It is the last Saturday. So much in the way of what I should've done and could've done but didn't do floats around in my head, mixing with the mental stretching that comes with that first cup of coffee, mixing with the reading of education blogs telling me how to start my year.
So I have been evaluating this whole "what I accomplished this summer" thing over my coffee this morning, thinking in terms of garden, fitness, home, school. I think it is just a wash. I need a do over for sure. The garden? Well the cucs died, the greens were too bitter to eat, those peppers are the slowest to ripen. I have had plenty of tomatoes but have fought summer blight so much I am about ready to just give up. Likewise, I got very little done towards school. I love my job but I just really needed a break from all things educational or studentish. I just don't have enough oomph to care much about any of it right now. Instead, I chose to do things like strip and repaint my old desk during the last week off. It is easy work and let's the brain drift.
I may be the most frustrated with my personal body. Last fall, I went to the doctor for my yearly lady appointment. My cholesterol was a bit high which was new. Usually, all my numbers are so low, someone asks if I am actually a member of the undead. So I have been making better food choices, though they were already good ones. I have been a conscious eater for years, but I tried to trim back some foods a bit more. I got serious about it all in February. I have been losing weight, wogging and running, lifting and doing all of it for over six months now. Everyone always says, "lose weight, exercise, drink more water, eat these greens. You will look and feel great". I don't. I have spent the last few weeks simply exhausted. I just want to sleep. I am crabby. My body doesn't feel any stronger, any more limber, any fitter than it did twelve pounds and six months ago. My bursitis is flaring up. My sinuses are a mess. I have spots on my face despite my diligence in wearing a hat. Mostly, I just feel tired. I will admit that I look better. I like what I see in the mirror. I feel content, confident, often sexy. But I am too tired to do much with those positive feelings. I have tried to work in some rest time but it isn't helping. By the time I need to start supper, I am barely thinking clearly enough to chop an onion, let alone follow a recipe. By the time I get the kitchen cleaned up, it is all I can do to set the coffee pot for the morning and stumble out of the kitchen. My mother asked if I was losing weight too fast. I haven't lost an ounce in a week so I don't think that is it. She asked if I exercised too much. Less than an hour a day doesn't feel like too much. She asked if I was getting plenty of iron and taking the vitamins I am supposed to take. Yes, yes, yes.
I am sure some of this is stress. Harold and Rubilee have not been a picnic lately. I love my in laws but sometimes keeping two households, one ten year old, and two 80 somethings who act like ten year olds on an even keel is tricky. It isn't so much that I do lots of work for them. I send extra portions of our dinner up a few days a week. We check on them twice a day. We groceries shop for them and run their errands. But there lots of surprises - things like surprise company that we need to help with or the doctor appointments they failed to tell us about or just days they decide they need us as chauffeur. They often don't make good decisions so we have to deal with the consequences. Yet, they also aren't ready to give up their autonomy. I am also stressed about Jack's lack of work. I keep praying that a door will open. I am terrified of what happens when unemployment runs out soon. He has put in applications everywhere he can think of. It is always under qualified and over qualified.
So I don't know about the success of the summer. I swear, the next chipper person who asks how the summer went . . . I may be too tired to answer.
Let me say that I am not depressed. I had my best run ever yesterday. I am excited to start some new things at school and have a new batch of great kids. Things are more than okay with Jack and me on a personal level - who knew that being middle aged and married would be so much fun? I am just so damned tired.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Before i take a nap, I would just like to say . . .
It is the last Saturday. So much in the way of what I should've done and could've done but didn't do floats around in my head, mixing with the mental stretching that comes with that first cup of coffee, mixing with the reading of education blogs telling me how to start my year.
So I have been evaluating this whole "what I accomplished this summer" thing over my coffee this morning, thinking in terms of garden, fitness, home, school. I think it is just a wash. I need a do over for sure. The garden? Well the cucs died, the greens were too bitter to eat, those peppers are the slowest to ripen. I have had plenty of tomatoes but have fought summer blight so much I am about ready to just give up. Likewise, I got very little done towards school. I love my job but I just really needed a break from all things educational or studentish. I just don't have enough oomph to care much about any of it right now. Instead, I chose to do things like strip and repaint my old desk during the last week off. It is easy work and let's the brain drift.
I may be the most frustrated with my personal body. Last fall, I went to the doctor for my yearly lady appointment. My cholesterol was a bit high which was new. Usually, all my numbers are so low, someone asks if I am actually a member of the undead. So I have been making better food choices, though they were already good ones. I have been a conscious eater for years, but I tried to trim back some foods a bit more. I got serious about it all in February. I have been losing weight, wogging and running, lifting and doing all of it for over six months now. Everyone always says, "lose weight, exercise, drink more water, eat these greens. You will look and feel great". I don't. I have spent the last few weeks simply exhausted. I just want to sleep. I am crabby. My body doesn't feel any stronger, any more limber, any fitter than it did twelve pounds and six months ago. My bursitis is flaring up. My sinuses are a mess. I have spots on my face despite my diligence in wearing a hat. Mostly, I just feel tired. I will admit that I look better. I like what I see in the mirror. I feel content, confident, often sexy. But I am too tired to do much with those positive feelings. I have tried to work in some rest time but it isn't helping. By the time I need to start supper, I am barely thinking clearly enough to chop an onion, let alone follow a recipe. By the time I get the kitchen cleaned up, it is all I can do to set the coffee pot for the morning and stumble out of the kitchen. My mother asked if I was losing weight too fast. I haven't lost an ounce in a week so I don't think that is it. She asked if I exercised too much. Less than an hour a day doesn't feel like too much. She asked if I was getting plenty of iron and taking the vitamins I am supposed to take. Yes, yes, yes.
I am sure some of this is stress. Harold and Rubilee have not been a picnic lately. I love my in laws but sometimes keeping two households, one ten year old, and two 80 somethings who act like ten year olds on an even keel is tricky. It isn't so much that I do lots of work for them. I send extra portions of our dinner up a few days a week. We check on them twice a day. We groceries shop for them and run their errands. But there lots of surprises - things like surprise company that we need to help with or the doctor appointments they failed to tell us about or just days they decide they need us as chauffeur. They often don't make good decisions so we have to deal with the consequences. Yet, they also aren't ready to give up their autonomy. I am also stressed about Jack's lack of work. I keep praying that a door will open. I am terrified of what happens when unemployment runs out soon. He has put in applications everywhere he can think of. It is always under qualified and over qualified.
So I don't know about the success of the summer. I swear, the next chipper person who asks how the summer went . . . I may be too tired to answer.
Let me say that I am not depressed. I had my best run ever yesterday. I am excited to start some new things at school and have a new batch of great kids. Things are more than okay with Jack and me on a personal level - who knew that being middle aged and married would be so much fun? I am just so damned tired.
So I have been evaluating this whole "what I accomplished this summer" thing over my coffee this morning, thinking in terms of garden, fitness, home, school. I think it is just a wash. I need a do over for sure. The garden? Well the cucs died, the greens were too bitter to eat, those peppers are the slowest to ripen. I have had plenty of tomatoes but have fought summer blight so much I am about ready to just give up. Likewise, I got very little done towards school. I love my job but I just really needed a break from all things educational or studentish. I just don't have enough oomph to care much about any of it right now. Instead, I chose to do things like strip and repaint my old desk during the last week off. It is easy work and let's the brain drift.
I may be the most frustrated with my personal body. Last fall, I went to the doctor for my yearly lady appointment. My cholesterol was a bit high which was new. Usually, all my numbers are so low, someone asks if I am actually a member of the undead. So I have been making better food choices, though they were already good ones. I have been a conscious eater for years, but I tried to trim back some foods a bit more. I got serious about it all in February. I have been losing weight, wogging and running, lifting and doing all of it for over six months now. Everyone always says, "lose weight, exercise, drink more water, eat these greens. You will look and feel great". I don't. I have spent the last few weeks simply exhausted. I just want to sleep. I am crabby. My body doesn't feel any stronger, any more limber, any fitter than it did twelve pounds and six months ago. My bursitis is flaring up. My sinuses are a mess. I have spots on my face despite my diligence in wearing a hat. Mostly, I just feel tired. I will admit that I look better. I like what I see in the mirror. I feel content, confident, often sexy. But I am too tired to do much with those positive feelings. I have tried to work in some rest time but it isn't helping. By the time I need to start supper, I am barely thinking clearly enough to chop an onion, let alone follow a recipe. By the time I get the kitchen cleaned up, it is all I can do to set the coffee pot for the morning and stumble out of the kitchen. My mother asked if I was losing weight too fast. I haven't lost an ounce in a week so I don't think that is it. She asked if I exercised too much. Less than an hour a day doesn't feel like too much. She asked if I was getting plenty of iron and taking the vitamins I am supposed to take. Yes, yes, yes.
I am sure some of this is stress. Harold and Rubilee have not been a picnic lately. I love my in laws but sometimes keeping two households, one ten year old, and two 80 somethings who act like ten year olds on an even keel is tricky. It isn't so much that I do lots of work for them. I send extra portions of our dinner up a few days a week. We check on them twice a day. We groceries shop for them and run their errands. But there lots of surprises - things like surprise company that we need to help with or the doctor appointments they failed to tell us about or just days they decide they need us as chauffeur. They often don't make good decisions so we have to deal with the consequences. Yet, they also aren't ready to give up their autonomy. I am also stressed about Jack's lack of work. I keep praying that a door will open. I am terrified of what happens when unemployment runs out soon. He has put in applications everywhere he can think of. It is always under qualified and over qualified.
So I don't know about the success of the summer. I swear, the next chipper person who asks how the summer went . . . I may be too tired to answer.
Let me say that I am not depressed. I had my best run ever yesterday. I am excited to start some new things at school and have a new batch of great kids. Things are more than okay with Jack and me on a personal level - who knew that being middle aged and married would be so much fun? I am just so damned tired.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
On Cue
While running this morning, I thought about careers. I think I was distracting myself from how many minutes I had left of a running interval, but I fell down a rabbit hole of reflection about what I thought I would do and what I actually do. When I was in high school, I was adamant about not wanting to go into teaching. Zero desire. I also didn't want to follow the path of so many other Wilsons into medicine or law. Instead, I had become addicted to the high of public speaking. I haven't really played with theatre, but I think that must be a similar high. I am rubbish at talking with people, especially in mundane small talk and social niceties. I am shy to the point of being miserable. You've no idea the lengths to which I will go to avoid speaking with someone I don't know. So how does a shy girl end up giving speeches? Well, there is art to public speaking and it is magic to persuade someone. There is a cue and then you are in the spotlight for a few minutes and no one talks back. You have this golden oportunity to sway your audience to believe something, to take an action, to make a change. You don't have to learn their names, you will never see them again, the Q and A afterwards will be be about the topic and not personal . . . At the same time, it is exhausting. To be sure, there is a high, but it is followed by a crash because you pour your everything into making those few minutes count, making them really spectacular for your audience. You have to be charismatic, inspirational . . . You are selling something and have to be Salesman of the Year. I am not sure it can be explained to someone who hasn't done it, but public speaking was one of my great passions. I really wanted to be a professional public speaker or perhaps a speech writer, because although I'd never heard of logos, ethos, and pathos, I was also a good writer.
Then I went off to college and had crappy advisers who told me those weren't real careers and I somehow drifted to the English department since I only seemed good at reading and writing and really couldn't think of anything else I'd really like to do except horticulture, which my parents discouraged. Once there, I was told that I must teach, for what else is there to do with an English degree? And so I became a teacher, not for any lofty goals of bettering mankind or wishing to serve or even love of teaching or language. I just fell into it.
In a few weeks, I will be starting year nineteen of teaching English. That is a long for time for a career I didn't passionately pursue. Somewhere along the way, I did discover that I really do like what I do. Often, I love it. Sometimes, I don't at all. I am not at all the most fabulous teacher ever, but I am good at it, hopefully better than just good. What I didn't foresee is how much like public speaking it would be. When I am up in front of twenty or thirty sophomores or juniors, I have a narrow window of time to get them to buy into what I am selling. Maybe it is a grammar skill that I need to convince them to learn. Maybe a point of view I need them to consider about what we are reading. I have to be enthusiastic, I have to teach the skill, I must be ready for the Q & A, I have to hold their attention for as long as it takes. It is not option for them to not buy into the idea - there is a state test that will determine all our fates. Trickier than public speaking, I also am doing a little refereeing and crowd control, maybe real discipline. I might have to move a child or make someone put away a phone. I might have to play counselor. Maybe dispense a band aid to the child who discovers a cut while I am in the middle of verb tenses. If I am lucky, I will only be interrupted twice by the intercom or a knock on the door. Don't forget, I have to hold their attention and sell the idea, which means I have to believe in my product. It is fifty minutes of being on a stage with an audience that might argue and whine. And most days, I love it. Between classes, I will race to the bathroom or sort out some class sponsor thing or run a paper to the office or answer a question about what we did yesterday . . . until the bell rings again. That's my cue to start class.
I always dread school starting and look forward to it at the same time. Working with teenagers is this perplexing mix of exhaustion and rejuvenation. All those new ideas, still some measure of innocence, new minds just waiting to be stretched. I dread being "on" for six hours a day. Five days a week. Every week. It purely wipes me out. I think I physically wilt for a few minutes when the last kid walks out. On the other hand, there is some magic that still happens in the give and take of being in a classroom. And until this morning, I hadn't thought about how alike teaching and public speaking are.
Then I went off to college and had crappy advisers who told me those weren't real careers and I somehow drifted to the English department since I only seemed good at reading and writing and really couldn't think of anything else I'd really like to do except horticulture, which my parents discouraged. Once there, I was told that I must teach, for what else is there to do with an English degree? And so I became a teacher, not for any lofty goals of bettering mankind or wishing to serve or even love of teaching or language. I just fell into it.
In a few weeks, I will be starting year nineteen of teaching English. That is a long for time for a career I didn't passionately pursue. Somewhere along the way, I did discover that I really do like what I do. Often, I love it. Sometimes, I don't at all. I am not at all the most fabulous teacher ever, but I am good at it, hopefully better than just good. What I didn't foresee is how much like public speaking it would be. When I am up in front of twenty or thirty sophomores or juniors, I have a narrow window of time to get them to buy into what I am selling. Maybe it is a grammar skill that I need to convince them to learn. Maybe a point of view I need them to consider about what we are reading. I have to be enthusiastic, I have to teach the skill, I must be ready for the Q & A, I have to hold their attention for as long as it takes. It is not option for them to not buy into the idea - there is a state test that will determine all our fates. Trickier than public speaking, I also am doing a little refereeing and crowd control, maybe real discipline. I might have to move a child or make someone put away a phone. I might have to play counselor. Maybe dispense a band aid to the child who discovers a cut while I am in the middle of verb tenses. If I am lucky, I will only be interrupted twice by the intercom or a knock on the door. Don't forget, I have to hold their attention and sell the idea, which means I have to believe in my product. It is fifty minutes of being on a stage with an audience that might argue and whine. And most days, I love it. Between classes, I will race to the bathroom or sort out some class sponsor thing or run a paper to the office or answer a question about what we did yesterday . . . until the bell rings again. That's my cue to start class.
I always dread school starting and look forward to it at the same time. Working with teenagers is this perplexing mix of exhaustion and rejuvenation. All those new ideas, still some measure of innocence, new minds just waiting to be stretched. I dread being "on" for six hours a day. Five days a week. Every week. It purely wipes me out. I think I physically wilt for a few minutes when the last kid walks out. On the other hand, there is some magic that still happens in the give and take of being in a classroom. And until this morning, I hadn't thought about how alike teaching and public speaking are.
Friday, July 22, 2016
The Summer of Run
Back in January, I bought my self a Fitbit. I had bought one for Jack for Christmas and liked his so much that I felt the need for one as well. At first, I just tried to keep my step count up. Then in mid February, I joined Weight Watchers online. I had gained a few pounds a year each year for the past four years and hit a point that just wasn't acceptable to me. I had really gained a lot in the past year when I quit exercising because of the shoulder trouble I had. It was a wake up call, as if those clothes that I couldn't wear weren't calling loudly enough already. I know that the nearly 41 year old me does not have the energy, stamina, and metabolism to manage the goal weight I managed at 31, so I set some realistic goals. I am fine with not being thin, but I do need to be healthy. And I need to be able to fit in my clothes. My immediate/ necessary goal was twelve pounds, with loftier amounts set as secondary goals.
So anyway, all spring I worked at getting a little more exercise and eating better. Jack put up our old Bowflex that had been in storage. I started walking on the road, trying to work in a few minutes of jogging during each mile. I did well until the last month of school and lost about six pounds. Things got hectic, there were going away dinners and banquets, and just too much stress and not enough me. I gained back some of my progress but swore that as soon as school was out, I would get serious about getting fit.
I will be honest - the first week that school was out, I did little more than sit in the recliner and read. I just felt mentally wiped out, but since then I have made up for it. I made it a point to wog (walk and jog) two miles a day and lift every other day. I kept track of my WW points. I bumped up to three miles a day. Jack and I went to Red Coyote and got better running shoes and started the Couch to 5k training. (Let me just say that it was easy until week 4, which just sucked yesterday. ) There were plateaus, and I swear this whole thing has been so much "one step forward, two steps back" followed by a few steps forward all at once. Today, I finally hit the 12 pound down mark after six months. When I was 32, that only took six weeks, not six months. It is a sobering reminder of age, and I am sure I am due for another step back.
What really worries me is managing to keep this loss up or at least sustain it once school starts. My routine has been to wake up around 5:30, and as soon as it is light enough to see the road, I am warming up. Then on lift days, I manage to lift before the well house (where the Bowflex lives) gets hot. I have been up by at least 6:00 every day but Sunday the entire summer. Sunday is the day off. It is just too hot later in the day. When school starts, I have to walk out the door at 7:30 in the morning, which means waiting for daylight and getting in a few miles every morning and still getting presentable afterwards will be impossible. Each day, it gets light a little later. Factor in a shower and hair wash and making sure the kid is ready and fed. Ugh. I suppose I will have to shift to evening runs, but until October, it will still be stifling until after dark.
I think this encroachment into my time of getting healthy is what I dread most about school. Despite Jack's lack of job and the accompanying money worries, it has not been a bad summer. I run, I garden, I pick berries, I have canned summer bounty. I have snuck in afternoon naps with my husband, I have read and read and read, I have snuck in morning naps with my husband, I have worn only the amount of clothes I wanted to wear and not makeup at all. We have actually worked pretty hard, with gardens and for the in-laws and on a bedroom remodel for Bell. There have been lots of days when I worked until I made myself ill and couldn't take another step. And all of these things were part of physical health and mental health. Each choice fulfilled a different need in me. Working hard and running hard and living in a pajama shirt have all felt like really healthy choices. It was my choice to get up before the sun came up and lace up those shoes and run. Yes, my sides heaved and muscles and lungs complained. And yes, I relished the quiet of a solitary run that let me listen and learn what a scissor tail's voice sounded like. Yes, I liked doing something just for me. I am simply not ready to give up the summer of run.
So anyway, all spring I worked at getting a little more exercise and eating better. Jack put up our old Bowflex that had been in storage. I started walking on the road, trying to work in a few minutes of jogging during each mile. I did well until the last month of school and lost about six pounds. Things got hectic, there were going away dinners and banquets, and just too much stress and not enough me. I gained back some of my progress but swore that as soon as school was out, I would get serious about getting fit.
I will be honest - the first week that school was out, I did little more than sit in the recliner and read. I just felt mentally wiped out, but since then I have made up for it. I made it a point to wog (walk and jog) two miles a day and lift every other day. I kept track of my WW points. I bumped up to three miles a day. Jack and I went to Red Coyote and got better running shoes and started the Couch to 5k training. (Let me just say that it was easy until week 4, which just sucked yesterday. ) There were plateaus, and I swear this whole thing has been so much "one step forward, two steps back" followed by a few steps forward all at once. Today, I finally hit the 12 pound down mark after six months. When I was 32, that only took six weeks, not six months. It is a sobering reminder of age, and I am sure I am due for another step back.
What really worries me is managing to keep this loss up or at least sustain it once school starts. My routine has been to wake up around 5:30, and as soon as it is light enough to see the road, I am warming up. Then on lift days, I manage to lift before the well house (where the Bowflex lives) gets hot. I have been up by at least 6:00 every day but Sunday the entire summer. Sunday is the day off. It is just too hot later in the day. When school starts, I have to walk out the door at 7:30 in the morning, which means waiting for daylight and getting in a few miles every morning and still getting presentable afterwards will be impossible. Each day, it gets light a little later. Factor in a shower and hair wash and making sure the kid is ready and fed. Ugh. I suppose I will have to shift to evening runs, but until October, it will still be stifling until after dark.
I think this encroachment into my time of getting healthy is what I dread most about school. Despite Jack's lack of job and the accompanying money worries, it has not been a bad summer. I run, I garden, I pick berries, I have canned summer bounty. I have snuck in afternoon naps with my husband, I have read and read and read, I have snuck in morning naps with my husband, I have worn only the amount of clothes I wanted to wear and not makeup at all. We have actually worked pretty hard, with gardens and for the in-laws and on a bedroom remodel for Bell. There have been lots of days when I worked until I made myself ill and couldn't take another step. And all of these things were part of physical health and mental health. Each choice fulfilled a different need in me. Working hard and running hard and living in a pajama shirt have all felt like really healthy choices. It was my choice to get up before the sun came up and lace up those shoes and run. Yes, my sides heaved and muscles and lungs complained. And yes, I relished the quiet of a solitary run that let me listen and learn what a scissor tail's voice sounded like. Yes, I liked doing something just for me. I am simply not ready to give up the summer of run.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Green Therapy
Right this moment, I am dreading school starting. I am dreading the intrusion on my time, waking up early to work rather than to run, not losing track of hours as I muck about in the garden. I dread the rushing and busy and noisy and . . . Well, I just dread it.
This morning I woke up at six to run and lift and then spent my morning in the garden. I need this green therapy. When I am pruning plants and picking berries, I am not thinking about the actual problems with elderly, ill in-laws (as opposed to annoyances that I am shrugging off). I am not worrying about what will happen with a job or lack of job for Jack. I am not fretting about Bell. I just am. I think about green - what I am going to grow in the fall, what is ripe or needs pruning, what I will cook with it, what Thoreau said about it. And then my mind is off on tangents - maybe I have fallen down a literary rabbit hole, maybe I am dreaming of what we can do if we are really a farm, maybe I am sailing through the islands with Jack and have left English in the dust of Oklahoma. What ever it is, I am not worrying.
So what is it that I am growing? The tomatoes are finally here, at least in amounts to satisfy my daily requirements. I am fighting something that I think is summer blight - maybe this copper fungicide will do the trick. Some of the peppers are ready and the plants are loaded. The Armenian cucumber has tiny babies that will be big in a week, but alas, I found squash bugs on the squash today. I have picked four quarts of blackberries from my six tame plants and the same from the wild bushes on the lake. Both plots still have red fruit so I will get a few more quarts in before it's over. The blueberries are not doing so well - they are just existing and not really growing so we are looking into some changes for their care. The herbs - well, they just need an intervention - they are literally taking over.
I do grow pretty things as well. Jack and I looked at some wooden rectangular planters that were pricey, pricey so he built me his own version. They line the back sidewalk and are over flowing with flowers - geraniums, impatiens, periwinkles, salvia, all manner of trailing vines. In the front, mixed in with day lilies are giant zinnias, cactus zinnias, cosmos, amaranth, lantana, nasturtiums, and pentas. The dahlia bed is sharing space with butterfly weed and yarrow and unidentified things I dug up at my grandmother's. Jack's passion fruit vine is covered in flowers that smell exotic and enticing, and he has seed trays full of tiny cacti and succulents,
I have a few more weeks of green therapy but August first is looming. Positively looming. Until it gets here, you will probably find me in the green things.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Patience Or Dealing with the Elderly.
As I poured my coffee this morning, my gaze fell upon a basket of odds and ends seed packets - some empty, some not - all being saved for the plant descriptions so I wouldn't inadvertently plant a dahlia that grows to three feet tall in front of one that only grows two feet. You laugh, but it happens. I lose track of which seeds are in which flats and what each one will turn into.
But I digress. What I was really thinking about was the packet on top, one for Butterfly Weed that Rubilee had given to me a few weeks ago when she brought them home from garden club. She handed me the packet and told me that I should plant them. I told her it was really too late to start more seeds and that I already had butterfly weed this year, but I would gladly plant them next spring. She said, "No, you have butterfly bush," to which I replied, "No, my plants are all butterfly weed." And she repeated herself and I repeated myself and she repeated herself. And then I just said, "well, then you should call Baker Creek Seeds and Territorial Seeds because they believe those plants are butterfly weed." And that was the end. Sort of. I find myself in these conversations a lot with her. Sometimes it is about what she thinks I want vs what I really want. Sometimes it is about some education policy of the state department. You name it, and lately, we can't get on the same page. Often it is what she tells me Harold won't eat. . . Until I make it and he eats all of it. Last week, she was one hundred percent sure that the lake got too high and killed all the wild black berries. She wouldn't believe me that there were berries until I brought her a pie.
I am sure she is right and I am wrong sometimes, but she hasn't seen my flower beds. Not once this year. Surely, I know what I planted. But hell, what do I know? Maybe it isn't butterfly weed at all but really something crazy like petunias. I do feel at times that I have a perilous grasp on things. Just wait until school starts - I will be worthless then.
Lately, the root of the problem is that one hand, I really love my in-laws. They have done so much for us, still do, really. They have gone beyond what could be expected and are never anything but nice too me. On the other hand, being their neighbor and co-chief care taker on call twenty four seven can take its toll when they are stubborn. No, it absolutely doesn't matter if she stubbornly believes I planted a butterfly bush or that the berries are dead. It does matter when she stubbornly insists that she has enough dog food to last another day instead of letting me get it when I am already in town today. The store is almost forty minutes away and I try to only go once a week. It does matter when Harold knows all day he needs to go the ER but waits until bedtime because he "didn't want to interrupt Jack's day and was waiting until he wasn't busy." It matters because we still need the energy to be parents and spouses and lovers. I want them to ask for help when they need it, but I also want them to take help when I offer it rather than waiting until we have hit an emergency situation.
I don't want to grow old. I don't want to do this to Bell. I know it is ages away but I want her to not dread dealing with me. Definitely, it makes me cognizant of what I do on a daily basis that might unnecessarily complicate Jack's life. I need to be wise and careful in my choices and aware of the ripple effects around me. I also know that I am perfect and that perhaps I need these lessons in patience and tolerance.
But I digress. What I was really thinking about was the packet on top, one for Butterfly Weed that Rubilee had given to me a few weeks ago when she brought them home from garden club. She handed me the packet and told me that I should plant them. I told her it was really too late to start more seeds and that I already had butterfly weed this year, but I would gladly plant them next spring. She said, "No, you have butterfly bush," to which I replied, "No, my plants are all butterfly weed." And she repeated herself and I repeated myself and she repeated herself. And then I just said, "well, then you should call Baker Creek Seeds and Territorial Seeds because they believe those plants are butterfly weed." And that was the end. Sort of. I find myself in these conversations a lot with her. Sometimes it is about what she thinks I want vs what I really want. Sometimes it is about some education policy of the state department. You name it, and lately, we can't get on the same page. Often it is what she tells me Harold won't eat. . . Until I make it and he eats all of it. Last week, she was one hundred percent sure that the lake got too high and killed all the wild black berries. She wouldn't believe me that there were berries until I brought her a pie.
I am sure she is right and I am wrong sometimes, but she hasn't seen my flower beds. Not once this year. Surely, I know what I planted. But hell, what do I know? Maybe it isn't butterfly weed at all but really something crazy like petunias. I do feel at times that I have a perilous grasp on things. Just wait until school starts - I will be worthless then.
Lately, the root of the problem is that one hand, I really love my in-laws. They have done so much for us, still do, really. They have gone beyond what could be expected and are never anything but nice too me. On the other hand, being their neighbor and co-chief care taker on call twenty four seven can take its toll when they are stubborn. No, it absolutely doesn't matter if she stubbornly believes I planted a butterfly bush or that the berries are dead. It does matter when she stubbornly insists that she has enough dog food to last another day instead of letting me get it when I am already in town today. The store is almost forty minutes away and I try to only go once a week. It does matter when Harold knows all day he needs to go the ER but waits until bedtime because he "didn't want to interrupt Jack's day and was waiting until he wasn't busy." It matters because we still need the energy to be parents and spouses and lovers. I want them to ask for help when they need it, but I also want them to take help when I offer it rather than waiting until we have hit an emergency situation.
I don't want to grow old. I don't want to do this to Bell. I know it is ages away but I want her to not dread dealing with me. Definitely, it makes me cognizant of what I do on a daily basis that might unnecessarily complicate Jack's life. I need to be wise and careful in my choices and aware of the ripple effects around me. I also know that I am perfect and that perhaps I need these lessons in patience and tolerance.
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