Keeps Me Moving

This helps me remember that it could never be fixed:

What kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit, not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call.

-Jeannette Winterson. Written On the Body.

This helps me remember that it's been worth it:

The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

This makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy:

Sissy,

Dad and I are so proud of you.

Love, Mom

-Pam O'Dell (my mom)

And this speaks for itself:

98/100 A :)

-Christine Moore (one of my professors)

This Kid Is Funny

A father writes about the mother of his children

"Her mind holds the tiny bits of every day life that weave the very fabric of our beings. In a world so large and often daunting we have her. And she has us. She gives with all her might but is never afraid to lean back. To collapse and fail and weep and let in the sadness. We see all of her and through that act of bravery we show our selves in return."

Steve Soule

Someone tell me how it can be done

Changed up the bloggies over there to reflect what I'm actually reading right now. ------>

I know it doesn't matter to y'all but I go to my blog to read blogs.

I have some tidbits that I would like you to know but I can't form them into a coherent blog post because the part of my brain that writes has retired for the day. I, very stupidly, wrote a paper an hour before it was due and therefore fried my brain (and produced an absolute crap essay).

* My babies started school on Monday and they are now in 1st and 2nd grade. I horned in on their first day of school even though it was officially a dad day. There was NO WAY IN HELL that I was going to let that day pass me by. I met them at school, took the required first day of school photos and helped them get settled. I cried a bit too but don't tell because I'm supposed to be a veteran at this.

* Very inconveniently I started school last Monday. Not the teaching kind but the student kind. Yep. Full time student right here. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking but I did it. I don't even have a job! But it's working and I love it. If I could just remember that I'm 30, not 18, that would help with the frying of the brain thing.

*Another very inconvenient thing: I realized that I still have that pesky job of mother. Not only to my beautiful little girlies (hard enough) but to the chickens, the garden and the house. (And Stella, the cat and the goldfish) The problem being that I would much rather be the girl/chicken/garden/house mama than be spending all of my time at school. Don't get me wrong. I am all for a college education but I often sit at school and wonder, "How the hell am I going to turn all of this into the ability to do the job I really want to do?" I don't really want to be a teacher. I don't really want to be a lawyer. I just want to be the person that I am already but be able to make a living doing it!

Suggestions? Hello? Tap, tap.

I know that it is a measly two years (been doing this college thing off and on for a while) of the many years that I have ahead of me but I feel like this beautiful time in my children's lives is slipping away too easily. There are days that I want to go get them from school, take them home, make cookies and begin our lives. The real ones. The ones where we can spend our days outside with the chickens and tomatoes and flowers. Where we can learn what we want to learn and do it in a way that enriches our lives everyday. Where we can spend an entire day sitting around reading, snuggling Stella, eating raspberries and still learn as much as we would have spending all day at school.

(Oh gawd. I'm ranting and sound like a damn hippie. Someone get me some sleep!)

The summary of my life today after a horrible dream, a shitty morning at school and really missing my babies. I think I will take a nap and try again. Optimism is on the horizon!

New-ness-ish

**I love adding "-ish" to the end of words. I think it really fits my personality. I'm a grey person. Not a lot of black or white in my life, no siree.

Some examples:

"Hmmm. I'd say that it's pink-ish" or "It's been ten years-ish".

**I love Post Secret and even thought I've read thousands of secrets over the last couple years, many sad, thought provoking, deep dark secrets. Many funny secrets. There is one that remains my favorite:

"When people add "-ass" to the end of a word I mentally move the hyphen one word over"

**I added some new blogs over there ------> Check em out! Also check me out on Pinterest.

In Other News

**There are some truly beautiful and inspiring thoughts on motherhood over at Soule Mama.

I am feeling particularly inspired by these words:

With joy comes sorrow, with sorrow comes joy – and the cycle continues. The yin and yang of mothering, if you will. So many of us have lost babies, had a child with medical challenges, social or learning difficulties, or have worried about a child for various reasons. Often, we don't talk about it. Sometimes we don't talk about it because it's too painful, or we fear that, in reaching out, we will find ourselves alone. But we also don't talk about it because, eventually, we heal. Life becomes livable again. We become comfortable with our “new normal.”
As mamas, we are never alone in joy, and we are never alone in sorrow. Behind the scenes, we are all the same. Some of us, at any given time, feel like things will never get better. And then things do get better. We mamas befriend each other and reach out with understanding, and a clear message: it will get better. You will belly laugh again. We get by with a little help, and reassurance, from our fellow mamas.

From Meg at sew liberated

**We have harvested lettuce (3 times). 8 strawberries. And some planted and forgotten radishes! They are beautiful!

**The chickens are doing so well! They are huge and funny. My chicken, Janet, has the cutest grown up chicken sound and she saves it just for me.

**My house is slowly and surely coming together. Planning a few gatherings here and there helps me stay motivated to keep working. There is always a burst of project finishing right before.

**It's summer break around here and so far it has been so lovely and not too hot. I know that it will be scorching hot before we know it so for now we are enjoying being outside. Next up: Hours at grandma and grandpa's pool.

Wrestling

My Mother's Day was at once perfect and flawed. It was perfect in that I lazed around, had breakfast with some beautiful girls and a leisurely stroll through the garden store.

It was flawed in that no excited children woke me up way too early, those beautiful girls were not my children and that leisurely stroll was strangely lonely.

I think Sunday embodied my difficult relationship with "joint legal and physical custody".

I am a better Mother today than I ever was when I was a wife/mother/maid/nanny/housekeeper. When I was weighed down by the day in and day out monotony. When I isolated myself from the rest of the world. When every move I made was tinged by the guilt of not financially supporting my family. When my contribution was made to feel like nothing.

Today I have dreams. Goals. Hope. I feel known. Heard. Loved.

Yet...I can barely stand the loss of knowledge. Constant contact. Oversight for every single thing that happens in their precious young lives. I worked so hard to do things right. To help them become successful human beings. To live their childhood so fully and beautifully. And now they spend 5 out of 10 days without me. And I wonder. What do they do? Think? Feel? Are they scared? Do they miss me? Are they happy? Are they learning those life lessons that I so desperately want them to?

I ran across an article that I loved because it made me laugh but somehow explained what I needed to embrace.

Yes it is hard to not know. But in the long run I am setting an example of how a woman should live her life.

A Mother's Prayer For Her Child by Tina Fey

“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,”she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.”

-Tina Fey

I'm Ruined!

About 2 weeks ago I squished my camera between my huge ass and the floor and broke the screen. I pulled it out a few days ago to take some after photos of my house and realized that it doesn't have the hole thing-y to look through! No damn viewfinder on a camera? What the hell?

I decided to try my hand at taking a picture on the fly without a screen or an eye hole thing-y and guess what? I'm an idiot. I am sure that my inability to do a puzzle, estimate size and distance, play the Memory game and take a flippin' picture are all related to a missing piece of my brain. Something to do with spatial relationships and hand eye coordination. D'oh!

Attempt at chicken picture:

If you look closely you can see a tiny bit of chicken head on the bottom left.

Several attempts later. A blurry and poopy (literally) shot: