So that's where I get it...

I've loved to make collages since I was in about 7th grade and it was the only project in art class where I truly felt that I deserved/earned the grade I got. There was something about the composition of words with images and the contrast of light and dark, the combining of fanciful with real and then putting it all together. We made copies on an old copy machine and then colored some of them in. I think the original collages were 11X17, or at least bigger than 8.5X11, so we were able to make a copy that only showed part of our image, and I saw that, too, as an opportunity to crop something out that I didn't particularly like, or make a decision about only showing half of the picture of my family. Not sure what to do with these copies, I wrote letters to friends on the other side, and I'd be surprised if any of them remain.

But through that assignment, the practice of making something new out of pieces of something else was kindled for me. Like quilting, but not as useful.

Grandma died (I've written about this before) and we made the trek to the farmhouse when the ground was still cold and the rhubarb was just beginning to emerge, bulbous and deep red, from the rich black dirt-turned-grey. We kicked through leaves and hid our tears and stood gazing off into the distance over acres and acres of soil, of dirt, of land that has been in our family since they staked the claim and said, "Here." And then we turned the key and budged open the door with our shoulder, with our hip, stumbling a bit into the entryway with its cracked linoleum and little sink -- where for generations people "washed up" before sitting down at the table.

We poked around and pulled books off the shelves and sometimes someone would sigh loudly and a hand would reach out to the shoulder, rub-rub-pat. And I opened the door to the basement, the damp smell of earth greeting me, sharp and a little offensive. I pulled the chain for the light bare light bulb and inhaled that earthy smell quickly. In the years that it had been since I'd ever opened that door, and for the first time probably ever, I noticed that all of the walls and the ceiling in the space heading downstairs were covered with pages from magazines.

I pulled my mom over and simply pointed, my eyes asking questions and my body finding comfort in this collaged room. "Oh yeah, I remember when she did that," Mom said. "Your Great Aunt came out one weekend and they spent the whole time tearing pages out and pasting them on the walls, and the ceiling." She paused and looked around, shaking her head. "Making do with what they had," she said. "Pretty amazing, isn't it?" And then she closed the door.

I went back to that land of history last week, to do the final sort through what hadn't been burned onsite last summer. There were a lot of memories wrapped up in newspaper -- fragile plates that had hung on the walls, a lamp, a dish and jar that used to water chickens and now resides with me in the suburbs. "For when we start raising chickens," I told my husband when he raised his eyebrows at me.

And there were five boxes full of old magazines, mostly from the 1930s -- Woman's World, Life, Hampshire Herdsman, Successful Farmer -- all addressed to my grandfather, who has been dead for almost 50 years. I took a few of them -- interesting ads, things I could frame, stories of communism.

My mother has saved stacks of magazines. I have saved stacks of magazines. Covering the walls with the magazines was my grandmother's and her sister's way of doing something with what they had already read, piecing together bits of history to bring color and protection to the walls.

Re-Powered

It's become the cliche of my life -- oh, how we take for granted those things that we have until we don't have them anymore. Health, home, convenient access to anything, electricity. We lost our power Thursday afternoon. Sunday afternoon it reappeared. Three whole days without the ability to turn on lights, cook, check email at home, look anything up online, do laundry, dry my hair, watch TV. So quiet without that background hum. So dark at night without even the streetlight lit outside.

I've never wanted to cook or do laundry so badly in my life. Clearly part of my brain lost power, too.
However, no water entered our basement -- lest I have no tales to tell of an entire baseball card collection lost, having to rip up the second carpet in less than a year, or filling the curb with bags and bags of soggy things. It was not uncommon to hear stories swapped of this nature -- 3 inches, 10 inches, 3 feet of water.... evidently a litter box floats at that level.
And, we had water during the whole ordeal -- and due to an older water heater, our showers were warm -- hot, even.
I've truly never been so happy to see lights on in the living room as I was last night upon returning from dinner with friends. The trucks had been outside when we left and I said a sincere, "thank you" to the nice worker man before he climbed up the pole at the end of our driveway.

He looked me in the eye and said, "Don't thank me yet. Just because I'm here doesn't mean your lights are coming on." Talk about a deflating moment, but my thank you stood. There were nearly half a million people without power after Thursday. We were among the faithful remnant of 40-thousand or so folks still without it on Sunday morning. That's a lot of work that those workers did in not always pleasant conditions.

So, today we do laundry, empty our refrigerator and freezer of nearly all their contents, retrieve our salvaged frozen items from a friend's deep freeze, and start again taking for granted things like checking email from home, using our cordless phone, and being lulled through our day with that quiet hum that means things are running.

Returning

I love to get mail. As a child I ran to the mailbox to see if I had anything -- fortunately I had godparents and penpals who indulged me, or at least occasionally sent me something so that I could bounce back up the driveway. Returning from a week away from the office meant returning to a very full mailbox -- not to the point where my mail had been shifted to an actual box on the counter, but I did have to compress it in order to get it out of the slot.

Much of it went straight to the recycling bin, but even this brings me a little bit of joy, though I hate the concept of junk mail and how it offends the environment -- both the ecological and the aesthetic as it wastes away in piles upon my desk. But there were little delights -- thank you notes, handwritten correspondence, invitations to continuing education events, magazines to look forward to reading, etc. I have done my initial sort -- recycle, read later, read now, and file in my "someone loves me" folder.

This return to my office is also marked with a sense of satisfaction, as I remembered before I left, to wash those nasty, nasty coffee cups that had already started sprouting when I washed them. I'm afraid that my office would have needed some serious decontamination if I hadn't washed them, but there they sit -- gleaming and clean, just waiting for fresh hot coffee.

Perhaps I'll make coffee and read my mail. My work days this week are more contained this week as we're juggling daycare being closed, and my thought is that I'll be more productive. So far that's not the case.

All God's Critters....

Got a place in our building, I guess.

There's a new friend in the building.

A cricket.

Perhaps this other friend will take care of it. Because by the time someone got around to calling someone else to take care of that friend (and this was after multiple viewings by multiple people), taking care of that friend was prohibited due to the season.

I'll take the cricket any day, but it's sure loud.

Thoughts of the day

I need to charge more for non-member weddings.

We're planning a vacation. A tropical vacation. It's a long ways from now (more than a year) but I'm very, very excited. Given that we honeymooned in Canada, this will be delightful.

It's really warm outside, and that exhausts me.

We bottled the first batch of beer last night. My thoughts are now consumed with designing and printing labels for the "Hey, Honey...."

There's a fair amount of stuff I need to do before being away from the office next week. And before September. And before tonight, to be honest.

But all I want to do is go buy shoes. Which I might do after finishing the bulletin for draft purposes. So I should write the bulletin instead of blogging.

trying....

to post a whiny post about a stress-spot in my shoulder and it won't. post.

perhaps blogger has decided i'm too whiny.

i hate that.

Shoulder spot

I usually carry my stress in one spot. It's on the inside of my left shoulder. I discovered this tendency of mine while on internship as the spot would ache for about 24 hours as I held mine and what I perceived to be the collected stress of the congregation. Often I'd have lunch with two dear people after the last service and about mid-way through the meal the pain would subside and I'd breathe and be able to move a bit more freely.

Yeah. Healthy, I know.

The ache is back today. During that period in my life I could easily tell you exactly what things were sitting in that spot. Today it's a little fuzzier. A finished sermon (two hours before preaching) would help. The confidence that there's enough food for tonight's pot-luck would help. Some clarity about life in general (HA!) would help. And I guess by writing this, I'm hoping that whining about it on my blog will help!

Yeah. I'll see how that goes.

Friday Five: Weather

Sally shares for the Friday Five:
Here in the UK we are struggling with floods, other parts of the world have similar problems without the infrastructure to cope with it, still others are badly affected by drought.... My son Jon is in Melbourne Australia where apparently it has been snowing ( yes it is winter but still!).... With crazy weather in mind I bring you this weeks Friday 5...


1. Have you experienced living through an extreme weather event- what was it and how did you cope?
I lived in a place where it was below zero (F) for over 100 hours straight, snowed well over 100 inches of snow that same winter, and then the river flooded devastatingly. Because it wasn't something that happened overnight, but over the course of a couple of months, the exhaustion was a bit more drawn out. I spent many, many hours sandbagging.

2. How important is it that we wake up to issues such as global warming?
Very. And yet it seems like such a huge issue that it's difficult for me to begin thinking about it and my role in it.

3. The Christian message needs to include stewardship of the earths resources agree/ disagree?
Agree.

And because it is summer- on a brighter note....

4. What is your favourite season and why?
Oh, that's tough. I love them all, or at least parts of them.
Winter for the frost patterns and the sounds of ice cracking and the brilliant light of sun reflected from snow.
Spring for the fresh new life poking from the ground, and the squish of soggy ground.
Summer for the warmth and the array of colors.
Fall for the crisp crunch of leaves, and the brightness of air-cooled cheeks.

5. Describe your perfect vacation weather....
Warm during the days -- warm enough to swim and play outside. Cooler in the evenings, with a gentle breeze.

Lists. Check.

For awhile now I've kept a list of things to do on a piece of standard paper, rather than the expensive planner system that I never wanted to get messy. When I'm using wedding bulletin covers from 1974 that no one before me thought to recycle, I write more, cross things out, have more space. And I can still recycle them.
All of this is not to say that I've actually gotten more done. I've simply written more down, which I know is a difference. Occasionally -- every couple of days or so -- I'll realize I've done some things on the list and need to add more, so I'll take a new piece of paper and transfer the un-done to the new.
One of the things I know about myself is that making phone calls is never really a priority for me. I'll know that I need to call someone to follow-up, and won't, and won't, and won't. Sometimes it's ok, other times it bites me in the proverbial patooty, and other times I actually make the call.
Yesterday I was about to make a new list of to-dos. And I resolved to not transfer any of the phone calls I'd been shifting from list to list. For the next chunk of time (hour? hour and a half?), I placed calls. Sometimes I left a message, other times I reached someone and it was good. Some of the calls lasted a few minutes, and others were longer and filled with more than ministry, which was good, causing laughter to ring from my office.
I know I'm not reformed -- that there will be more days than not when I'll be overwhelmed and paralyzed by the sight of names to call on my to-do list, but for now it's clear.

Sweet Spots

Seeing the sunflowers that I so haphazardly planted actually growing.

Hearing my two-year old ask, as he crawls into our bed in the morning, "Is it breakfast time?"

The blossoms on my other scattered seeds.

Dinner with friends.

New babies in my life.

Feeling well enough to want coffee again.

Finishing a project.

Mailing a package.

Inscribing a book to a beloved child of God.

Showing the two-year old a watermelon at the store and having him ask, "Um, is it a plum?" And then he giggled.

Grilling.

A full house at worship yesterday.

Being done with VBS. Wah-hoo.

Lunch on the deck today.

Returned

I have returned from vacation. I am a little tanner in the way that I become, which is to say not much. I have returned, a little bit rested, which is to say that I am rested from not thinking much about this life that I lead in this place, and exhausted from intensely being someplace else.
I have returned from the land of water and cold and hot and family -- a place that is written within me in ways I'm still discovering, and in ways that amaze me. How can I remember such intricate details of my past simply by driving on a road, hearing a bottle-rocket, seeing a fawn, stepping over mud, peeing in the woods?

Things I Dig

I've been tagged for the Five Things I Dig About Jesus meme.... And, even though I'm on vacation, my folks have upgraded to high speed internet since the last time I was home (complete with a new computer!!).

1. He spoke in parables that no one could understand, that we still wrestle with today.
2. On the flip side, he used language that was common and spoke to people where they were.
3. He challenged the world.
4. He spoke peace, and inspires us to do the same.
5. He liked to eat and drink.

You know the drill.... Cheers.

Research?

Dear Research Company,

Shockingly, you left a message last night. I liked that.

Shockingly, you called back tonight at shortly before 10:00 PM. That, I didn't like so much.

While your website indicates otherwise, I can't imagine that anyone out there would like to take your survey after finishing an evening routine after 9 pm. Certainly few of us at neary 10:00. Short of emergencies and the occasional friend or family, no one calls us this late. I sound old, I know, but it's true.

Really, a research call at nearly 10. I still can't believe it.

No, I won't answer your questions. And, no, at this point I don't want to tell you a more convenient time to call. You're lucky I was as polite as I was.

I remain,
Forever indebted to caller ID.

Neighborly

We moved into our house in December, and as the weather has warmed and we've spent more time outside, neighbors have stopped and introduced themselves. We're on a waving basis with most of them, and a conversational first-name with others. I struggle with living as an adult in a neighborhood -- my desire to be anonymous, mixed with the question of how folks will respond to what we do, paired with really wanting to be good neighbors and part of the community. Some of our parishioners live in the area, and are friends with folks on the block, so many already knew all about us.

The woman who lives next door is maybe in her 70s, a widow with familiy nearby who are involved, and spunky and quirky. She loves our dog, appreciates the clean-up we've done to the side of our property that she sees, and will occasionally come over if she see me out.

Tonight was one of those warm, summery nights. I was away the first part of the week at camp, and now my colleague-in-everything is taking the second half of the week. After dinner (eggs for me, crackers for the boy), we started out on a walk ("a stroller 'venture"), and headed past her house along one of our regular routes. She called hello to us from the window, and then asked if she could join us on our walk, and she did, pointing out homes where she knew stories and calling out to folks who were outside. "My daughter dated their son," she'd say. Or, "my grandson stood up in their daughter's wedding."

While part of me had wanted to walk alone, chattering about to my son, her joining us was perfect.

8 Random Things About Me

I have been tagged by 1-4 Grace to do this -- so here goes
Okay, first the rules:
1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3.At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My amendments to the rules:
I love, love, love to be tagged. It hearkens back to some weird junior high feeling of inclusion. But when it comes right down to the return of tagging -- I can't bring myself to either choose or, well, go through the work of tagging others. So.... as with all of these -- if you want to play, I'd love to read your randomness -- just let me know in the comments. And clearly I think that blogger should incorporate an em-dash into their auto-ness.

8 Random things about me:
1. I've recently rediscovered that I really like corn-nuts. And remembered that I've been to the place where they make corn-nuts. Or at least there was a very large outlet/factory store of corn-nuts that we used as a diversion during a rain delay at a golf tournament.
2. I really love a good pedicure, but the manicure is nearly completely wasted on me. I can't read while it's happening, I ruin it within days if not moments of getting it, and I can never decide on color for the fingers.
3. I collected stickers as a kid. I had one that was a numbered limited edition that I remember thinking was really going to mean something someday.
4. I am so much more likely to do something if you don't tell me to do it.
5. I am immensely proud of my pathetic gardening attempts this season. These include simply scattering seeds over a bed of dirt and thinking they might grow. It has actually worked with, ahem, scattered results.
6. I take pride in my father's dry sense of humor and the fact that he's passed it along to me. He was a science teacher until he retired and I found him witty even in high school when I was outwardly embarassed and yet bursting with pride at the same time.
7. I can have boundless energy.
8. I never thought that I'd end up where I am today.

Safe Passage

He sits in a lawn chair when the weather gets warm, bright vest on, stop sign twirling at his feet. He stands and greets the kids who come near him, nodding and questioning. And then he walks slowly into the intersection, his hand out behind him until the way is safe when he beckons to the children on scooters, foot, the occasional bicycle. Sometimes a parent waits for that crossing with the family dog, waving and calling, "Have a good day," before returning home or continuing the walk.

He nodded his thanks to me one day, as I stopped farther than most and waited what he must have perceived to be patiently. Some days I might wave, an anonymous passer-by thankful for his role in the life of the community.

On cold days, much of our winter, he waits for the rush in his small blue car that has seen better days, a cup of coffee steaming the windshield, and I imagine talk radio filling the air. His smile is the same, but there's less dawdling, more hurrying, and the parents wave quickly, bundled more tightly.

School's nearly out for the summer. Late the other day, a group of children stood on the sidewalk, calling to him with pen and yearbook, waiting for the beckoning hand to leave an impression in their book.

Moment

I noticed the curve of the sidewalk and thought it seemed like a cheerful curve, a happy curve, and at the same time rebuffed myself for anthropomorphing (is that the right word? used correctly?) the sidewalk. I noticed the curve of the sidewalk as I stepped off of it to let the man walk past me, step-step shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. His jacket -- thin, dark blue, indicated his allegiance to an organization -- hung from his shoulders and swayed a bit as he step-step shuffled his way toward the building.
The grass where I stepped to make more room was soft, cushiony, and my thoughts jumped to sod and grass seed and rain gauges and errands I was running and the pending rain that was starting to fall, lightly and without conviction. The rain, like the sidewalk, not especially in need of the human attributes I was assigning, but they were working for me.
I stepped back onto the sidewalk, the man having passed, and I paused in my mind to be thrilled at sharing the building behind me with old men, immigrant families, students. My canvas bag bounced against my hip, my self-pride at having remembered it tempered only by its necessity to leave the house.
My car was warm when I threw the bag on the side seat, knocking my lunch out of its wrapper, the remains of the energy bar (my second of the day, a sad substitute for a rain check lunch) crumbling as I picked it up. The heat had softened it, warmed the cherries, made it vaguely reminiscent of pie -- if I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

Vacation, Celebration, Desperation

I started a post a few days ago that simply read: It's been so long.... I almost forgot my password.

It didn't post because an error message appeared indicating that the operating system had unexpectedly shut-down. This never happens. It started back up, but it spooked me. And, as I had been tired already, it didn't seem worth it to start all over again -- especially for such a pithy post.

We've taken a vacation and had some fun. Our son turned two. He now thinks that they'll sing happy birthday to him every time we go to a baseball game. My parents visited. People came over. I made an amazing train cake. I've now invested enough money in supplies that he'll have a train cake every year, ad nauseum. If he gets married, it might be the groom's cake.

I've been experiencing these pangs of something -- jealousy? sadness? loss? -- at not being at the Festival of Homiletics. This is definitely one of those to-do things on my list. Maybe next year, when it's in Minnesota (or so the rumors go....).

Much of Wednesday was spent on a ladder in the sanctuary, preparing for the weekend. A few desperate moments when we thought, is this really going to work. It did. It does. People who have already seen it are stunned. I get giddy every time I see walk past.

I've missed writing, these days (weeks?) that I've not. The weather has been warm and all I want to do is play in the dirt. I've done that, some, and it's at times like that when I dream of not doing what I do.

Friday Five

Once again Reverendmother has provided the following Friday Five:
There are two types of people in the world, morning people and night owls. Or Red Sox fans and Yankees fans. Or boxers and briefs. Or people who divide the world into two types of people and those who don't. Let your preferences be known here. And if you're feeling verbose, defend your choices!

1. Mac? (woo-hoo!) or PC? (boo!)
Why yes, the Friday Five author reserves the right to editorialize!
We had been a PC family for a long time, but our recent (ok, it's been almost 2 years) purchase was a Mac. We still use PCs at the office, but I love the Mac.

2. Pizza: Chicago style luscious hearty goodness, or New York floppy and flaccid?
Um.... neither. Thin crust, but crunchy.

3. Brownies/fudge containing nuts:
a) Good. I like the variation in texture.
b) An abomination unto the Lord. The nuts take up valuable chocolate space.

Thou shalt NOT put nuts in my brownies.

4. Do you hang your toilet paper so that the "tail" hangs flush with the wall, or over the top of the roll like normal people do?
Thank goodness I'm normal. At least on this one.

5. Toothpaste: Do you squeeze the tube wantonly in the middle, or squeeze from the bottom and flatten as you go just like the tube instructs?
I'll wantonly squeeze for awhile, but eventually I'll flatten and push.

Bonus:
Olives: green or black?
A friend once contended that each relationship has one person who liked olives and one who didn't. There are great exceptions to this, obviously, but I saw his wisdom. Of course he might have been telling me that we'd never be in a relationship as we sat together eating our olives. I will eat them both, but I've come to see the superiority of the green olive -- particularly stuffed with blue cheese or garlic and marinated in a martini.

Gadgets and Gizmos, Good Grief!

My new hair dryer arrived. I ordered it from friendly jungle online site because I could get free shipping and knew I wouldn't get to the store before it arrived. I did have a spare, of course, so not all was lost in the meantime.
This new one is pretty fabulous. And, it's a lot more hair dryer than I need. My child now points to it and says, "Mommy's newwwww hair dryer. Mommy dry-a hair." He then points to my hair, looks, and says, "Mommy all done dry-a hair."
If only this dryer could double as a printer for my office, as I'm about to throw that said gadget out the window. It's made me nothing but crabby-crabby-crabby all afternoon. Crabby-crabby-crabby, I tell you.