Balance

Every summer begins with me being torn over just reading and resting the summer away and my need to be busy and do all the projects I don't normally have time for.  Some years I have refinished furniture or painted rooms.  One year, I rebuilt my entire school year's worth of units for every class I taught.  Another summer, I over hauled my recipe collection and threw away half the contents of my desk and book shelves.

This year, I don't have quite such grand plans, but I am already struggling a bit with balancing.  Monday morning, I fully intended to do a major cleaning of the kitchen - pull the blue willow China down to wash, scrub the cabinet fronts, clean out the fridge and wash it down, the works. Instead, the apricots began falling off the tree in earnest and all of three of us spent the afternoon putting up fruit. They are small and some have bad spots, but they are free and pesticide free, so even though 4 gallons of raw fruit only equalled 1 gallon of proceeded fruit, it is worth it to me.  I will be glad when I am making apricot jam and cobblers in the winter.

I really need to carve out some time for school - I am changing some things for my AP class and grammar for my regular classes.  I may need to address these things sooner or later just to let my brain rest.  I couldn't get to sleep last night and before long, my brain was running with ideas of how to restructure my research papers and whether or not we could skip chapters of Huck Finn.  At the same time,  I do intend to deep clean the house, room by room.  There will be garden work and canning and mowing and don't forget about the in-laws.

Jack has been fairly busy with his parents this week.  Monday, we had to run our car up to have hail damage fixed (the hail damage was from before we bought it) that we finally had time to deal with.  At the same time, we took Jack's mom to buy a car.  We had tentative plans for a fun day on Tuesday, but Jack's dad wanted to go the shop.  He is still weak and  not well from his bout with pneumonia, so a trip to the shop means Jack has to go too.  Jack had to teach his mom how to work everything on the new car.  Before long, it turned into a day.  His dad didn't go to the shop, but didn't decide not to go until it was too late for us to go do anything fun. The thing with old people is that they move slowly - what would take me ten minutes, becomes 30 minutes with them.  We can't just do everything for them or they lose all empowerment and sense of worth. Patience. Balance.

Here is where the trouble with balance comes in.  Tuesday evening, Jack came home saying that Wednesday his mom wanted him to take her to the cemetery to get her Memorial Day plants.  We actually got into a bit of an argument and I was not as nice or patient as I should have been: I told Jack no.  I believe my words were, " They can't have you every damn day." His response was to ask if I  just expected him to say no.  It was exactly what I wanted, but we didn't need to have raised, impatient voices.  Jack goes back to work today so Wednesday was our last shot at a fun day.  I could take her to the cemetery after he went back.  I absolutely hate fighting about his parents - they are old and sick and need our help.  There is a lot we should do that we don't do, but sometimes, I also get frustrated that they forget that his time off has to be shared.  From their point of view, they just want him for an hour here and there scattered out through the day, so they think they are sharing.

We did end up sort of having a fun day - we went to the Grear Plains State Park for a bit of walking/gentle hiking amidst the boulders.  We had lunch out, found a geocache, did our hike, and had some ice cream on the way home.  It wasn't the best trail ever and we won't likely go back, but it was a day out and we explored a new place, which was worth it to me.

We are also working for balance with Bell.  She is very unhappy with me. Her summer expectations involved staying up as late as she wanted and sleeping as late as she wanted while spending her day on the iPad.   I am insisting on her getting up at 7, doing some exercise and math practice, and only using the iPad some.  We have had more than one battle so far and I don't expect it to get better.

Today, it is back to the normal routine.  Jack went to his mom's to do some chores for her and then presumably, will be off to work.  I have another bucket of apricots.   I think left to my own devices, I could hit a fairly zen stride of productivity, rest and reflection, and doing pleasurable things.  Hitting that stride while managing the needs of two households that range from 9 years old to 87 years old is proving to be more of a challenge.

Subaru 34

On our trip, we had two car games.  One was counting the huge billboards of a particular lawyer whose face was plastered on every billboard from Mississippi to Florida and back. The other was counting subarus.  Once we finally bought a car after of months of waffling, we were so glad that we bought the outback instead of the CRV.  We didn't quite realize how few of them we would see on the road.  To be precise, from here to Orlando and back we saw only 34.

We have been home six days and I miss our car games.  I have plenty of down time, plenty of time to putter, plenty of time to clean and get back in the groove, but it has also been somewhat stressful.   Sometimes, I wonder how long we can keep things smooth in my in-laws' world while still managing our own lives and careers.  There are weeks in a row when they don't need much other than general checking on.  Then there are weeks when they could hire a full time errand runner and chauffeur.

This is one of those weeks.  I could be gone almost everyday running their errands or taking them somewhere.  Out of the five weekdays this week, I am signed up for three, possibly four mornings.  Next week doesn't look much better - we have to take our Subaru in for its first oil change and we are taking Rubilee car shopping.  At some point in the next few days, I predict another ER run for Harold.  I am not complaining - I am fretting.  I have wondered what will happen if Jack has a different job someday and works every day.  Right now, our delicate balance is maintained because even when I am at work, Jack is home every other week and we just try to plan all their days out for when he is home or when Jack's brother is home.

Eventually, our luck is going to run out and something will have to give.  I am just not sure who or what it will be.  For now, I wish for simple things to fill my free summer hours. Picking apricots which will soon be ripe.  Reading books in Overdrive.  Playing card games with Bell. Counting subarus and looking for number 35.

Highway 30A

I know that deep in the winter when the ice has crusted every surface and the wind is howling through my drafty windows, I am going to be longing for those beaches along Highway 30A in Florida.  After our magical trip to Orlando, we headed east and relocated to Defuniak Springs for a few days.  No, there is nothing special about that little town except that my Uncle Dave and his family live there . . . and it is 30 minutes from the beach but less than half the price of staying at the beach.  As much as I would have loved one of those beach houses on stilts overlooking the water, we opted to go the cheap route for this leg of the journey and stayed in town at night, but drove down to Hwy 30A each day.  After the beaches of 30A, I want to move to the ocean now.  If we had no responsibilities here, I would already be job and house hunting.

Originally, this trip started out with a plan to go to Orange Beach.  Once we added the Orlando aspect, we started looking at Florida beaches instead.  All the tourist info, satellite maps, and Aunt Kathy concurred that the emptiest beach would be at Grayton State Park along Hwy 30A.  Indeed, it was the perfect beach for anti-social tourists such as the Ruckers.   Each day, we had plenty of empty beach to choose from when setting up camp.  The water and sand were clean, the other beachgoers more family types than party types, the shells abundant - in other words, short of having our own private beach, this was about perfect. 

I had been to the ocean once before on a trip with my grandparents to Florida for a wedding, but the weather was iffy and we weren't allowed to get in the water the one day we went to the beach.  There was no second day.  I have always wanted to go back, and Bell has been begging to go for ages - this was nothing new for my ex-Navy husband, but I am thankful he indulged us.  I am not sure what day was best - we had the best waves the first day but the sting ray and sea turtle were on later days.   I could have spent all day every day with my toes in the sand or playing in the water.  I just didn't get tired of it, but Bell did get tired, not of the ocean, but just plain old crabby, worn out tired so our days were shorter than I would have liked. 

We did manage a little family time as well with my extended family.  I have never gotten to know my grandfather's younger brother well because we have always lived far apart, but Uncle Dave and his wife Kathy graciously invited us over for supper.  It was definitely one of the best evenings of the trip.  They had a granddaughter a bit younger than Bella so she had someone to play with for the first time.  We laughed and visited and got to know each other a bit better - it was uncanny how much Dave is like my grandfather even though they have spent so little time together in the past fifty years. I had worried that it be an awkward visit, but the evening was a delight.

Day three got stormed out so we decided to go back and spend another day instead of driving home on day four as Jack had originally planned.  Then we found out that Jack's dad had gone to the hospital leaving Rubilee home alone.  Plans had to be modified.  We packed the car with the intention of going to the beach for a few early morning hours and then leaving directly from the beach, sandy bodies and saltwater hair and all.  By the time we left Grayton the next day, it was only mid-morning. Though I had not at all got my fill of sand and sun, I just felt guilty that we weren't home taking care of Harold and Rubilee like we should have been.

We wove our way east on Hwy 30A and stopped at a kitchy tourist shop since souvenir shopping had been neglected. We snaked in out of little beach towns, through Destin, into Alabama, into Mississippi.  It was different than our drive from Oklahoma to Memphis to Orlando, but just as pretty; I never got tired of watching the scenery and I remembered how much I love road trips.  The going there was as good as the there. 

As we drove, I felt tears hot in my eyes.  It was one of those moments of reflection, of knowing that this is as good as it gets - holding hands with Bell as she played in the water, laughing with Jack while we watched a fish swim into his shorts, all of us singing along with radio.  These are the moments that make the trip, not the where (even if the beach is magic).  Would there ever be enough of these moments to fill me, to sustain me?  I know we are not to fear or doubt or worry, but I am a worrier.  I fret about what might be more than what is.  I cannot know the future, but I know that we live but a moment, some for short moments and some for long ones.  When we started discussing vacation, there was some worry about leaving my in-laws.  They mostly do fairly well on a day to day basis, but there is always the threat of a fall or an ER trip.  They cannot do things simple like bring in groceries out of the car so leaving them for almost two weeks was risky.  We debated whether we should go, but we also know that if we put our lives on hold, we might be putting them on hold for ten years or more.  By then, I would have a 19 year old instead of a 9 year old, so we decided to go.  We also know that there is no guarantee of a tomorrow.  We know we have to live in the now, make these moments we have count.  That means taking the trips, singing the songs together, holding hands when we can.  As badly as I already want to go back to the beach, I am beyond thankful for these days living in the now.

Magic in Orlando

Hogsmead
 

Hogwarts Castle


 

I know that Disney is supposed to be the Magic Kingdom, but we found it at Universal Studios.  Truly,  magic is the wonder on a little girl's face at seeing everything from simple things like the hotel room to amazing things like the first glimpse of Hogwarts Castle and disappearing at 9 3/4 King's Cross. 


Casting spells on Hagrid's bike

During our days at Universal, we kept asking Bella what the best part was.  She always knew what wasn't the best part - the walking, the heat, the lines, a few of the rides that were a little too much; she had more trouble with the best part.  Was it Diagon Alley and Hogsmead themselves, with their quirky shops and butterbeer?  Perhaps from a half block away, feeling the heat from the dragon atop Gringotts?  Buying a wand? The rides?  She said it was all the best.

 For me, it was the attention to detail in  the recreation of everything from the buildings  and merchandise and shop window displays tothe staff's absolute immersion into their characters - It was stepping into the pages of the books.  It was definitely not the rides - one ride that I endured was enough.  I was the official bag holder, chatting with people  
from all over while waiting on my adventurers. 



DJ booth at Margaritaville
 

I know Bell and Jack enjoyed other aspects of Universal besides Harry Potter - they shot aliens and became minions and jumped around with Spider Man while I looked and looked at people and things, but after Harry Potter, Bell's highlight was going to Margaritaville.  We have got to stop letting her listen to so much Jimmy Buffet.  I cringe to think what drinking related comments she is going to utter at school next year.  After a particularly frustrating time of trying to placate a tired child and   find food we all agreed upon, she commented that we all needed "something tall and strong."  We managed to get a table in front of the DJ booth while JD Spradlin was on the air.  While he had songs playing, he visited with Bell and let her come up in his booth for some pictures - he even played Fruitcakes for her.  I know it is part of his job to be nice tourists, but he really made her day.   It was surely a kind gesture that we appreciated - the look on her face when he put his headphones on her was worth the trip.

Actually, the best part of the trip was all those looks of wonder on a little girl's face.  Glimpsing the  hotel as we crossed a wooden bridge over a lagoon, seeing our hotel room that looked like it fell out of Casa Blanca, rounding a corner and stepping into snow capped Hogsmead with the castle in the distance.  Later the looks of delight were just as profound as she stepped into King's Cross and onto the train.  There were the gasps as the dragon roared from Gringotts.  There was even look of glee in  killing more aliens than Jack in Men in Black. All those chuckles and gasps and wide eyes were worth the trip.  I think everyone from 9 to 49 shared that bit of magic.