The Days

The last six days or so have been a blur of worship, wedding, funeral, nursing home, hopsital visit, doctor's appointment. They've been a blur of dancing, wine party, martini, pizza and champagne, digging in the dirt, raking the compost. The days have flowed together like the fog that enveloped the car and the dreams that took over my sleep -- sometimes comforting, yet somehow dangerous. I've sat on the floor on the edge of tears or something else and said with more restraint than I knew I had, we have to do something, get out of the house, do something. The days have been walks and library trips and book sales and passing in the night, the afternoon, the morning. They have been loud sounds like an elephant, a lion, a monkey, that sometimes get confused and produce giggles and stomping feet because we have no words for the giddiness we feel and the laughter doesn't seem enough.

Mundane but oh-so-important

Yesterday I was in meetings all. day. long. Good ones, not-so good ones, somewhere in-between-ones, but all. day. long.

Today I came in early to read through the gargantuan mail pile that had accumulated in my absence, and that I didn't have time to read yesterday. I've done a lot today, including some more meetings and phone calls and lunch.

Mundane, right? Yes.
The oh-so-important part?
I've made two appointments that I've been putting off: doctor and dentist.

He's my kid

I often joke that I was merely a stainless steel vessel, an incubator if you will, that had no real genetic involvement in the making of my child. He's looked nearly identical to my husband since birth. When people say, "I think he looks like you," I look at them as if they have two heads. I like to claim his nose (because I think it's cute and upturned), and that's about it. I also lay claim to his charming personality and when it shows, his sense of humor. A girl's gotta cling to something.

Tonight at dinner -- a real, live, out-to-eat at a restaurant dinner -- to celebrate a milestone occasion in my life that I didn't spend with my family, his meal came with dessert. Apple slices with caramel. Totally violating all double-dipping rules, the kid really could have gotten one apple slice and two small cups of caramel for all the apple that he ate. "Dipping," he proudly stated, holding an apple slice firmly between his fingers. "Dip-ping"

The crowning moment? When he picked up the caramel container, having determined that dipping was getting him nowhere fast, and tried to drink it.
"Sticky," he proclaimed all the way to the bathroom, charming everyone we saw. "No more sticky," he declared all the way back to the table.

To Do: Friday Five

This week's Friday Five is brought to us by reverendmother who says:

Well friends, this is one of those weeks when I simply must work today, which is normally my day off. I know, I know. We may tut-tut all we want, but the fact is, some weeks are like that. So, this week's F5 is simple.

Name five things you plan to do today.

Bonus: If today is about "have-to" for you as well, share up to five things you'd like to be doing today.

To Do:
1. Mail packages. I'm heading to the PO this morning with packages in hand. Within a two week span in March there are seven birthdays between my family and my husband's. Seven. And somehow they always creep up on us, even though mine is one of them. It's crazy. It doesn't help that I'm also mailing a very belated birthday gift to another family member -- it would be crushing for his brothers to receive their gifts and not him.

2. Have lunch/brunch with a lovely group of women who keep me sane in all I do. And, while I have to do this, it certainly is a want-to-do whenever it happens.

3. Pack. I'm heading away for the weekend, and it would help if I brought some things (like clean clothes) along. Which also means that I'll be doing some driving, and I'm quite excited about that. Most of my car time is short jaunts from home to work to daycare to the store with the occasional foray into The City.

4. Shower. Need I say more?

5. Write a newsletter article. At least I have an idea, which is more than I've got some months.

Other things that I'd like to be doing/rather be doing?
1. Reading. I'm in the middle of Cross-X by Joe Miller, and while I skimmed nearly a whole chapter of well-written history last night just to get back to the debate story, it's a wonderful read that's making me think. I took it to lunch yesterday, and kept telling myself, "Just one more chapter, and then you can go do your pastoral care visit."

2. Drinking lots of coffee. This is really an everyday want, though. But today I'd love to cozy up with the above book, and a really good cup of coffee. And maybe some delicious breakfast delight -- though the Irish Soda Bread that a parishioner gifted me with yesterday made a mighty fine breakfast.

3. Playing with the kidlet. I could do neither of the two things mentioned above, but as I face a couple of days without him, I can't help but miss him already.

How about you? What's on your list?

Knowing and Doing

I think there comes a moment in most of our lives when we know something, but are loathe to do anything about it. Small things like, "I know I need to take out the garbage.... but it can wait until tomorrow." Or change the toilet paper roll, as the new roll sits next to the holder. Or return a phone call. Maybe you don't have these reluctances as I do. If not, please tell me how you do it! Perhaps we're just wired differently.
But there are bigger things, too -- taxes, resolving anger issues, communicating important dates. And, while these things have sometimes greater consequences than a toilet paper roll (or not), am I (trying not to gather all the world into my issues) more loathe to do them?
Knowing and doing are two different things. I know, "Thank you, Pastor Obvious." Sometimes, for the sake of my own head, it needs to be stated simply and concretely. I'll move on from there.

And the winner is...

Thanks to all who left comments on #200 yesterday!

The randomly selected blogger (honestly, I wrote down all your names, and picked one out of a hat!) is....

1-4 Grace who blogs at FrogBlog!

Drop me an email (in my profile), so I can send you a little something in the mail!

RGBP Friday Five

It only seems fitting that this post, which is a milestone (200!!) for me, is a Friday Five. I haven't played them all, but they have been a consistent thread in my blog. Without further ado, here's the Friday Five -- courtesy of Songbird this week.

"My mother loved figs.

I only like them in a Newton.

It's all a matter of taste.

Name five things you like a lot that some close relative or significant other did/does not like. This could be food, movies, hobbies, music, sports or whatever springs to mind."

1. Roller Coasters. I love 'em -- the feeling of flip that my stomach does, the rush of the unknown, the clatter of the track. My beloved can't stand them and would rather watch from the ground below.

2. Reading. I can spend hours lost in a book. My mom can't sit still long enough to become engrossed in much more than a magazine.

3. I am much more touchy-feely, alternative medicine-y than most folks in my family. I could sense my husband crawling out of his skin when the midwife explained that they don't really know how the sterile water papules injected into my back would relieve back labor, but that they just do. However, he was very supportive of most of my decisions (I say most because he didn't especially want to consider a homebirth.)

4. Sweets. When it comes to an evening snack, I'll be eating my ice cream with chocolate sauce while he has his chips and salsa.

5. Fluffy movies -- romantic comedies, chick-flicks, previews that make me cry. While he will watch them for the good of the cause, he'd much rather watch something with a message or some action.

Pssst... In honor of my 200th post, a random commenter will receive a special celebratory gift in the mail! So, leave a comment on this post between now and midnight (CST), and I'll post the winner tomorrow! Shameless ploy for comments? Perhaps! Way to share the party? Absolutely!

Satisfaction

After a day of piddly tasks and general busyness which I started to write about and bored even myself, though I'm vaguely proud of all that I've done, including checking my email multiple times, including the three web-based accounts that I maintain and my blog, my sitemeter, my bloglines, and conquering the horrendous mail pile that was threatening to take over my desk.
But the most satisfying of all?
Cleaning the kitchen counter tonight, and bleaching the sink.

Place

She waited in the small lobby
between front door
and library, that space
that creates a vacuum
to keep weather at bay
during cold winters
and hot summers.
Hunched over a notebook
or a magazine,
I couldn't really tell,
her heels were tipped back,
and her legs scooted out,
on the bench but not.
Muscles flexed, flesh
not touching the surface beneath.
Had she stood she would have been tall,
thin, even awkward perhaps.
You don't need
to sit thin, I thought.

It wasn't until the snow
bussed my cheeks,
that I realized she might
simply have found a comfortable
position.

Perhaps

"Is something wrong?" I've been asked this several times recently, and I can't very well figure it out -- I can see why the person is asking, as I've probably appeared a bit more withdrawn and quiet than normal. However, I can't figure out what's making me that way.

Perhaps a combination of exhaustion, Lent, stress about things happening at church and home, paying bills, wanting to do some things more (like write, exercise, eat well, the standard litany). But it's nothing that I can put into a concrete sense of being. Eh. I don't like it, but it is what it is.

Friday Five -- Artsy Craftsy

1. Would you call yourself "creative"? Why or why not?
Calling myself creative has always seemed very presumptious. However, I know that I have creative tendencies and love to make things, to create. So, yeah, I guess. And, these days, I sometimes forget that my concentration in college was writing, particularly creative writing.

2. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you currently do that you'd like to develop further.
I do some collage and some altered image things that I love. There are a couple of pieces in process in my nook that I am growing pleased with, though having the time to work on them has proven a bit difficult.

3. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you have never done but would like to try.
I'd love to try glass blowing. I have the sense that it's very powerful and beautiful while being delicate.

4. Complete this sentence: "I am in awe of people who can _____________."
Sew or knit or crochet really well, or draw to create beautiful pieces of art, or take stunning pictures. I'm also in awe of people who finish a project before starting something else.

5. Share about a person who has encouraged your creativity, who has "called you to your best self." (I'm pretty sure that's from the Gospel of Oprah.)
Hmmmm... that's a difficult one. There are a number of friends in my life over the years who have made comments that cut through all of the crap in my head to allow me a glimpse of how others see me. These have been gifts that have propelled me forward.