Category Archives: Holidailies

Cats and Contentment

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I type this with only the glow of my computer screen and the light from the Christmas tree illuminating the room. It’s quiet. Not silent because I hear the fish tank gurgling in the background, and far away the furnace rumbles, but it’s pretty quiet. I am snuggled under the blanket I like to call the Little Touch of Heaven blanket because it’s so, so soft. As I type, the black cat lays curled on my lap. She likes the Little Touch of Heaven a much as I do.

See how he puts up with my husband?

See how he puts up with my husband?

Her brother, the gray cat, will love up anyone who has food or will turn on the faucet for him to drink (he’s one of those cats that prefers running water). The gray one will let my husband pick him up, roll him over, trim his toenails, rub his tummy. As long as he’s got food, he’s happy. The black cat, though, is just as likely to swipe at you from the shelter of a piece of furniture as you walk by as she is to let you pet her. She doesn’t let just anybody touch her. She hides from people, slinking around in the shadows, until she’s sure the dogs and kids and Andrew are all asleep for the night. Then she comes out and sits on my lap. I keep telling Andrew that she can’t be pursued. She has to be wooed. She has to come to us on her own terms.

In our house, the girls are feisty, and this includes the cat. This cat’s got spunk. When she was a kitten, just a few months old, she fought the dog for the first time. The dog cornered her, barking and snarling, and that cat leaned back against the couch and let go. All four paws and every one of those claws tore into that dog. I saw actual fur flying off the dog. I’ve never seen anything like it. She may have been scared, but she wasn’t backing down! I can’t help but admire her jungle instincts.

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How could an innocent-looking sweetie like this destroy $250 worth of electronics?

When we first got these two, they were tiny kittens. Every morning when we woke up, we found electronics with gnawed-up cords. They were still plugged in, and one of the kittens had gnawed the cords in half. We weren’t sure at the time which one did the damage, but I know now. It was the sister. I mean, who else would dare chew up something that might electrocute them? Only the spunky one would attempt such a thing…and succeed.

What’s odd is that she’s got this feisty side that attacks and claws and can turn a dog on its heels, but when I sit down like this, quiet and calm, she sneaks up and cuddles me. Not just that, but she sniffs me, gets right in my face and examines me, licks me a few times, almost as if she’s making sure I’m ok before she settles down on my lap.

You know what? I feel particularly satisfied when this cat visits me. She doesn’t choose everyone, but she chooses me. Someone who doesn’t like everyone likes me. And I’m glad.

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I’m So Tired

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“I’m so tired.” It seems I hear that or say that a hundred times a day. The last few weeks have been so crazy that even my kids are saying it. When you can zap the energy of a fourth grader, you know you’re too busy! Here’s some of the stuff we’ve been doing this month:

  • At least eight Christmas band/choir concerts in the last two weeks. That’s seven too many, in my opinion.
  • A work Christmas party that involved way too much worry for the amount of involvement I had in it.
  • Making a gift for said Christmas party.
  • Another work Christmas party that required wearing an ugly Christmas sweater and hoping it wasn’t ugly enough to be chosen for the dance off that determined the winner of the ugly sweater contest.

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    Alex, on the far right, did not participate in the contest. Too cool for an ugly sweater.

  • Hosting three students after the pipes went cray cray and flooded the college (see this).
  • Preparing for and implementing registration for the spring semester 130 students. Sounds easy. It isn’t.
  • Grading a million papers, giving a million tests, and writing a million syllabi–that’s Andrew’s stuff, but it affects us all.
  • Managing life while Andrew was in California last week.
  • Nursing a child with strep throat, two with serious colds, and taking them all to at least seven doctor appointments of various types.
  • Christmas shopping.
  • Surprise physicals for life insurance policies. At work. I mean, technically they weren’t surprises, but since I forgot about them, they were.
  • All the regular piano lessons, gymnastics classes, early band practices as usual.
  • Supervising class evaluations in all of the classes at work.
  • Three, half days of training on the horrible and difficult-to-understand-and-use computer system at work, after which I decided that I should definitely be given at least an associate’s degree in computer programming. Hey, I work at a college. My boss should be able to arrange something, I think!
  • Dealing with days that have gotten so short and cloudy that it seems we are living in the Far North. I would not do well in Alaska in winter.

There are more, I’m sure. I’m just happy that Christmas break is upon us, the kids get to sleep and rest more, and all of the band programs are DONE for now.

The Holiday Rush

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It's the requisite holiday concert band picture. I barely recognize my own boy in that sea of blue and khaki!

It’s the requisite holiday concert band picture. I barely recognize my own drummer boy in that sea of blue and khaki!

It happens every year about this time. Between the end-of-the-semester crazy time at work and Christmas preparations, we have all sorts of school programs, band concerts, piano recitals and now, since we have teenagers, finals to worry about. Add to that list cold weather and ever-increasing darkness as the winter solstice creeps closer and closer and the fact that, for whatever reason, in the winter I like to hunker down with a blanket and a knitting project and binge on Netflix until the wee hours of the morning. It’s a recipe for disaster. I sometimes find myself in the midst of a sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled afternoon scurrying around to try and get as much done as possible at work before going home to get as much done as possible before going to bed. 

Not only do I feel this, but I’ve managed to pass it on to the next generation. My daughter sometimes comes to me at almost 14 years old and laments that she’s tired and doesn’t have time to study amidst all the band practices and concerts of the season and conflicting advice wells up in me. Part of me wants to tell her to let up and give herself a break. Take some time off. Don’t put too much stock in those finals because it is, after all, just junior high, for crying out loud! Another part of me says no way. That’s when she learns how to juggle so much and be productive in a safe environment. I mean, if she tries too much and fails at some of it, she’s just in 8th grade. That failure affects nothing in her future but may teach her a valuable lesson. Besides, she’s got the energy and enthusiasm of youth on her side.

I look around and see that we are not alone in this. In fact, I’m surrounded by a lot of college people who are staying up later and working harder than I am, and I realize I’ve actually learned some things about holiday time management that I didn’t know at their age.

So which one is right? Isn’t that the question all firstborns like my daughter and me struggle with at some point? The longer I live, the more I think it’s both. Let up and lean in. Don’t do too much, but do all you can. And how in the world is that even possible?

  1. Prioritize. Yeah, I know. That’s what they all say. But seriously, I ask myself this all the time: What will I wish I’d done now when I look back at this time in 20 years? Work harder to do some job with excellence or take time off to play with the kids? Since I stumbled upon this technique of imagining my future self talking to my present self, I have used it relentlessly in decision-making, and I have been amazed at how helpful it has been in helping me focus on what’s really important. It also leads me to the next point.
  2. Pay attention to now. That may sound contradictory to saying look at the future and work toward it, but it’s not. If you’re like me, it can be easy to get too caught up in memories of the past or fears of the future. I can’t do much about past events, but if I’m worried about the future I can affect that by what I do right now. I just realized this morning that our oldest daughter has only five Christmases left before she goes off to college. That’s five, people! The Christmases and birthdays as a solid family unit don’t stretch out endlessly before us anymore. They’re limited. How do I make those count? Not by making the perfect gingerbread house or buying the best present ever. By being present with her right now. I want to decide what I think is important for my kids’ futures and do the things in the present moment that work us toward that goal. That’s not just true for people with kids. We can do that in all areas of our lives. What do you want to remember about this time of your life? Work to be present for it.
  3.  Lower expectations. In school I used to want to have an A in every class. Not just an A, but the highest A. Then I realized that if I implemented suggestions 1 and 2 above I would not get the highest A. I began to lower my expectations because there are more important things to do than study, and studying all the time will not help me be present any more than studying less. If I want a perfect house, I have to sacrifice more important things (like my sanity) to get that. If good enough is really good enough, I have more time and energy to devote to the things I feel are higher priorities.

    Yes, that is indeed my youngest wearing a turkey headband. I’m lowering expectations, remember?

  4. Give up control. This is a big one. I used to be pretty type A. I wanted a schedule. I wanted things to go according to that schedule. I thought if I could list it and plan it I would be happier. But then I moved overseas. There nothing happened the way I thought it should, and every day became an exercise in accepting what I don’t understand. I remember standing at a bus stop and seeing a trolleybus roll up. It had its destination written on a card at the front, but it was in a language and an alphabet I didn’t know at all. I just said to myself “what the heck?” and got on, not knowing where it was going or if I’d get where I needed to be. Guess what. It went somewhere. With me on it. I don’t even remember if it went where I wanted to go or not, but I remember that moment because it was a moment of surrendering control. I’m still alive, so it must’ve worked out ok, right?

So now you’ve heard my ideas for getting thru the holidays. What are yours?

That Christmas Feeling

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I always tell my kids, who sometimes worry there will be a gunman in their school massacring everyone, that this isn’t something to worry about. I tell them it’s rare that something like that happens, despite the fact we see stories about that very thing in the news just about every day now. I tell them they’ve got nothing to worry about, and I have to add even if the unthinkable did happen, God would take care of them and they’d be fine.

Secretly, though, these days I don’t know if I believe myself. We hear statistics about 355 mass shootings in the last year. We hear others saying that statistic is too high, based on loose standards, and if we go by stricter definitions of “mass shootings” the number is lower (see article here). But isn’t even one mass shooting too many?

We hear people say things like, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” and declare that if everyone carried a gun, we would most certainly all be safer. Yesterday Jerry Fallwell Jr. even encouraged all of the students on the campus of Liberty University to carry a concealed weapon (see article here). Now, I’m not trying to say anything bad about college students; I work with a whole campus of them. Most of them are great and would be fine around firearms, but they’re young and impulsive and heaven forbid they get depressed and angry about a grade they got and have a gun in their back pocket! What about the many suicidal college students that struggle every winter? Do we care about them?

We’ve Lost It

But you know what? I didn’t start writing this to talk about gun control. I’m not even really sure where I fall in the opinions about who should have guns. I started writing because sometimes I feel like the whole world has lost its mind. We argue about everything. We’re so sensitive. We get our feelings hurt, we hold grudges. People work to provide an environment where everyone feels included and cared about, and then other people stand up and declare that being polite and kind with our words is politically correct and, dang it, they are tired of political correctness and would prefer just to blast everyone with their hurtful words.

What in the world?!

I hear people every Christmas say that they wish they could have the Christmas feeling all year. I want to say I’m not sure we’re ready to have that Christmas feeling all year. If we want to bring the Christmas feeling into January and February and beyond, we need to be ready to live with the peace and love that Jesus came here for. We need to work.

Falling in Love

love-05We’d love to just have this special feeling all the time, to feel this love and connectedness with others without putting forth any effort. We all know that’s not really possible. The feelings we have at Christmas are like the feelings we have when we fall in love. We see that special person and the whole world lights up. We feel so happy. We can’t believe there’s someone so very wonderful in the world. We feel like suddenly everything that was wrong about us is now right because that person somehow completes us. That’s the Christmas feeling. Somehow for just a few days, without any work at all, the world seems like a happier, more loving, more peaceful place where everyone feels good and makes us all feel good too.

But staying in love? That takes work. We begin to see the cracks, the flaws, the things we don’t always like about the other person. The things we’ve tried so hard to hide in ourselves start to show, and our insecurities come out. That’s when the real love begins, when we have to start working. That’s what I think happens in January. The shiny veneer the world had at Christmas wears off, and we see the cold, the snow, the harsh winds. We start thinking about ourselves again and how we don’t have enough money or we gained weight over the holidays. We start being irritable with the world and stop wanting that peace and love because it just costs too much. It takes too much work.

This Christmas, let’s go out of our way to give to others. Let’s do the Christmas stuff we like to do: bake the cookies, go caroling, decorate, donate and buy gifts. Let’s say we want the Christmas feeling to last all year. And then after Christmas, let’s put the work into loving other people, accepting our differences and caring about those who need care. Let’s put our words to work all year!

Holidailies, Day 3

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Tonight my sister-in-law sent me a picture of Andrew and me. It was taken about 15 years ago, the year after we got married: pre-kids, pre-home ownership, pre-responsibilities and bills and debts and work. Looking at that, I wonder what I ever thought about during those years. What preoccupied my mind when I didn’t have to think about what to cook for kids, which is totally different from cooking for just two adults, and when I didn’t have to keep five people’s schedules in my head, and when I didn’t have to remember when I gave the last dose of medicine so I wouldn’t overdose someone on cold medication, and, most of all, when I didn’t wonder if what I was saying and doing every day was completely ruining some impressionable young son or daughter’s entire future and providing some therapist in the future with years of income.

The Picture: Andrew on the left, me on the right, an aunt and a niece with us. That's not our baby, by the way. That was before offspring. Interestingly enough, I look surprisingly like my sister.

The Picture, taken in 2000: Andrew on the left, me on the right, an aunt and a niece between us. That’s not our baby, by the way. That was before offspring. Interestingly enough, I look surprisingly like my sister.

Not only that, but what did even do every day? I mean, I remember I worked out every day (hence my super skinny-ness…probably shouldn’t have let that go).

I remember reading books I wanted to read and being able to finish them in less than 3 months. I remember having a daily quiet time. I remember talking about stuff I liked to talk about for longer than a few minutes without being interrupted. I remember going out to dinner with friends and writing letters on actual paper and journaling.

I remember that Andrew and I used to lie next to each other on the couch without a) suffocating each other or b) falling off the couch because our bodies actually took up just a sliver of that couch at that point. To be honest, I don’t know if we could lie side by side on the couch anymore because we haven’t even attempted it for years!

I remember that we used to go to Applebee’s and say how expensive it was because it cost almost $20 to eat there. Now we spend way more than $20 at Wendy’s when all five of us go there and eat off the dollar menu.

I remember that I used to spend more than 3 minutes on my hair every morning, and once in a while I went without makeup for fun instead of lack of concern about whether I was wearing makeup or not.

I remember sleeping. I’m not even going to elaborate on the loss of sleep because, really, it’s just too painful at times to think about how I used to sleep and how I took a solid 7 hours of sleep for granted.

Those were fun days, nice times, when I thought about myself and how to make myself happier, prettier, skinnier, smarter, more interesting, funnier.

However, those were also days when I didn’t really understand responsibility and how loving someone means doing stuff for them, stuff they may never notice, stuff they will almost definitely never appreciate. Those were days when I thought I knew about love but what I knew about love was all about what another person could do to make me feel loved. I had no idea how to love a crying, pooping little person who would soon start throwing temper tantrums and basically refuse to do anything that was good for him/her. I had no idea how to love someone when we were both at our rope’s end and angrier or more hurt or more exhausted than we’d ever been.

I seriously wouldn't go back for anything. Look at those three cuties that didn't even exist 15 years ago!!

I seriously wouldn’t go back for anything. Look at those three cuties that didn’t even exist 15 years ago!!

I don’t really think I know that yet, but at least I know a little more about it. So maybe it’s ok that Andrew and I can’t fit side-by-side on a couch together or that I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in 14 years. Marriage and parenting have changed us. In some ways for the worse maybe, but in some ways for the better.

Now, I just wonder where the next 15 years will take us.

Holidailies, Day 2

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Emma has been sick forever. At least since September. She’s had colds, strep throat, more colds, a stomach bug, even more colds, a sinus infection. She finished her second round of antibiotics two days ago, and had that brief reprieve from sickness only to wake up today with a sore throat. She didn’t have a fever, so I went ahead and sent her to school

I was sitting in a meeting at work when the phone began to vibrate. I looked at it and saw the name of her school pop up and knew what they were going to tell me. I stepped out of the meeting to answer it and yep. She was sick again. In the nurse’s office with a sore throat and very low fever. I took her to the doctor, and she said that it’s probably a virus but did a strep test anyway. Of course, we won’t know the results for two days.

I don’t think it’s strep throat. I think it’s a virus, but I hate that she has been so sick and missed so many days that today she told me, “I didn’t want to go to the office because I knew they’d say I had to go home, and I didn’t want to miss any more days.” When they say that, you know they’re tired of being sick!

Despite this, I think of how much better it is when the kids are sick now than when they were very little. For one, they don’t get sick nearly as often…except for Emma. She appears to in the fall. However, the mere fact that one is sick doesn’t mean they all will get it. Sometimes only one does, which is a change from when they were little and one sick child meant three weeks of battling illness as it moved from one to the next to the next and back again. Also, they don’t appear to feel quite as bad as they did when they were tiny, and they can take care of themselves and don’t need the constant attention that they did when they were toddlers.

I also realized that I’ve learned a lot about sick kids in the last 14 years since my first one was born. Here’s some stuff I’ve learned:

  • I don’t need a thermometer to tell if someone has a fever. In fact, sometimes I know that they do, but the thermometer doesn’t register it.
  • No matter how much better they say they feel after throwing up, don’t feed them. Just don’t.
  • The doctor is kinda guessing about what’s wrong with them. I mean, it’s educated guessing–very educated–but it’s still just eliminating some possibilities and then guessing.
  • Ibuprofen is my friend. Tylenol, not so much. Tylenol barely touches my kids’ fevers, but ibuprofen will knock fevers out of the park.
  • The arrival of spring will always make me happy because it means an end to snot and other bodily fluids that somehow end up all over my clothes.
  • Kids get sick and get better and get sick again and in the end they will probably be OK. That doesn’t mean I don’t worry about them and try to pinpoint exactly what is causing their sicknesses and why they’re happening, but it does mean I can trust that God has created their bodies to heal.

I could go on and on, but I’m so sleepy that I’ll just go to sleep and hope no one wakes me up with a tummy ache…or an ear ache…or a fever…or…need I go on?

Holidailies

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A year ago I decided to participate in Holidailies. It’s a blog thing where bloggers promise to blog every day for a month. Of course, it comes in one of the busiest times of the year for regular people, which is even busier for those of us who work in education. But, hey, I can do that, right?

Apparently last year I decided that, no, I couldn’t do that. I only posted a couple of days and then nothing.

I usually try to be pretty careful only to post things that I think are important and not waste my words by adding to the noise out on the internet. I don’t want to be one more person posting a bunch of useless opinions. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all of the blogs and rants and crazy I read on social media and other places, and I hate to think that my blog adds to that (although I fear sometimes it does!).

So I try to stay quiet unless I really have strong feelings about something. Maybe this month, though, I’ll just lighten up and post some random stuff about life. Now that I’ve posted this publicly, I guess I have to, right?

Speaking of random stuff, here's a picture of me a million years ago. You are welcome!

Speaking of random stuff, here’s a picture of me a million years ago. You are welcome!