that my back hurts and I was running all night pushing a broken stroller with six kids needing to go pee and training for a new job?! And that I slept in, waking up exactly one minute before I heard a car pull up on the driveway to drop off the first little cherub of the day? Oh, how I hate it when I sleep in. Its a "DOOFUS of the DAY" award in the making.

And who of you has the courage to admit that you've ever watched or even listened to a Barbie DVD? I've got a kid who brings it every single day. And since she's here at an undecent hour, I'm utterly spineless and I put it on. But I hate it. It even dummer than any lame Barbie thing that you could come up with in your most depraved imaginations.

Have I whined about fifty things yet?

Some Party Thoughts

The abundance of hilarity poses as the baseline of all these wonky parties. But there is another thing that goes on, that a person could miss if they chose not to tune in. There's something a lot deeper than the acrylic nails, cheap nylons, and under-elastized snakeskin minis.

Somehow in shedding our typical wrappings, we lose something else - our safety in whatever packaging we've grown accustomed to. We're given the gift of making new friends without the distraction of superficial judgements based on what "life grouping" we may assume that people belong to. As "cougars", we shared an imaginary identity that opened gateways for exploration that we may not have uncovered at an epicure party in our Sunday best. (not that I have any issue with eating dips for hours on end, dripping mayo on my Sunday School blouse and rayon skirt...)

And one of my favourite things was the joy and beauty we found in each others bared midriffs, lycra-ed thighs, rounded bellies, and plungeing necklines. It was a bold embracing of our femininity. A recognition of our God-given beauty as women without the shame and confusion of inappropriate or unwanted sexual attentiveness. Women too often react in fear to their own bodies, and the bodies of their fellow women. We envy. We covet. We criticize, torture ourselves, condescend to one another.

But on November the tenth, we celebrated. And it reminds me of one of my favourite passages in Geneen Roth's beautiful book: Feeding The Hungry Heart.

"...I have a fantasy that I repeat to myself, instead of turning to food, when I need comfort and nurturing. I am at a celebration with hundreds of other women. It is a summer evening, about dusk, when fireflies begin to play. It is warm and the smell of honeysuckle is strong. We build a fire and set tables around it covered with lovely embroidered cloths. We bring out a glorious array of foods: roast chicken, turkey, potatoes, yams, large colorful salads, nuts, hot wheat breads, platters filled with fruit- pineapple, papaya, mangoes, apples, bananas, figs, dates- whipped dream, cakes and pies, wine and rich coffee. A feast for women, not one where the food is prepared for men to enjoy- or one of those horrible parties where the women gather guiltily around the food table and pick furtively. We eat and enjoy every bite. I add various pleasures, depending on my mood; sometimes we pile all the Cosmopolitans, Vogues, Seventeens, and Playboys on the fire and sing as they crackle and spew. Always we dance and sing, and finally I lie back on the cool fragrant grass. (on a great vintage quilt, I would add) The fire warms the night air. Staring at the stars, I know that this world is mine. I feel the food in my belly, feel it nourishing my body, feel the laughter and strength in my bones; and I am completely and overwhelmingly satisfied." (Rachel Lawrence)

~

Thank you, my friends. Thank you who came, and you who I thought of. You have enriched my life. You have taught me so much. You have expanded the table that is my life, and piled it high with sumptuous, guilt-free indulgences. Not the sort that leave you feeling light-headed, full, and hungry. But the sort with substance, subtleties, bold spices, and life-giving nourishments.

If I Were Made of Time and Infinite Resources

... I would lose myself for hours in my beautiful, inspired sewing room. I would piece and patch and form into beauty the multitude of intentions and ideas that live in my head. (and quite a few pieces from ideas that I've stolen from other talented artists out there.)

I would hire a life coach for myself. I would learn how to have goals and a plan that would move me from a whole bunch of loose ended theories and wonderings to an intentioned way of concluding a thing or two before I turn to dust.

I would sign up for a neat thing I saw in a pamphlet at my sisters annual procrastinators birthday party this weekend. It was a weekly meeting about intentional journalling. That sounds so incredibly wonderful. To journal in the company of others who love to do so, and to have a facilitator to help us write and explore new ideas.

I would join the gym, not to beat my body into what I wish it would become, but instead to feel it work, to celebrate that all the joints and ligaments and muscles can team up and work in unision. To embrace my aging self and dance with it.

I would install a self-cleaning floor.

I would hire someone to put baseboards in my kitchen.

I would volunteer in a gritty downtown soup kitchen.

I would travel to Alberta and spend a week organizing my sister Laura. On the way there, I would stop at my friend Nancy's and drink some wine and talk about God with her.

I would set aside one night of the week for a stitch 'n bitch at my house. Except I would never call it that. I'm much too upright to say such a crass and inappropriate word. I would never suggest that my friends would fit such descriptions, or that they would accept me for another minute if they heard such foul mouthedness emerge from my lips. But. I would like to spend an evening a week with my beloved fabrics and buttons and friends. Stitching, creating, sipping, laughing, connecting.

I would go for a walk every night after supper while the children rip each other to shreds washing the dishes.

but as it stands, this post was begun first thing this morning, and I've had no time to complete it until late afternoon. I have nearly paid my bills for August now.

So, time and money do have their constraints. Lets just see what I manage to squeeze in, because if my life were entirely manageable, I'd likely die from boredom.

That. Again.

I took the kids for a walk today to get a red pepper from the grocery store. On the way to the peppers, I had to pass the magazines, and since the children were being extremely compliant, my eye had a moment to fall on two of my favourite magazines: Home Companion, and Country Living. I guess I needed an adrenalin rush or something- being a highly religious bargain hunter and buying a magazine retail really don't go hand in hand. I impulsively balanced a copy of each on top of the stroller and headed off to produce.

There was good reason for being compulsive about the magazine. I felt like I needed to compensate for missing out on some yard sales this weekend.

I've signed up for a church seminar that will take up my thursday and friday evenings, as well as all day saturday. That's not the difficult part.

Saturday also happens to be town-wide garage sale. Saturday just might be the day for that ONE garage sale... the ONE where the perfectly beautiful, perfectly affordable couch lies in wait.... for me. Its not that I haven't been taunted before. There was the time when I could see the absolutely perfect, red vintage couch and chair IN A GARAGE with an affordable price tag dangling temptingly off of it. I nearly drove off the road. I nearly stopped breathing.

Too bad the poor couch was shredded. It would have made the green one and the grey one look downright contemporary. But I digress.

Flipping through my overpriced copy of Country Living, I came across the above page. A gorgeous couch. Funky. Having recently walked through our local furniture store for the very first time, and realizing that I really loved nothing in it... I was pleased to see this avacado green piece in the magazine with the wide arm rests and fun patterns and felt relieved that these were being manufactured once again. Then I read further. Turns out that the woman had not only a stack of vintage chenille and beautiful old quilts in amazing textiles, but that she had found the couch and a matching chair for $35.00.


Which brought me back to the original conflict.
Church.
Versus Garage Saling.


Well, they said it would be a narrow road. They said that there would be sacrifices.

And now I really need to stay committed to the seminar.

Now I've got the whole jealousy thing going on, coveting whats in my neighbor's garage, whats in my neighbors handmaiden's garage, and maybe even whats in the shed they keep their oxen in.

I've got stuff to come clean on.

I may never find that couch that I just know is going to be out there on Saturday morning. Because now, not only do I have to work on my poor stewardship (buying that unnecessary magazine RETAIL) , I'll have to deal with my envious urges, my jealousies, my covetousness, and my compulsive bargain hunting.

But if I get all that dealt with and I'm no longer driven, then how will I ever find my vintage couch?!

How I Nearly Got to Guatamala

This morning, a group of people from our community left on a trip to Guatamala. They packed the maximum allowed baggage full of backpacks, gifts, and school supplies for the sponsored children whom they plan to visit. I imagine that there were also a number of toolbelts to pack, as they will be building a cinder block school house during their stay.





I felt excited about the trip, even though I couldn't even consider joining them. Gloria and Crystal have gone, as well as the grandma of one of my little daycare sweeties. I wished I were joining them.





But today, Brandy took Crystal's job.

Crystal fled the country to go build a schoolhouse.

I took Brandy's son, Mikey.


And that's how I practically flew to Guatamala.


(Micah and Mikey.)

No Time to Whine.... About Turning Forty

Sometimes I think I could ditch all the books and therapies and meds and just spend a lot more time with my beloved buttons.

Recent gifts from two people I love have set my creativity on fire.

Brian bought me two amazing original mixed media drawings by Andrea Pratt to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary. He had them framed in handsome black matt and as soon as I saw them, I knew I wanted a set of four.

I played with the idea of going on Andrea's fish and cat themes, but the vintage pieces I had with those motifs were quite colourful

and detracted from the exquisate beauty of the prints.

So I turned to my favourite medium:

Buttons.

I had a new stash from my friend Cheri, so I sat down with them and my tins full of treasures and picked a number of favourites to sew onto black velvet.

By supper time I had the red wall patched, and my beautiful collection mounted.

I'm almost forty, and my couch sucks, but I must have the absolute most beautiful buttons in all the world. And the most amazing drawings from Andrea.

And the most thoughtful people to gift me with such beauty.

Things that Make you Say.... Hmmmm.....

Going through cupboards the other day, I came across some forgotten bottles of vitamins and supplements. It made me wonder why they had been purchased, and what I had hoped they would remedy in me. Were they related to my medication? Were they purchased to counteract side-effects? It struck me again that my memory had seemed particularily unreliable of late, that I had actually frightened myself by forgetting a common word, and wondered if I would land up being that young mother in a brodey chair in the nursing home dying of ALS or something and my children having to come in three times a day to spoon feed me and wipe up my saliva and pee and everything.

So I called up my old friend google.

Turns out that I had forgotten everything that I had previously researched. Most of my problems could be blamed on the said medication. Excessive yawning, sleepiness, insomnia, farting, constipation, vertigo, vivid dreams, sweating.......... could all be blamed on the treatment. Plus a half dozen or more side-effects that I could still look forward to.

Oh. And there is anecdotal evidence of impaired memory. So, whatever brain power is available after having been awake, sweating and farting from 2:00 until 5:00 am last night, will be further compromised by this other, tiny side-effect.

Maybe I should try to remember to take those vitamins.
Although, I find it even more challenging to remember things when I'm sleep deprived.
I wonder if there is a medication or supplement that I could take for that? And what would its side-effects be?!

Daycare

Proposed poster (hand scrawled in pink crayon) to hang in local grocery store and bank may read as follows:

Lady in Town opens home daycare.
Its all she really knows. She never finished her degree, which probably has to do with her fear of success and fear of failure issues. On the topic of issues, she probably has a great many. Where a normal person could look at events and quickly categorize them, she has the uncanny and entirely useless gift of mulling things over for years on end. She can take the average monday to friday problem and turn it into a bonified disorder and create drama with very few props and only a slight hint of a story line.

Her brain is multi-faceted and fragmented. This means that she can walk past a stack of fabric scraps on her way to picking up a Robert Munsch story book and get so distracted by their colours and designs that she forgets that she ever invited children into her home to read to in the first place. Hence, when she calls; "Just a minute....", its helpful to think of the Biblical passage that refers to a minute being a thousand years and vice versa. She simply cannot be trusted.

She will burn the last pan of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies every single time. And garlic toast. Having placed said item into the hot oven, her mind will tell her that the task is complete, and she will wander off, distracted by some pattern of light on the wall. In time, she may moan; "Dr Penfield.... I smell.... burnt toast", but by then she's probably scrubbing the bathroom sink with her pants down around her ankles. Having gone into the bathroom to pee, she probably noticed that many life forms have set up colonies and governments in the streaks around the faucet and mirror, so after rising from the throne, she likely has begun to evict them before her bottoms have risen to the level of her own sagging bottom.

As she scrubs, someone begins banging on the door, and she herself fights the urge to bang her own head against the wall. This reminds her of the possibility of other latent disorders and she remembers that she and half her offspring need Dr appointments for various undiagnosed anomolies. On her way to the phone, she notices the stack of information given her by another medical professional. She really should sift through that, make some phone calls, make some decisions and follow through.

But the kids are hungry and the laundry has been hanging in sun and the rain for two days now. All she really wants to do is wander down to the local junk shop to see if there are any more scraps of fabric with distracting colours and prints on them. Then she could wash them and fold them and imagine making things out of them while she is busy tripping over the stack that she folded last week thats sitting on the floor beside the oven.

Right. But I think this was supposed to be about childcare. Right. Okay, so......
About the kids. Hmmmmm...

Right. She's home anyway, so if you needed somewhere to leave the kids because you finished your degree, your kids will probably be happy there. There are tonnes of toys and no one has to be careful about the couches because they are so ugly that she's hoping eventually just to throw them in the trash and find someone else's cast-off that's still in way better shape than her ancient germ-infested lumps. They'll be relatively safe because bad things never happen to her, and she'll never be critical of your parenting style since she's so preoccupied by her own. Sometimes she'll sleep in and not hear you at the door, but then because she's obsessive compulsive, she'll feel so lousey that she'll make you an apple pie and deliver it to your house warm from the oven. And she'll apologize repeatedly. Then she'll wear the guilt and humiliation for so long that she probably won't expect you to pay for the childcare for about three weeks after.

So, anyway. I forget why I was writing this. I think I'll wander down to the thrift shop. Its tidier there.

On Living Without a Memory

I have no idea when my children got their first teeth. I can get you to the airport but I can't remember the names of the streets to get you there.

I've got some lovely perennials in the back yard. Every spring I'll ask a seasoned gardener what the names of all the plants are.
Next spring I'll ask again. Well, I'll wait until next spring, but I should ask again in a week.

I've got all these mental files upstairs and they're packed full but I have sporadic and undependable access to the information. This can be embarrassing when someone asks me to repeat something that I apparently once said. If its not written down or tattoed on my inner arm.... good luck.

Its frustrating when I know I've learned things and I'd love to communicate them because they set me free in some area of struggle but I can't pull up the specifics on how I got there.

My brain works like a song you hum, but you can't remember the words. You have an excellent feel for it, and it evokes the emotion that the words carried but its hardly karaoke material.

Everything is kind of swirled together and melted around the edges. Its a brain that is not regulated by intellect so much as by emotion sets. Its hard to express the effect of information when all you can remember is the effect and not the event.

I can't remember why I started this post...

Avoiding Writing About What I'm Really Thinking About

Right now I am wrestling with some big gigantic things and even I in all my non-privateness am not yet willing to write about it. Its so unprocessed that I may spew forth half thoughts that will later produce regrets. I hate regrets. I hate trying to regather feathers once I've ripped open a big old german pillow and shaken it out of a two storey window whilst screaming obscenties from the top of my voice.

So, paradoxically, I will reproduce what Danielle lied ever so kindly over at the Bipolar Diaries.

Sometimes when life bogs you down so completely that you find yourself taking your son through the McDonald's drive-through for fries and all you order yourself is a black coffee..... you just need to indulge yourself in someone else's graces. So, here's what Danielle said today to get me to lift my head off the pillow and give another kick at the can today.

5. Joyce at Chronicles of Blunderview. Joyce is amazing. There are many times when I feel as though we share the same brain...although she is much more prolific than I. She often takes my perspective of looking at life through a kaleidescope....there is no one correct interpretation of any event....and the view changes with every turn.

I love msn encarta dictionary, so I had to take this word prolific over there just to make sure that I fully understood its meaning.

pro·lif·ic [ prə líffik ]
adjective
Definition:

1. highly productive: producing ideas or works frequently and in large quantities

2. fruitful: producing a lot of fruit or many offspring

3. abundant or abounding: present in large numbers, or containing large numbers of quantities of something, especially animal life

*a period prolific of creative achievement

Gosh, what a great word! Let's just review...
producing ideas or works frequently and in large quantities........ Well, YAH! That would be accurage. I used to produce large quantities of hand sewn garments to the point at which my mother ( a workhorse) would shake her head and say... "How does she do it..."

producing lots of fruit or many offspring... HELLO! four kids and a daycare and lots of fruit in the fridge. I've got that one covered.

abundant or abounding.....large quantities of something..... animal life... OH YES! We abound! Large quantities of STUFF, and let's see about animal life... two cats, one hamster, and a dog on the way. And that's not counting what lives in the couch.

What's a Girl To Do?

There are at least two separate and complete people living inside my head. And I'm not sure which parts of which one to try and kill off, nor am I sure of what weapon to engage. They have both been with me for at least thirty years and so we've become close and familiar, and we depend on each other a great deal. They have both grown and evolved over time and yet they can't functionally continue to co-exist as the space in my head is crowded and neither is truly willing to move out.

One of me is very nearly forty, and more than "okay" about that. I like laugh lines, I like that I'm not dating any more, I like being a mom, I like my job. I like where things are going for me in terms of life quality. I'm not preoccupied with skin care products, sagging boobs, enlarged pores, or wrinkled hands. I quite like the air of maturity that they project. I'm drawn to people who live like they don't care what others think. People full of compassion, and love for their fellow persons, but not trying to keep up with the Jones's (or the Friesens, as the case may be). I like the idea of learning all the time, at my own rate (which isn't the speediest) and finding people both like- and unlike-minded to learn from and appreciate. I like to think of myself as non-judgemental, patient, and genuinely caring.

I'm good with all that.

But, somewhere around grade six, this other embryo began to grow and develop. It was fueled by fear and insecurity, and a desire for some kind of control; a tangible "thing" that I could be responsible for, something that I could excel in and not fail at as I did with so much else, at least in my eleven year old opinion. And so I began to f* around with my body and its intake of food. Or not. I managed to play my game quite well, and stay away from any diagnoses outlined in the DSM right on through the remainder of my public school career. That's six years of flirting. Six years of feeding jekyl and hyde before they in turn began to eat me alive.

Things didn't go well from there, but that's another post or twelve. Suffice to say that I've provided enough background to explain where my alter ego came from, and how long she's been a part of me.

Fast forward to now. Thirty-nine-and-a-half. Pissed off at North American commercialism built on women hating themselves. Annoyed at consumerism that depicts happiness as thin. Disgusted by diet groups dangling carrots on sticks so that women will empty their wallets and fridges to reach out for that elusive, thin happy place. Bored by the idea of women guiltily hunching over low fat dips and berating their hungers.

But I want to be thinner.

I'm up twenty pounds from who I think of as "me". I don't like the way my clothes fit. I don't like going to my closet and being constantly reminded that I have put on weight. I know that losing twenty pounds is too much for my age, and my time and place in this life. But I could really stand to drop ten or fifteen. I've been working on setting my brain right for far too many years to go and join a weight loss scheme. I happen to know that those are poison for me. I hate aerobics and I know that I'll never sustain and activity that I don't enjoy. I'm not willing to give up wine or cheese or ice cream.

I feel like for the past eight years, I've been back at the initial flirting stage. And believe me, I had years and years after my very hard earned recovery period where I experienced total peace and maintained a body weight that I was happy with. That's when something yucky and traumatic happened in my life and I lost an awful lot of ground with my alter ego.

But I'm going to be forty soon. If I'm lucky like my parents, I could have another entire lifetime before I die. I don't want to spend forty years, forty months even, wishing I were a different size and not knowing how to get there without landing up nuttier than a hot fudge sundae. But I don't either want to be this size for another forty months or forty weeks or forty minutes.

Crazy, eh? Doesn't match up with my other person at all.
What's a girl to do?

Fragile But Strong

Bad stuff happens to everyone. People lose children, siblings, health, the sanctity of their marriage. Finances crumble, friendships end, hopes die. And so there is nothing unique about pondering the likelihood of caring for my aging parents. There is nothing unique about feeling hollow and frightened that my brother died before I was quite used to his diagnosis. Still, a wise friend pointed out, its the first time its happened to me, and that makes it unique.

I, and my world, are forever changed. I want to navigate all this "properly", deal with stress appropriately, remember and rely on the one word that God impressed upon me some two years ago: REST. And so in ways I feel strong and determined.

But in other ways, I'm a stupid little kid in water wings, trying to swim upstream.

Lifestyles of the "Poor" and Relatively Unknown

I get up at 6:00 am (except when I don't) just to have the house to myself for an hour. Sometimes I read, sometimes I sit and stare, but I always, always have at least two cups of good, strong coffee to kick-start me.

If my hair is annoying me, I take out the thinning sheers and go a little crazy. Its to fulfill my latent, unfulfilled, longtime dream of being a beautician. (is that even a word any more?)

I love the smell of Johnsons baby wash. That's the real reason that I run a home daycare. I don't even like kids.

I don't mind housework. I just hate it when I can't get it done. And these days, I never can.

Although my legs are long, I LACK COORDINATION. Badly. I was the one who got picked third last for all the teams in elementary gym sports. And the only reason that I wasn't chosen dead last was because people liked me and would offer a "mercy-choose".

I pick. My fingers have been scabby, calloused messes since I was about ten because I can not leave skin tags alone. I used to bite them, but now I find myself picking and scratching away completely unconsciously. I was never a face picker, but since Ken's illness, I find that my nasty habit has not been satisfied with ten fingers. I now scratch away at many body parts. Well, I don't scratch my bum. At least not in public.

I have been known to take items from the kids' dress-up trunk, alter them, and wear them as my finest.

I like to throw ridiculous parties. Very not Martha Stewart. This is an arena where I get to be almost entirely myself. I get to meet new people, laugh a lot, buy everything but the food from thrift shops, (the guests have to bring the food. Like I said, this is not the sort of party where the hostess becomes the envy of the town...) I get to play dress-up. I don't stress about what people might think of my house. If they think its really ugly and bizarre, then they will be impressed at the great lengths I went to for an ugly party.

And here's a tidbit that I can't for the life of me understand. Although I am very easy-going.... to the point of frightening people, I struggle with anxiety. I think and analyze and wrestle. But if my life is too manageable, I have to add more to it. If there's one thing I cannot tolerate, its boredom. I have to be busy (but not toooooo busy), and I have to multi-task. Otherwise my blood turns to sludge and there is no adrenaline in me anywhere.

What about you? And if you are rich and famous, don't patronize me...