Pinch me. Or not- Its the Weekend.

The smell of portabello mushrooms with red pesto and feta cheese steaming on the barbeque and wine waiting in my favourite cobalt blue goblet is the sweetest way to kiss good-bye to my last two daycare babes on the cusp of a glorious weekend. Excellent company, impassioned conversation, and the promise of hours with my textiles yet to come send me to bed early with a smile clung to the corners of my lips.

Saturday morning dawned with no dreaded alarm or glommy eyes begging for more rest. No sweet smelling babies to crawl across my favourite drafting table- the wide expanse of floor covered in colours, swirls, checks, and strips of delicious piecing potential. There is an hour or two of cutting and sewing before Jane lures me away to our favorite haunt- the local thrift shop whose windows boast promise of half price. We come away grinning- a perfect pair of skates for a dollar. Two large housecoats perfect for repurposing; one in swirls of old fashioned colour and the other a soft pink chennille. A bag of fabric scraps apparently hoarded since the 1970's, complete with vintage patterns of ladies underwear, bridal wear for dolls, and fashion clothes for those 21 inch fashion barbies we never had back in the day. No ugly sweaters or cougar accessories, but who can survive too much stimulation before noonday?

Time for a toasted tomatoe before loading the girls up for a day in the city. We begin at Value Village where new heights of joy are found in a pale purple chennille bedspread, a heavy green spread perfect for carpet bags, two vintage curtain panels, an old broach, and a packet of placemats perfect for Christmassy table runners. Then off to the real world- the mall for Arianna's skinny jeans, a soft sweatshirt for Jane, and even a little something new for mama.

We've spent much of the day, enjoyed each others company, and taken a break from the regular monotony of sibling rivalry, dishes, tidying, and homework. As though that were not already too much to hope for, peaceful ride home is followed by the surprise of an unsolicited meal of pork tenderloin, baby potatoes, and stuffed tomato whipped up by the sweet love of my life.

Sometimes life can have a storybook quality. Moments or hours that are too much to wish for, but are true and real. And now, off to church- where the music will fill me, beginning in my heart, radiating down my limbs, and ending in that happy lump in my throat.

Seasonal Winds

There's no denying that a different wind has been blowing in. Daycare walks have been few and far between with the wind and the wet to contend with. Still, along with that dreaded change another wind has come again- that irresistable urge to create!

Brian's sister is launching a "home store" (similar to home-schooling but completely unrelated) for the Christmas season. She'll be turning the front room of her lovely, well-fixed-up character home into a crafty vendor's paradise. I've taken the bait.


Priding myself on normally being sort of wanna-be-ish practical, I have always thought of retail magazines of a luxury broaching on carnal sin. Lately though, if the hounds release me, my wallet and I are carried directly to the nearest glossy sleeved brothel and I scan and salavate for something different.

Well, this week I found it! Cloth, Paper, and Scissors is unique. Its subtitles are
collage, mixed media, artistic discovery. And it delivers! (not to my door, but in the artistic sense).

It was a short leap from there to deciding what my tags for the Christmas store would look like. I used the pages out of an old autograph book, then glued borrowed letters from a flyer to form the word "re joyce" which I thought went nicely with my basic addiction to repurposing anything that isn't glued down.

So, the blood is pumping happy pumps and the days feel too short again. But in a good way. The kind of short that at the end I can say- Hey! I still have five things I'm in the middle of, and I wanted to spend an hour or two reading my book! (The Red Tent, by Anita Diamont).

On The Go

1. Picnic blankets made from recycled denim pants. One completed, two on the go.

2. Table runners made from various recycled fabrics. Christmassy types of plaids and greens and off whites.

3. Wall quilts or throw pillows (dependent upon how I finish them up) made out of quilt scraps and embroidery thread. Several complete. Many more existing in my head.

4. button bouquets that I fashioned for the first time while at the cabin this weekend. The idea comes from ME. (not me, but ME from the links).

5. Bags. I did a short Bags for Darfur run last winter, and I've picked up the torch once again. I think I have thirteen bags now, but I keep coming across insides or outsides of bags in my fabric stacks, so its impossible to measure how many I am currently working on.

6. Sam's medical tests. An eeg tomorrow, thank God that Brian is going to take the day off since Sam has to go in sleep deprived and I wasn't sure how I'd keep him from falling asleep on the van ride in to Children's.

7. Life in my head. Somehow I don't know if that will ever conclude. Hopefully there comes a point in the future where its a little less confusing and painful.

8. Trying to keep this house from imploding. I keep hauling more vintage stuff into this over crowded space because I have so many ideas of what to do with them.

9. Keeping envy at bay. My wonderful, amazing, gracious, kind, smart, and supportive friend Cheri went to an auction on Saturday and came away with a mother load of quilts and enamel. I don't know if our friendship will survive. Like I said, my house may be imploding, but that doesn't satiate my greed.

10. Oh. And remembering that I'm happy to host two parties in November. Before that, I'd really like to get some form of curtain/drape up in my front window because the trash that's currently hanging up there is tattered from the cats hanging off of it, and there isn't a real curtain rod up, just some lame thing I hammered up when we first moved here. Then there's the old couch thingy. I'm caring less and less. They are ugly. The green one currently keeps its level of elevation with the help of several two by fours, 2 cans of corn, and a piece of plywood. It doesn't take much to improve on ugly. But the grey one. Oh, boy do I want to haul it outdoors at my cougar party and light a match to it.

So, in light of some of the stuff I need to be busy working right now, I sit here chewing my hangnails and typing on the computer.

Three Words Worth Thinking About

heart [ haart ] (plural hearts)
noun
Definition:

3. basis of emotional life: the source and center of emotional life, where the deepest and sincerest feelings are located and a person is most vulnerable to pain .

Quote from an old friend:
---the beauty, pain and ugliness of what is life and death and how it seems the harder you love the harder it hurts, but that's the preference nonetheless.
.......idyllic, broken, hopeful, real, loving, loud and soft all at the same time--


per·spec·tive [ pər spéktiv ] (plural per·spec·tives)
noun
Definition:

1. particular evaluation of something: a particular evaluation of a situation or facts, especially from one person's point of view.

con·text [ kón tèkst ] (plural con·texts)
noun
Definition:

1. text surrounding word or passage: the words, phrases, or passages that come before and after a particular word or passage in a speech or piece of writing and help to explain its full meaning.

2. surrounding conditions: the circumstances or events that form the environment within which something exists or takes place.

Becoming aware of new information requires an attention to that perspective and context. It is also true that one can not measure steps and choices indefinately preoccupied with what may exist in someone else's context or how one's intentions may be perceived.

We are all interconnected. My life circle will always enter the life circle of others. The lines will cross and intersect, and although the boundries are clear, its interpretation is largely dependent upon which circle one's focus begins on.

Its a comfort that the God who "knitted us together in our mothers womb" also knows the heart. More than I. More than others.

Its a good perspective.

Overheard at Thanksgiving

The children have some highly favoured friends from life in that other city who have come to spend Thanksgiving Day with them. They sat down to a lovingly prepared lunch of tuna and tomatoe slices and toast. Eldest daughter offered to pray.

"Dear Lord;
SHUT
UP!

Micah! I'm trying to pray over here!
.... Thank you for this food and these friends...."

Family Traditions

(Thank you God, for my family)

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” ~George Eliot

*thank you Brandy



Its a tradition that began long before any of us had children of our own. Every autumn, the family and all its counterparts make the trip to Riding Mountain National Park to celebrate Thanksgiving.

We always hike the marsh, and at the end of the weaving plank walkway is a gazebo where we have probably posed for a drillion or more family photos. Then there is the treasure hunt, another hike along the lake that is cleverly disguised as a candy hunt so that the children beg for it every year. Uncle Mel's trail mix has become another favourite legend. It was initiated the year he arrived with a rough tote filled with nuts, raisins, chocolate, and candy. Which works out well for my preferred weekend parenting style. Book in one hand, a magazine in the other, and the dimples of my cellulite holding coffee, dark chocolate truffles, four dozen vintage buttons, some scraps of unbleached cotton, and a gin and tonic. Whenever the children approach something relating to hunger I just glance up and scream at them... GO EAT THE FRIGGIN TRAIL MIX!! DO I LOOK LIKE A CARING, ENGAGED MOTHER RIGHT NOW?!



And then of course, it goes without saying that there are hours and hours of family bonding.

Grace

(msn encarta dictionary)

Grace:

kindness, kindliness, decency, favor, mercy, mercifulness, charity, benevolence, clemency, leniency, reprieve

clemency:

act of mercy: an act that bestows or shows mercy toward another person.

I have a picture of grace that envelopes both "sides" of a loaded and charged situation. Its not that remarkable to rush to the defense of someone you call your friend and don't like to see hurting, but it is remarkable when the grace is so plentiful that both, diametrically opposed perspectives and the choices that flow from them can be viewed with decency, mercy, and clemency.

Its the kind of grace that allows plenty of room for differing viewpoints, and for the possibility of a new reality at some other time when wounds are not so weepy. Its the kind of grace that says; "We'll do this together." Instead of spending precious energy on choosing allegiances or nailing others firmly to their crosses, it speaks with tenderness of the hope for restoration. It shelters the weak and vulnerable from undue hurtfulness. It hopes against hope.

Paul says it best; "But for right now... we have three things to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.

And the best of the three is love.

My Son, the Prodigy

Ahhh, another prodigy in the Hildebrand line. Sammy has taken up drawing and does quite a remarkable Sponge Bob.

I suppose he'll draw like his sister Jane. Hopefully if Brian sets up an art blog for him like he did for Jane, he won't drop the pencil and run immediately for cover.

woops.


Today he moved into another medium. This always amazes me, when the drawing progresses towards having limbs protruding from the body and not the head, and the head holds eyes and a mouth. The fingers are new also.

While they were at it, I asked Jane to show him how to write his name with lower case "a" and "m". The brilliant little mind mastered it immediately.

Later as I was humming away at the sewing machine, I asked Sam to go all by himself and wash around his face. He came back so perfectly clean that I suggested he go out and get a job so I could spend all day on the couch reading, and maybe just playing with my sewing machine.

For the rest of the day, he just drew himself up a little taller, waved his arm towards the sagging couches and declared.... "I'm better at stuff now, so I can get a job and you can just sit on the couch ALL day, and read books!"

Why the Words Get Written

I suppose it goes without saying that blogspots are sort of egocentric places. Its where one person, in their quiet space, allows the mind to spill out in all its twisty and less than pretty ways. Much like personal journals or diaries.

All the emotional ugliness that lands up here exposes the true depravity of my human-ness. The goal is to move it from circling endlessly around in my brain towards more conscious thought, then to words, and from there to decisions about how to change directions in the future.

All of our lives are interconnected. And so when I write about a struggle I want to resolve with another person, my writing is pathetically self-centred. Its entirely from my perspective.

Where that has offended, I apologize. My intent is not to rip others down, but to explore the nasty stuff that I see in me, and want to exorcise.

One More Shot at Making an Ugly Mark

Back in the eighties I shared the second floor of an amazing old house just off of Corydon and my roomies and I had a party that would be henceforth be remembered as the "cop stopper". As it turned out, the guys who lived below us, (and repaired harleys on the living room hardwood in their spare (sober) time) were also throwing a party, so we just threw all the doors and stairways open and had one great big, cop stopper. It felt to me like one of those life events that I could wear as a feather in my kercheif. Like maybe I had finally moved off the farm...

Well, I'm not twenty-something any more and I'm not afraid to tell you that I've been thirty-nine for some ten months now. You gals all know about the up and coming cougar party, and I trust that your shopping and hair-teasing is well under way. I'm putting quite a bit of energy into plumping myself with that extra twenty to thirty pounds that was mentioned in the comments. I'd forgotten about that cougar special, but I think I can pull that one off. (she says, taking a sip of her wine, and a big bite of baguette with boursin cheese...the sambucca resting in the folds of her thigh).

Last year I hosted my first ever I'm-thirty-nine-and-not-afraid-to-tell-you-what-to-do-about-it-Ugly-Sweater-Party. I'm not joking whatsoever when I tell you that I believed this to be my very own, original idea. I came up with it at the elevater thrift shop when I was enjoying all the ghastly holiday sweaters and wishing I had some reason to purchase them. Turns out that there are other brilliant minds out there. That this has been thought of before. And I'll tell you how I know.

After the Ugly Sweater Party, I received an e-mail from a Michigan reader who was contacted by a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press. He had googled "ugly sweater party" and landed up at her site. She had been sent a lovely honourary bad-ass sweater corsage since she had been otherwise committed on the day of the party and could not attend in person. Mr columnist guy wanted to write an article about this trendy Christmas party theme and asked her some questions about the event. She in turn directed me to him; and he to me. We exchanged e-mails, and since we were already well into December, he decided to defer until the following winter to write the piece about the ugly sweaters.

TRENDY?! Like I said, I thought that this was my original idea. I thought it was just possible that this idea of mine would be my ticket to finally making something memorable of myself- some legacy for my children, for my future generations.......

Hard to believe its been a year already. Another year off my life, and I'm still not a published author, a tae kwon doe instructer, a famous lecturer, or a coveted artist. But just this week, I received an e-mail from Dave Sanderson of the Winnipeg Free Press. He requested an invitation for himself and his photographer in anticipation of what he probably believes is an annual event for me. Rapidly approaching forty, and fearing that I may never make my mark on this world, I lept at the oppurtunity. So, maybe my works would never get published, but at least I'd get my name and maybe even a photo in the paper?!

So, here's your formal invitation:

on November 24, 2007, 7:00 pm

We request the honour of your attendance

at Joyce's second annual

Ugly Sweater Party

this year featuring

your choice of male escort or attendent.

(not necessarily paid)

No shoes, shirt, or black tie required.

Sweater mandatory.

Bring food and drink to share.

(BYOB&F&S)

(bring your own drink and food and sweater... heck, just bring your own party!)

Care to join me in becoming famous?

Check out last year's event here and here.

This time, if you want to, you can bring your husband or significant other. (just please not both). Leave your kids and pets at home though. They remind me too much of work.

No Screen Sundays

(just don't scroll down and notice that I'm writing this on Sunday. That would make me a hypocrite.)

Every fall and spring and new year, and possibly days in between, I get the undeniable urge to write down some goals and good intentions. Some directions to move into. Some intentional plans to pull into focus the rumbling, fumbling grey matter above.

*

At the end of August, I forced my sometimes pliable husband to sit with me and agree on some good intentions for our family life in the new school year. As much as I love screens, and couldn't possibly convince anyone that I'm above all that technology, pretty colours, lights, and sounds..... THEY DRIVE ME UTTERLY INSANE. I like to blame it on the fact that I grew up without any screens whatsoever. We never, ever had a television, and since humanity had just recently left the dank caves, home computers were unheard of. (unimaginable). I like to pretend that this has caused the inability in me to know what balance is. That I was raised on such purity that my "inner child" craves the silence (hah! eight kids!) and creativity of our farm house years.

*

So, I foolishly came up with the notion of "no screen Sundays". Not because my parents had taught me that cards and homework on the sabbath were sins, (they didn't.) not because I think it irreverent to humour hollywood on the Lord's day... well, I wish I were that holy but I'm not. I just thought that I wasn't really willing to make it Saturday since that's the day after Friday and some saturday mornings, there's nothing better than a bunch of brain dead kids in front of the tv and me not being side-show-daycare-lady for a change. So I picked Sunday. I also reasoned that we'd be more likely to remember undone homework due on Monday if the tv was off. And that out of sheer boredom and desparation, everyone would come to church with me instead of watching Bing and Bong in their underwear.

*

And its had the desired effect. Children get their homework done. (or sit and cry about their homework, but its a start, right?) Children haul out tape and crap out of the recycling bin and make tvs and computers for their play mobil people. (at least they're seeing some action...) Wildly stimulating and educational comic books get read. Block towers are built and conquered. The hamster's cage is cleaned. Flute practise gets done. Friends come by, dress up breaks into hysteria. Children actually ask to go visit grandma and grandpa.

*

BUT THE NOISE!!!

oh the noise.

*

I nearly succombed today. I nearly suggested that after they clean up the twelve thousand blocks, the fabric scraps, the milk jug lids, the shoes in the porch, the baskets of laundry and miscellaneous, the playhouse people, the markers, the waffle crumbs, and the bionicle pieces, that we should reward ourselves with an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos. Oh, how close did I come.

*

But thirteen odd years of trial and error parenting whispered in my ear..... You know where that will get you. Every sunday from now until eternity the children will use that as a bargaining chip. You know that you suck at saying no. You know that they will see your weakness and rub you with it.

*

So, I did the mature thing.

I made them all go to bed early, after doing all the housework.

*

Then I came down to use the computer in some peace and quiet.

September 20, 2006 to September 20, 2007

Cougar Party

I think that "cougar" may be a term from the plains. I've spent more time on google than I'll ever admit to, looking for images that would fall under the heading of "cougar" and mostly came up with large, frightening looking animals who live in Africa. That's really not what I have in mind for my fortieth birthday party. If you are from Manitoba, you may be familiar with the other meaning of the word "cougar". Its the word I remember my brother-in-law using to describe certain ladies who were past their "prime" but still dressed, and presented themselves as though they were "all that". I tend to think of nylons with print, really high stillettoes, hair that's been teased way beyond the point of being amusing, tight skirts like the sort we were fond of in the eighties.... but that's only my limited perspective. Here's what I need from you. Tell me, via comments, what "cougar" means to you. Then come to my fortieth birthday party dressed in such a manner. I don't care how old you are, how young you are, whether you know me, or whether I know you. I just want a house full of women and I want it to be about me turning forty. I want people to come who have never come before. I want people who have come before to come again.

There are few rules or guidelines. Simply, bring something to share. Come in character. Introduce yourself at the door if I don't know you. (thats one of my favourite parts!)

Beyond those very few, very unimportant details, everyone knows that once you've entered the gates, the time begins to fly. Sometimes hems come up. Sometimes secrets slip out. Sometimes Dr Ruth shows up, uninvited. (ahem, ede). Sometimes the guests are blog readers. Sometimes they have no idea what a blog is. Tattoes can be revealed, curves may be uncovered. There is always, always great food. (that you bring, of course.) There is always heaps of hysterical laughter. There are always new relationships formed, fresh perspectives gleaned. People always go home too early for my taste, and I'd really like to see that change this year. Believe me, if I get tired, I'll see myself to bed, but there's no reason for anyone to be polite, or to think of their children and husbands at home. Isn't that what the rest of the year is for?

Grrrrrr.....

Can't wait until November the tenth.

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.

Turning Forty.... and Couches

I anticipate a landmark series on the topic of Turning Forty. They will be deep, thought provoking, and introspective. They will reflect many years of personal growth and the relentless pursuit of truth and authenticity. Likely to be an inspiration to many, the utter selflessness and absolute disregard for the lust after things will be the impetus for global change for women everywhere.

You know how most women say they want a breast augmentation, a touch of liposuction and a trip to Paris to celebrate their fortieth birthday? Well, I'm way above all that. Way above all, all, all of it. Such trivial, selfish, wasteful, and meaningless things would never have a grip on my heart. Not a corner. Not a shelf. Nope, my hopes are much more noble than all that.

I want

baseboards in my kitchen!!

a functional closet!!!

AND A COUCH!!!!!

A REAL COUCH!!!!!!

ahem.
Sorry. Was that my "out loud" keyboard? So sorry.

Its just that my first couch was purchased for $8.00 at a yard sale. It was one of those twenty foot long thingies in brown textile that all of your Mennonite forefathers now have in their musty basements with an afghan thrown over the back. It came with an airmchair. It didn't cost extra. When my friends and I had a few young men over for dinner one night and they all fit onto the couch, it did this really neat thing where it slowly leaned over to the right, and then the little wooden legs just crumpled beneath it. For a long while after that, it was a really low, long couch. And really, really brown.

But then I got lucky. A friend from work got herself a puppy and mostly kept it around to eat things. After it ate all her leather pumps and a few of her kids favourite stuffies, and maybe even a kid or two, It ate a large portion of one end of her couch. It hadn't gotten around to eating the loveseat yet, so I was the lucky and grateful recipient of another "new" couch and loveseat. For many, many, many years, and five separate locations, we enjoyed those blue couches. A throw blanket was always on the right side of the main couch, and guests were given strict instructions to never touch or remove it, or to fall into the crevace left by the overindulged mut.

But alas, they refused to endure forever. After patching the tearing upholstery a million times or more, we gave our youngster a pair of scissors, sat her on the couch , and encouraged her to develop some skills before the inevitability of school.

It was time to move up in the world. Time to put out some big bucks. My pa found us a lovely hide-a-bed at the thrift shop for $50.00. It was sheer nostalgic joy, hauling that 531 pound brown beauty into our humble home. Around about the same time, a colleague of Brian's was downsizing from a house to an apartment and had some furniture for sale. We really lightened our wallets that time, and got the couch and two matching chairs for a whopping $250.00. I tell ya, it took some constraint not to invite the mayor, the minister, and the in-laws straight over to have a look at those beauties. But my humility prevailed. I hated to think of making anyone envious for my things.

And so, things hummed along for a number of years. The children multiplied. We found some friends who found us both tolerable. We added some cats, some rats, and some elephants; a budgie, a daycare, plus our kids kept hauling other kids home, even though we yelled and swore and threw rocks at them from the front door. That grey couch, still our secret pride and joy (not) was just inadequate for the number of bums frequenting the joint.

And that's when I found my favourite couch of all. The beautiful old green one. The one they made back in the day when the upholstery was meant to last a lifetime and actually did. The one with the beautifully carved wooden legs and the plush seat cushions set upon durably springy springs. When I first laid eyes on it, it was parked at the rear door of the thrift shop and I badly wanted to steal it. But what with all the personal development and maturity and all, I waited until the following day so I could properly purchase that gem. Well, that's the last time I'll ever be silly enough to ignore my initial sense of whats right and proper. When I returned the next day, those legs were gone. Gone! And so, they sold me that couch for $5.00. It was disappointing that I was bringing home a parapalegic, but the price was right so I made good use of the four thousand or so cans of tuna I had left over from that whole Y2K scare.

So, things went a long swimmingly for a time. We buried a lot of popcorn in those couches, lounging around and watching family movies, or lazing away Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings with a good book or magazine. The cats enjoyed napping on them and double dutying by using the sides to sharpen their claws on. But. While we were away one weekend, the cats got sick. Very, very sick. And after renting a upholstery cleaner, dumping toxic, chernobyl amounts of chemical into the depths of its seating, and Then hauling it outside to pressure wash...... with the garden hose....... the lucrative grey couch has never been quite the same.

Unrelated to the cats, and more likely due to the expanse and generosity of the bums planted on the green couch..... Those everlasting springs have sent multiple staples flying, then slipped through the fabric underneath and find themselves resting on the living room floor. A sort of ancestor of the original legless brown ten-footer back in the day. Maybe more like a bad theme. Maybe even a nightmare.

Which brings me back to the origin of this post. Turning forty. What I've learned. How amazingly mature I am.

Lies, all lies.

Don't get me a trip to Paris. Don't get me some dumb baseball cap or mug that has a cutesy saying about getting old. Don't get me a box of chocolates or a body spray. Not candles. No flowers. Not a pedicure or manicure, a lotion or massage.

Just get me a friggin' couch.

Redemption

Once upon a time, there were two young women. They had left their farming communities and had moved their belongings into the big city, probably using their dad's hog-smellin' half-ton to get the job done right. They'd never met one another, and moved into apartments at opposite ends of the big city. But life is weird, so one way or another, they met and began to create a series of adventures built on the themes of laughter and life.

There was snow-shoeing, all-you-can-eat spaghetti-ing, greasy spoon breakfast eating, pining after handsome hunks of manliness-ing, movie watching, body part piercing, other-country-travelling, tent sleeping, hair fussing, and other general hanging-around-ed-ness.

Then came the day and the season where entirely too much sharing crossed the boundaries of frienship and loyalties. Where hearts lay ripped and oozing on the floor of the foundations we'd built that friendship on. Where apologies and justifications were shouted at one another in the very same breath. Death of trust and loyalty dealt by "friendly fire".

Oh, we tried to bridge the abyss. Being "good Christians" and all, we worked hard against the scourges of grudge, revenge, disgust... But something was broken.

We grew up, life taking us this way and that. We lived through our mid to late twenties, and pretty well through our thirites with the memories of those times feeling well shadowed by the less than pleasant torture of our friendship's demise. But we had new lives to live, new sorrows to navigate, new friends to love. And so we were not crippled, only bruised.

And then one day, in the two seconds between the dinner table being set, and the children planting themselves on their chairs, I stole a moment to check my in-box. And I came back to the table with tears streaming down my face, my heart full, and lodged in my throat.

"Subject: Hello my old friend

Dear Joyce,
I spent the day looking through old photographs…and there you were, smiling at me, taking me back to a day in time when life seemed easier. I smiled back at you, I laughed aloud, and then I began to cry. So many regrets…what a fool I was. You were one of the greatest friends I ever had. I made so many stupid decisions in my 20’s. I am sorry! I can’t take any of it back and that makes me mad…mad at myself…mad at the world… I am sorry that it has taken me this long to say I am truly sorry…sorry for hurting you in a way that a friend never should…sorry for thinking only of myself.
Will you ever forgive me? Have you ever forgiven me? Maybe I have never forgiven myself...even after all these years."

OH THE REDEMPTION!!

OH! the reunion we shared after all those years. One more roadtrip, this time her doing the driving and me waiting with joy and anticipation. And then the hours and hours and hours of talking, reconnecting, redeeming, laughing, crying. How my friend had grown! How different to now spend time talking about the God we both love, the questions that no seven steps can adequately answer, the losses and sorrows that we'd had, the hope we shared in something Bigger.

And the hope I received that day, knowing that 17 or so years of a friendship lost could be redeemed in a second through her vulnerability, her sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, her lack of self-protectiveness. How anything that pains me now is not the final word. How time can be wiped away, how time itself can be redeemed.

How much of life hinges on a hope for things not yet fully seen.

But sometimes just a glimpse of that kind of redemption can be the wave to ride on and the energy to harness for today's not-yet redeemed voids.

Belonging

When we are no longer able to change a situation -

we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor E. Frankl

*

*quote stolen shamelessly, brazenly, from Roofis.

*

oh, God. Some days it just seems absolutely impossible.

To change.

To change the mental tapes.

To change the perspective of me, me, me.

To have some positive impact on my world.

To live outside of fear, of complacency, of wanting to be small, so as to not rock anyone's boat.

*

Last night after "meet the teacher", I wanted to be uber-wonder-mama and try one more time to get Jane that new backpack I had promised her for grade six. I'd also noticed that Micah; being a mensch and all, had never once tuned into the fact that his sisters had been hitting me up for wallet-opening in the name of school supplies, to Olympic proportions. He, meanwhile was using the backpack that I'd bought him for pre-school, some hand-me-down runners that had seen better days, and his still perfectly labelled markers from last year, tidily lined up in their original box.

*

It was time to quit saving money on the little gentleman, and get him some gear.

*

Wal-mart was nuttier than a box of almondillos on Christmas Eve. The purchase and return line-ups were dense with stuff-laden customers. I noticed a young mother unloading numerous pre-school sized outfits and caught myself thinking judgemental thoughts about how many practically-new-outfits she could have gotten at a yard sale for a fraction of the cost. I nosily wondered if she could afford these purchases, or if she was unwisely trying out a new credit card instead.

*

This led me to wonder about the need to belong. What we consciously and unconsciously do and say to feel like we've got a seat in the stadiums that we live life in.

*

And am I so different? The props have changed, but the premise is the same.

The upside is to realize that a lot of us just want to belong, to be accepted, to be validated. So, we have a choice- hang around, sponge-like and hope daily to be filled by affirmations from others, or, fuel up to give and not seek constantly to receive.

Back From Planet Zoloft....

Just fell off the face of the earth for a while- good... no, great food, kids who rarely whined, no nintendo, lots of nature, time to read, nap, or... snack, and friends who make me laugh.

All That AND a Bag of Chips

Aren't we all getting just a little tired of enduring all this whining about getting old and fat? Yep, me too. There are enough dollars and brain cells being wasted already in our highly misguided society, so how about we start a new campaign? How about some new internal messages? Allow me to propose a few, then please indulge me with one or more of your own.

as has been mentioned; I AM all that, AND a bag of chips.

My gift of obsessive thinking is well suited to dwelling on a book I am reading.

Skinny alone never changed the world.

Interesting is way more interesting than skinny.

Your turn.

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?!

Bringing Sexy Back

Down at the local junk shop yesterday I ran into a worldly friend who had been hoodwinked into buying tickets for the infamous Justin Timberlake concert. We giggled about being older than fourteen and trying to blend into the hysterical audience of perky young undie tossers. Then I inadvertently launched into a long spiel about my thirteen year old daughter downloading his music and how less-than-thrilled I was about the sexual pervasiveness in his tunes, and my horrer at the very idea of purchasing her a $111.00 ticket for the privelege of watching his hips gyrate. Our culture is so saturated with sexuality, I rambled on, and I want more than that for my daughters.

Little did I know how far and wide that Timberlake's influence had spread. Like a batch of newly hatched Manitoba mosquitoes launched out of a tepid July pond, that sexy thinking had saturated places previously unknown to the world and all its temptations. Little did I know that even our local haven- the mecca for clean hands missionary work, scrubber and seller of all things used and dated, was also a pawn in our culture of hedonism. Yes, buried under key chains advertising evangelism, hilcoa, fancy humble cars, and trendy funeral homes was a treasure unearthed by my precious, innocent, impressionable young daughter.

Run for the hills, cloister your handmaidens.

Our last remaining sanctuary of purity has been toppled.

The Niverville Mcc Store is bringing sexy back.

The Birthday Party that I very nearly attended

Dear Linda;

I was so pleased to be invited to your party at a tea house I was sure would be quaint and filled with finger foods and fancy grown-up drinks. I marked the date on my calendar and planned my day so that there was time to drive to the big old city in time to find the address. I had enjoyed an afternoon that day with an old friend and time went by rather quickly, but when I remembered about the birthday celebration, I was still only a little off schedule. Not being one to follow old fashioned paper maps, I googled maps and entered the address. Good! I thought. Its on my end of the city so I'll only be a few minutes late.

Quickly enough I found River Road and began to look for the correct number.
Non-existant.
And certainly not in the area of any historic churches that was mentioned on the invitation.

Well, no bother. We'd recently invested in a cell phone, wanting to be as important as all the other people we see answering urgent messages while shopping for ground beef and discount sandwhich meats. This was going to work out just fine.

I enlisted Brian to go back to the invitation, then google the name of the Historic church. There were five by that name, so we went with the one which included the words River Road. I was certainly in the wrong neck of the woods. Silly Winnipeg, having all these half and quarter roads that switch names randomly. And no wonder they used the word "river" so liberally. The city is practically overrun with the darn things.

It was going to take some time to get downtown, where the screen at home had shown clearly the address of St Andrews church on Notre dame and some other exchange district street. Makes sense! I thought to myself optimistically ; Linda and her sisters are always doing interesting exchange-district-y things. Of course the party would be there, and not in the suburbs!

While I was manuevering to Brian's googling to the sounds of the children apparently sawing off each others limbs with butter knives from KFC, I found that I had been driving west in my efforts to perfect the whole important person speaks on cell phone whilst operating heavy machinery and desiring not to be rear ended by more proficient cell phone handlers who had probably moved on to texting and google mapping while driving.

Well, never mind. I told myself. This is a very special oppurtunity and think of the posts you could write after meeting bloggies eating crumpets with historic churches in the background! You simply MUST drive on!

So, I made my way back east, and a lot north until I found the street that Brian had described so perfectly that cut between Portage and Main like a slice of pie that I could already picture in Linda's china plate.

I found cinemateque. And a nifty underwear store. And a coffee shop I'd once been to when my brother was alive and let me hang with him. I found a lot of historic buildings, the Ethiopian restaurant I've been wanting to eat at, and the old "Kaye's fabric" that my mother used to shop at.

But no tea house.

I was very determined and I criss-crossed that maze of streets for more than a little while, imagining Linda wiping the cake from her lips, taking a final sip out of her wine glass, and reaching for a coffee to round the whole thing out. Well, I thought, There's still time to give her a little squeeze, tell her how pleased I am to have met her, and how much more I wanted to learn from her before she would come to my fiftieth birthday celebration. But no matter if I bent that van in half or quarters, there was no tea house to be found. I figured I was about halfway to the gulf of Mexico by now with all the driving I had done, so regretfully I turned towards home.

Brian showed me clearly where the map pointed out the church and I thought it curious that I had missed it. I'd seen everything else all around it that the map indicated. So, I went again to trusty google. Aha! Here's something about a church AND a tea house and IT says ST ANDREWS! St Andrews! I tell you.

That would be waaaaay north.
Not south. Not south at all. Not even south of the Exchange.

Happy Birthday Linda!
Wish I could have been there!

Miles Away From Ordinary

uncomplicated pleasures

hay fields and horses

women girls

A Gal Like Me Has Got No Right To Struggle With Depression

... or alternately, The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music.

(It just depends on how comfortable you are with pretending that life is a romantic adventure, or whether it relieves you to know that everybody's got shit and small potatoes to deal with.)

How well I remember that house on the hill where all was alive with the sounds of children, and kittens, the dog Daisy, the pretty hens, and the refreshing melodies of cascading gin.

Its time for a refresher course in all things rural, so I thought I'd unschool the children for a few days and haul them off, kicking and screaming, to spend a few days in paradise. Well, screaming with joy as they ride the moterless lawnmower down the hill is more accurate....

So, as if that's not enough to pull my chin out of my navel, tonight Brian and I are taking our daughters to Rainbow Stage to sit in the outdoor concert hall and experience the production of The Sound of Music. I've not been to the stage since I was a teenager so it goes without saying that the girls have never been. Julia Andrews is like an old family friend. I grew up adoring the story and although we never had a television, the Von Trapps felt like family from all the hours I'd spend lying on the living room floor listening to their sounds of music and studying the faces on the record album, pretending I was the youngest in that family instead of my own.

So, a few more hours to get on the old timecard, and then a chance to indulge in the last glorious days of summer.

My heart shall be blessed.... by the sounds of music.

The Runway

Its going to be pretty tough to reach my goal of becoming a runway model in my forties if things don't start changing up around here. I suspect sabatoge when the husband invites friends over for dinner to share his artichoke and olive linguini, washed down with crisp white wine, and tempered with nutty brown buns. He's lured eldest daughter into his sinister plot, giving her the role of baking endless pans of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies instead of playing with her gameboy like sensible children do. Then there's all these lazy evenings spent slouched around a roaring fire in the backyard, turning marshmallows till they droop with golden temptation. Even at the lake, between fitting in the numerous meals that must be consumed, the Mike's hard in the cooler down by the dock, and the mid-afternoon nap, that lake can serve just as well as a backdrop. Its not limited in function to being a place to thrash about in, wet and miserable, and looking like an exercise junkie fool.

Oh, its noble to have goals and all. But if all the people around here don't start sitting down more and cooking and baking less, I'm going to need a whole lot of support. I may even need to sleep in your living rooms.

But only if your people are more supportive than mine.

I Can't Afford a Life Coach so I Got Myself a Blog

There are people who are making a living doing what they are good at, and doing what is fun, and using their quirky gifts at the very same time. If I had a life coach, I bet she would explain to me how I could do that too. She would set me up with some simple but effective marketing ideas, design me a website, and legislate the 24 hour clock to 52 hours instead. She would speak soothingly to me about what to focus on, what not to get distracted by, how much time I should spend scrounging for unique bits of fabric, and how to balance my fabulously successful career with my family life.

But until then, because I am way above jealousy or envy, or covetous thinking, I'm going to post some links to women who are doing amazing work all by their big selves. I am going to be happy for them. Well, mostly I'll whine about how I wish I could market like them. Mostly I'll act like a victem who has had a terribly unfair life and how if I had been born different, I could be like Wanda, Soule Mama, and Gathered Roots.

But if I had a life coach, and if I were good at marketing, then the biggest decisions I'd ever have to make are whether I preferred the Hilton or the Marriott.

A God Thing

I'm not really a superstitious person, but isn't there a saying about bad things coming in threes? Well, I've had a run of three recently, but I would have to categorize them all as "good".

I've always been wealthy in the arena of friends. People who I learn from, laugh with, whine at, feel envious of, and sometimes get hurt by. (and it goes without saying that I've likely hurt them as well). I often assumed, as the friendship season would change and we'd drift our own ways, that there was something about me that made it "not worthwhile" to maintain the ties. That my stupidity and neediness had just sucked them dry and they needed to wander off and find a watering hole lest their investment in us should wither them to death. Not that I believe every friendship should be stubbornly maintained well beyond the "best before" date. Some friends are with us for a season, and that's a gift all on its own. And some friendships take a siesta for a matter of months or years or centuries and there's nothing particularily deep about it. We pick up where we left off, and carry on from there.

Every relationship is significant and needn't turn into a project of phone calls and belaboured coffees. Well, there are one or two relationships that I think are in my life to showcase my worst characteristics, and I suppose an optimist would say that they are here to grind off my rough edges. So far, they just serve to make me more prickly and irritable. Maybe I'll work on that in my forties....

An-eee-Way.
I was saying.

Three good things. Events that touched my heart and made me think of God and redemption. How things can ache and chew away at a gal and no matter how hard you to try to navigate it the "right" way, the way you were taught in Sunday School, it pretty much just sucks and you can't make it line up nicely into a column.

Recently, three friends from my life in the eighties have found me and made contact after a long period of life having swept us all down different bunny holes. Like old pieces of myself, they came back and reminded me of these aspects of life that we'd all shared. Not together as a foursome, as all three friends came from very separate parts of my life in the eighties. One of the friendships ended badly. The other two didn't end at all, it just wasn't the season for investing in that part of ourselves, as we were busy padding our nests and pouring our bosoms into chubby little blobs of hungry humanity. (come to think of it, now we're padding our bosoms, and wishing we could pour off some of the blobbiness...)

Anyway, far be it for me to ramble. ahem. These three goodnesses, like the three wise wo-men, have entered my life and made me think about redemption. I have a feeling its a God thing and that I'm going to learn something about the way God redeems things and relationships. How important patience and faith in things not yet seen are. How all my sweating and striving don't necessarily write the final chapter in any book of life.

And that maybe, just maybe, we all used just a little too much hairspray in the eighties.

Shit and Spiders

Change and me make nasty bedfellows. So when the dominoes lined up, and God whispered in my ear repeatedly, it became clear that it was time for a move away from "life as we knew it". After sweating blood for a few weeks, we managed to get our old house sold. The house where our babies had come home to, had learned to crawl on the drafty hardwoods, and where Brian learned to make bread and eggplant relish. Our house wasn't exactly "on the wrong side of the tracks". It pretty much sat right on the tracks. A neighborhood with a reputation, you might say.

It was tough to move from an affordable house to the outskirts of the big city where the real estate market had already begun to get ridiculous. We viewed a lot of ugly places, and I often made that drive back to Brandon in tears, imagining the six of us landing up in a skunky trailer in the bush, waiting for the rapture.

But then God happened along in the form of my old mama. She called me up and in her squeaky voice told me that her sister, tante Marie and her were in the real estate business, and that tante's cousin had just put her house up for sale in a good little town not that far from the city. I listened politely but didn't think that much about it.

Well, after viewing a shack in a swamp for a whole lot of money, and a crumbling house surrounded on three sides by railroad tracks, a rushing river, and a highway, I figured.... What the heck? So we called up the cousin. She'd gone down to the local hardware store and outfitted herself with an orange "For Sale" sign and some duct tape, which she industriously used to slap that sign to the front door.

Long story short, it had to be a God thing. We could afford the house. The house was solid, it had lots of potential, and it was big enough for all of us. Once Brian pulled up the pink linoleum, the blue carpet, and the spindles out of the wall, the place increasingly felt like our home. He worked hard and long that summer, laying laminate floor (a far cry from our hardwood, but not bad nonetheless), getting our garage built, taping, pasting, and painting. I did my part too, unpacking boxes, keeping the kids happy, painting bedrooms, and in my spare time I watched several hundred Israelite potatoe bugs sojourn from the large Mennonite garden, across the street (where many met their maker) and away to.... ? the Mennonite church? It was all a bit of a mystery to me at the time, but in retrospect I see it for what it was.

A foreshadowing.

Little had I known what August would bring. Unprepared was I for this new land. Milk and honey? sure. We were a stone's throw from the bee capital and from several billion farms. But what I had not anticipated was this bounty's underbelly.

We had moved into the land of shit and spiders.

In August all inhabitants surrender their homes and belongings to the invasion of the spiders. They spin massive webs in every window and across every available surface. They obscure light fixtures. They linger outside my kitchen window and bare their fat bellies, dashing any of my illusions of squatters going hungry. They wait patiently for the Autumn Flies to shit on every inch of the siding, windows, walls and ceilings before they snare them in their webs. After all that defacating, the flies are tired and buzz around slowly, loudly, round and round my head like a cheap horrer film. Eventually they will surrender to their greedy Autumn partner, and do the dead man dance on the web outside my window.

I suppose its true that no good thing comes without its price. Its a great little town. The people are wonderful. The schools are stellar. There's lots of green space, and just a mile out of town is one of the prettiest sights in the world: a grain field. In August its covered in the most beautiful, golden bales. There's a duck pond beside it, and a lazy little creek. There are parks in the town, a fair to attend, and the friendliest grocery store and post office.

But never, ever forget. For one month in Autumn, the town belongs to the shit and the spiders.

That's a Lotta Love

Life in my Head

My head feels like a disorganized three ring circus with me trying to juggle the roles of lion tamer, acrobat, (a rhythmatically-disadvantaged-mennonite-acrobat at that), clown and lion simultaneously. A train of thought begins, only to collide headlong into a vw packed with 44 monkeys twirling fire-breathing dragons. The show has begun, but there's no popcorn made, I can't find my baton, and I've just gotten a great idea for a vintage fabric circus tent. So I begin by twirling needles.

Its colourful, but dangerous.

A recurrent head theme is Clutter. It goes round and round because not only do I collect clutter in the phsysical realm, I also have a great deal of stuff rolling around figuratively, in my grey matter.

Now that "simple living" is a trendy cult, I've read enough propoganda to wonder if there's much credence to the idea of de-cluttering one's environment so that the mind can follow suit and remain on one train of thought for long enough to find some resolution. Its complicated though. I like old stuff. I like treasure hunting. I like toys- for the kids and for me. When I feel the walls closing in on me, I head out for a walk or a drive and I go see if there are any treasures for us all to enjoy. Fortunately, I donate things as freely as I replace them with others. My thrift shop pile in the garage is always high, otherwise we'd likely suffocate from stuff-itis.

Am I in some sort of a rut? Would my head clear a little if I "fasted" from this collecting obsession? The thought fills me with terror. I may as well join one of those cults where they put off going to the bathroom as some perverse attempt at self-discipline. And how many pieces of lustre ware would get away on me if I sat at home and tried to turn myself into a sensible person? How many vintage table cloths would slip by instead of becoming Mary Poppins style carpet bags? How could I possibly be happy?

In my other life in the other city, I was surrounded by the most inspired women who constantly kept me at the sewing machine churning out some exciting thing or another. I miss them severely and although I am insanely happy to be living where I am now, its a componant of my life that I miss deeply.

There's no way to sum this up.

What do you think? Is there a correlation between the stuff in one's head and the stuff in one's closets? (Well, if I had closets. I've always lived in these old, storage-free facilities.....)

Through a Glass, dimly

Life is bittersweet.
With love and apathy,
understanding and selfishness.

joy and knotted stomach
transparancy and bullshit peddling.

**

I'm so grateful for the people in my life who live their lives out loud. I'm so grateful for their authenticity, wisdom, joy in life, ability to cry as easily as they laugh. I'm grateful for their perspectives, their honesty, and the truth they speak in love.

I ache and wish for all the pretense to be stripped from humanity so that we could simply BE together. Love one another without fear. Lose our sense of self so that we can more adequately tune into the other selves who move amongst us. Lose the irritability, the competition, the insecurity.

Are you lucky beyond belief, as I am, to have people in your life who exemplify how different it all could be if we could lose those aspects of ourself and thereby free the ones we love to be more fully alive?

Contests and Contestants

I shamelessly entered my name into Heather's contest because she does great work.

And I am doing eight thingies about me. Cuz its all about me. All of it.
(and Becky asked me to)

1. I once had a baby five years premature.

2. She was a boy named Graeme until the very moment she was born, but then there were some parts missing and some other parts in place, so we named her Arianna instead.

3. I can pour my own cereal.

4. Putting sunscreen on a sweaty back is horrifying to me, but I've spent years in nursing homes washing old men's nackers.

5. I ran once.

6. I'm terrified of numbers.

7. I have recurrent dreams. Sometimes they are like chapters.

8. I plant things in May or June. I kill them in July or August.