want some cheese?

because i'm gonna whine, ok?

i am tired. today was just one of those days where there are a million things to do. today, i...

--woke at six thirty, made coffee and made sure teen was in the shower.
--got lessons ready for the day and clipboards loaded for the week while the rest of the kids got dressed and jacked around
--drove forty-three miles with three kids to pick up teen from class, then turned around and drove forty-three miles to get home
--moved around laundry
--made lunch
--helped kids get settled with lessons (or, uh, so i thought...)
--ran to therapy
--ran through the grocery
--came home and did more laundry...and then folded about eight or nine loads of laundry
--got little ones to put their laundry away (again, or so i thought...but that comes later)
--started getting my stuff ready for co-op classes tomorrow
--came across notice for verification of dependents for insurance
--noticed that after my name, it said "unverified"
--called to see exactly what i needed to be verified
--was told only a marriage license would do
--could NOT find marriage license
--found out that i can't order one online in my county (even though i got my marriage license in my state's capital...wtf?)...so the nice woman gave me the address to mail my $6 to so i can get this license and not be without insurance even though my husband works and we're married and why the hell does my insurance company need my damned marriage license?!?! whatever...
--saw teen off to rock climbing team practice
--took other kids to soccer practice for nine year old
--froze butt off in cold wind while chatting with a mama about soccer (thank god sexy spouse came to tag me out so i could come home and finish getting ready for co-op tomorrow)
--moved around teen's laundry (because yes, i am that nice)
--got stuff ready for co-op
--managed to not have a conniption when i realized nine year old had done none of his school work, but thank god had at least done his co-op homework
--helped spouse (who was no longer so sexy to me) cook dinner
--got littles to empty the dishwasher, which they are supposed to do daily without reminders, but this is not going off so well lately...
--got settled to watch lost, had littles put away a little more laundry, made the huge mistake of going into their closet to find all the laundry they were supposed to have put away in stacks on the floor of their closet (which is where it all was, dirty, three days ago)...almost completely lost it...yelled some, explained some, helped put away some...resolved to follow through with this for a few more days (which is much more productive than the tantrum i was gearing up for awhile there to throw...but it still leaves me a little empty for not throwing the tantrum...what can i say?)
--did dishes and reloaded dishwasher while watching the beginning of lost
--scratched five year old's back through the rest of lost
--i am done.

i realize the kids are probably slipping because i am slipping because we are all just flat out busy. it is hard to do everything we used to do as well as we used to do it when we have added all this other stuff to do. i told my the-rapist today that i understand i'm not doing much well right now because look at how much i'm trying to do...but it's not a whole hell of a lot of consolation, to be honest. just makes me feel kind of sucky at a hell of a lot of things. but LET ME TELL YOU.....i am learning shit loads. ask me about how i will prioritize next semester...go ahead, ask me...i am getting smarter and smarter about this stuff. the boundaries will be blazing next semester.

peace

coming and going

life is funny, she is. when i think about the relationships i've had in my life...the people who've entered my life and then left...the ones who stay awhile...the ones who are with me now...it makes me smile. there are times when someone is leaving that i rebel against that...fight it...don't want it to happen...want them to stay...forever...like it is now. but then i have to laugh because even the ones who never leave never stay the same. it is all so dynamic. i can look back and almost see where parts of one relationship prepared me for how things go in another one. or at least that's how it looks sometimes. but then later, down the road, maybe i look back and see it all fitting together differently, but still making just as much sense.

today i met a friend in austin. this friend was my bff's first girlfriend...when my bff first realized she was gay. so i met this friend through the camp we all worked at, and then continued my friendship with her through my bff once they started dating. but i also quit talking to my bff for a number of years because this friend happened to be an alcoholic...and she was not a happy drunk. well, i hear she usually was. but i happened to catch the one night she was a raging, angry, abusive drunk. and i severed ties with my bff in order to keep myself safe and out of that situation again. my bff continued dating her for another year or so, but once they broke up, and i was pregnant with my first son, my bff and i renewed our friendship. i even saw this friend once after my first son was two weeks old, at an indigo girls concert (yes, smile...i am). it was alright, but there wasn't much friendship left between us.

i didn't see this friend again until october of last year. we attended the same weekend long birthday party. it was really, really great seeing her. she played her guitar and sang. we laughed and told jokes together. she asked me to play the newest and best indigo girls song for her. she introduced me to brandi carlile. it was good. i saw her again at my bff's commitment ceremony and then again when i ran my second half marathon. her band played at the seven mile marker and after kissing all of my family and my bff and her partner, i had to go kiss this friend, too.

i went and saw this friend in austin today. i had a really nice time with her. she is struggling with a relationship and struggling with life, much of it in similar ways to what i write about in this blog. i felt hesitant because i have never really been a support to her before. i mostly just listened and tried to be there without being too there, if you know what i mean. and it was good. it was really, really good.

as i drove back home, through austin, i passed the street where my spouse and i had our first apartment in austin...where we found out we were pregnant with our first child. i drove past the street where my sister and her ex-girlfriend had an apartment...the apartment my sister fell from a balcony and cracked her head open on. i drove past the exit for sixth street, where i got both of my tattoos. i drove past the exit to the school i used to work at. past the apartment my spouse and i brought our first child home to...so many memories. i love austin. i love all the feelings it holds...feelings i can describe and understand, and all the ones i can't. events and days and experiences of the past and the ones today, too.

peace

by grace

this is the second time i've headed to you tube to find a specific indigo girls song and ended up finding a different one. but this time, i think i came out quite a bit ahead. this song is called "the prince of darkness" and it's on their self-titled release. i received that, i think it was a cassette for me, the christmas i was fourteen years old. i listened to that one for about four years, until i turned eighteen, starting working two jobs, had my very first substantial spending money, and went out and bought my first pair of birkenstocks and three more indigo girls cds.

i remember going to a youth convention when i was sixteen and writing the words to prince of darkness all across a folder that they gave us. i remember how much i loved the song. but listening to it today, with a couple more decades between then and now, i see what a truly beautiful song it is. twenty years can really change the way you relate to a song...but the tears in my eyes are of gratitude...to and for lots of things, i guess. (watch til the end, if you can...emily changes the words just a little and it made me all teary eyed...)



peace

don't think twice

i have a post about support brewing...how difficult it can be to give, how difficult it can be to receive, but basically how it's what heals the universe...well, mostly. but i ran today. and i'm feeling a little more focused than i have in a few weeks. and the teen's calling for some help. and since we still have piano and third born has his first soccer practice tonight, i think the support thing may have to wait. but that's okay because i think it may take a few blogs to get it all down anyway.

so here's a song...it's not the one i chose while i was on the treadmill today. i really wanted a song by the indigo girls called "the language or the kiss" but it was not to be found on you tube. so i ran across this one...i'd never heard it before today. i like the three women (brandi carlile's singing on this one, too) just up there playing their guitars. and amy's mandolin makes me think of my friend jen. and i just love them, so there.



peace

ps--i need some help and i suck at asking for it...so maybe some prayers for my grandmother who they think had a stroke, my mother who ablated (sp?) her thyroid monday, my stepfather who had a prostate biopsy yesterday, and other various friends and loved ones...if you've got a little space on your to-do list. thank you.

hormones

so, yesterday, going through the day, doing whatever it is i do...or don't do...oh, yesterday was the day i had to throw everyone in the car to run teen to class because i turned off my alarm and went back to sleep...ok, now i remember. anyway... i was kind of exhausted, a little weepy, whatever, yesterday. but by yesterday afternoon, i was kind of surprised by myself. see, i was finishing up reading graceling, which is a young adult fiction novel...says it's for fourteen year olds and up. my teen had already read it and i was reading it...i really liked it. but i kind of felt, at the time of finishing it, like maybe they could've been a little more sexual. (yeah, these are sixteen year old characters...but it's set in a land of seven kingdoms and crap like that, so it's not like i'm looking for real teens to be getting it on or something...) now, i loved the relationship between the main characters...and i was a little ashamed when i figured out that what i was wishing was that there was a little more kissing or something, i don't know. and then i watched lost with the dh and the kids...we're four discs into the first season...and i was feeling impatient for the people to start coupling up, hooking up, making some moves on each other. again...wishing for a little more action. so, i figured out when my spouse got close enough that i could smell his neck (we were washing dishes, maybe? really sexy stuff, you know) and it made me almost melt and explode at the same time...that perhaps i was ovulating. and yeah, i think so. i asked my friend jen this morning if she looks for sex in everything when she ovulates, and she says she looks for sex in everything all the time...but that it's definitely worse when the hormones are lined up along the side lines, cheering everything on. fun stuff, eh?

so yeah, i'm just writing about my hormones for a change...not teen's. maybe because i don't really want to hear about how often he's looking for sex in stuff, ok?

peace

pull yourself together, man

can everyone just call and say those words to me? it's just been kind of a scattered day...

i didn't wake up with my alarm this morning. it's the kind of thing you know will probably happen one day, but not today, because we have shit to do today, right? well, today was the day. it was teen's ride to class knocking on the door that woke me up. actually, i think it was teen's ride's mother calling my cell phone to figure out where the hell we were that woke me up, but i was out of bed wondering what was going on when the ride knocked and i realized what, exactly, was going on here. ugh.

wake up teen...teen throws on clothes, brushes teeth, throw hair in ponytail...put three other sleeping kids in car...throw on slippers and brush my own teeth and we're all hauling ass down the highway in less than ten minutes. he was only five minutes late, but got there before his professor.

but that left three kids and i stuck an hour away for two more hours. so we walked through the grocery in our pajamas, got some breakfast, and sat in the car eating it, listening to harry potter on cd until teen came out. rough way to start the day...

now, i sit here realizing i still have to prepare my stuff for co-op classes tomorrow...and i need to bake for this week...and i think i have a few more pairs of clean underwear. so really, call me...but don't keep me on the phone because i've got shit to avoid doing, er, i mean do.

oh...one thing i did do today. friend of mine called last week. she'd had a bad week. a really, really, relapse for an alcoholic who'd been sober for seven years bad kind of week. so she checked herself in to the hospital for some help. i was stunned. i told her that was one of the sanest responses i'd heard to extreme stress in a long time (and yes, i'm including my own responses here, ok?). and i thought about that for the next day...and then i told my spouse i was doing something without him or the kids this weekend. for saturday. once he gets off work. so i called this friend. she lives two hours away. and we may meet in the middle (which happens to be austin, so rock on for that) and hang out saturday. now, this may not seem like a huge accomplishment...but for someone who can put things off for decades at a time, i feel pretty good about it.

peace

realize

i have this theory...maybe it's more of a game i play in my head...but when i am searching, when i've been praying a lot, i find myself in the car...sometimes i feel like the universe speaks to me through the songs on the radio. now, i realize this sounds kind of goofy...especially after that scene in transformers...i do things like make sure to change the station often when i'm searching and playing "universe through the radio"...randomize things a little more. so, today, this song came through on the radio no less than three times (and i drove teen to the rock gym, then the grocery, then home...then to the rock gym and home...so that is not a lot of time in the car really...not when you consider i spend hours at a time in the car during the week? you know?). i don't know...i just felt three times was a lot for one song.



it's not even one of my favorite songs. but hearing on today put the words in a little different context and by the third time, it made me laugh out loud.

and here's a story in the same vein. i mentioned my friend who's a recovering alcoholic and addict. he's a mentor for those trying to get sober. when they call him in the middle of the night because they're having a rough time, he asks them if they've prayed. if they tell him no, he says, "you need a higher power to get you through this. i am not that." and hangs up on them. that was really, really powerful to me. because while i know there is a higher power working in the lives of each and every thing out here...sometimes i feel so alone. it can be at a time that i am struggling and i feel alone. it can be at a time i am listening to someone else struggling and i feel we're alone. but i forget, at the moment of struggling, to surrender...to stop fighting and allow myself to be buoyed by the sea of mystery.

and i needed to think about these things today. i really, really did.
peace

being an observer

it's where i'm at...what i feel pulled to do. just watch. i mean, don't get me wrong, i talked to a friend who's considering hsing for over an hour today. and i taught my two co-op classes. but i'm just in processing mode...watching...letting the stuff flow through without a lot of filter and without much analyzing...in words anyway...i feel things as the stuff flows through, i just don't have a lot of words that i'm putting forward to frame things...but i'm content to just feel and see where it leads me.

i'm active online...reading almost everything...just not a lot to say. but i think i said that already...heh

peace

quick stop

i am too tired for a full blog, but let me put these two things that've been bumping around in my head lately...

a couple of definitions...

love delight in; admire; greatly cherish

obedient submissive; dutiful

(i had to use the second definition on both of those because the first broke the rule against using a word to define itself...sheesh, even my philosophy kiddos know better than that!...)

okay, and then this last thing...talking to my friend christian last night...he's a recovering alcoholic and addict...for the first two years of being sober, he thought he was supposed to trust in a higher power for help solving his problems. turns out, the wording on the manual said he was supposed to trust in a higher power to solve his problems. he said, "hey, that's not the same thing...i think i know where i'm fucking this up." and that killed me...just killed me. it is the most hilariously brilliant thing i've heard someone say, well, at least in the last two days.

and that's all i got...
peace out

early morning blogging

with all this change in schedule this semester, i can't find a rhythm for blogging. i like to blog at night...kind of wipe the slate clean so i can sleep easily, but i'm usually too tired by then. but this early stuff? i mean, i haven't even poured the coffee yet... it feels weird. kind of choppy. not too coherent and what if my buffer goes out? who knows what i could post here?

ok, so i poured coffee...and it disturbs me. it disturbs me that without any caffeine in my system, i don't think so well. as i was pouring, i was thinking about how the sun comes up earlier now than it did a month ago. my teen used to watch it come up on the way to his class, but now, it's already up when he leaves. and that made me think about "springing ahead"...and i cannot figure out if that will make it daylight sooner or later?...i mean, if what was eight is now nine after we spring ahead?...if the sun comes up at seven, which will be eight?...if i wake up at six, which will then be seven?...oh hey, i get it. but i couldn't figure it out earlier, k?

maybe blogging in the morning isn't my thing...
peace

decisions, decisions

so i was going to come on here and post these two beyonce songs that i am surprised by how much i really, really like. there wasn't much of a story to go with them...other than i spend A LOT of time in the car lately and so i think A LOT about music. but maybe later...

then i thought about posting about how many people told me happy birthday yesterday, on my actual birthday. and then there was a call the day before and a call today, too...so it was crazy cool to hear from so many folks...fun times.

my conversation with my dad today--he's the one who called to wish me happy day after my birthday--was blog-worthy, i think. i love him. and he was actually trying to impart some wisdom, quizzing me on what i'd say in certain situations he's handled at work....it was kind of fun. i mean, i was mostly wrong, but i did learn some stuff...

i've also been thinking a lot about the responsibility of marriage and the responsibility of parenting and how hard it is to balance the two when you have both responsibilities... but, kids are kids and adults are adults...so i guess that's kind of clear to me.

and i COULD do another whine about how busy i am...there's ALWAYS that to talk about...

oh, and i did get on the treadmill today. two miles. that felt good. really, really good. and i had a few musings while on there (after thinking last night about how i hadn't had treadmill musings in FOREVER...).

and my spouse cut my hair today...like five inches gone. and that feels amazing.

but i really think all i have to say is 35 isn't so bad.

peace

hard times

i am sitting here, listening to my nine year old sing the eye of the tiger. which in a moment, could be a pretty powerful thing...but considering this is the ninth time i'm hearing this...not so much. i guess he's having a hard time getting past this song on guitar hero...

i am tired. i am worn out. we are just too busy lately. and it's not like i am getting things done in a smashing successful fashion...which is what i used to imagine when i'd listen to mamas talk about how much crap they were cramming into a week...surely their houses were cleaned, meals cooked, and their children had clean underwear, too, right? why did i assume that? what an ass...

now i know differently. we officially have somewhere to be each day of the week, except for saturday. but i did get my third born signed up for soccer...so at least i won't have to listen to him whine about his lack of opportunity to be completely over scheduled. every one's equally over scheduled according to their ability and our saturdays will be gone once soccer starts. oh, but i was talking about how now i know differently...how i know now that those women's houses were probably trashed, their meals probably served out of styrofoam, and their kids were probably wearing their underwear inside out (if their mama taught them properly) or going commando (i actually listened to my two oldest kids discussing when was the last time they went commando...it was a lot more recently than i would've thought...but i don't normally think about it, so i guess that statement isn't exactly true). anyway, our house isn't too bad, i am doing a fair amount of cooking, and they all just got a few pairs of clean underwear handed to them earlier today, so i feel like i am on a roll.

but i am so tired. and i just don't feel like i have much stamina lately. i wonder if it's the vitamins? the lack of running? something in the air? the-rapist told me the other day it was just life. remember when kids would finally figure out walking, but then forget all their words ? then eventually they could walk and talk...but it took awhile to get it all going together? and i understood what she was saying...we're all learning lots of new stuff right now. how to wake up and not be pissy with each other. how to make sure homework gets done without being pissy to each other. how to be on the road a lot more without getting pissy. hang out in different groups now that we always seem to be minus at least one if not more...yes, and not get pissy about it. we are worn out with trying to not take out these adjustments on each other, i guess. because these kids are sleeping hard at night. and so are these parents.

so...dependent arising...it means the emptiness of inherent existence. when things inherently exist, they are what they are, and they can't be changed by outside things...that would negate their self arising. so everything is dependent arising...and everything is empty of inherent existence. i know this is working up to some big things...but since i'm kind of excited to get a grip on what these concepts even mean, i don't mind waiting a few hours or a day til i can read more. i do think that it is pretty exciting to see everything as dependent arising...and knowing that emptiness of inherent existence is not the same as nonexistent, it seems that everything is going to be, in some way, a collection of everything else. but maybe that's too jumbled up. the dalai lama seems much more adept at teasing out more specific concepts. it's good stuff.

peace

my car ride today

here's the first song i heard that made my toes curl (this is an involuntary reaction caused by something some part of me responds to before i'm even aware of what's going on...usually it's music...sometimes it's sex...but these days, it's usually music...hehe)



and posting this makes me realize that my toe curling to this song is kind of hijacked, because usually about a minute into it, i remember that the song i really love by led zepplin is this one... (and i'm telling you, this hijacking has been occurring for probably almost twenty years)


which, oddly enough, makes me think of my best friend from high school, patsy. her partner is pregnant and they just found out yesterday they're expecting twins. now, this is definitely something that makes my toes curl and my eyes tear up, too. i don't know why my joy is so strong with this particular pregnancy...god knows i get excited about all of the pregnancies i get to hear about...but i am overjoyed for them. oh, the reason this is odd is because these are two songs patsy and i used to listen to over and over in the first years of our friendship.

i really am okay. reading about dependent arising kind of cracked things open for me...and the words are all scattered...hard to bring a few together and make a sentence to frame these huge concepts i keep zooming back to see, then zooming in to understand...but heh, when you zoom in and it's all still so new, you have no idea where you are in the whole of it all. i keep wondering if i can explain it in my own words at all. the idea that nothing exists independently...you cannot find a whole that exists independently of its parts...the whole is dependent on the parts and the parts on the whole. three methods...cause, parts, and thought...or something like that. tomorrow, i'll harvest some quotes and see if i can't make a dent in it.

oh, here's another one...the second song by jason mraz i've heard this week...i actually recognized it as his voice. which i think is remarkable since i'd only just heard him last week and had only heard that song twice...lucky that one was called.


peace

stream of consciousness

today's highlights....

...this is cool hanging out with the teen...almost makes getting up at six okay...mmm, these scones are good...

...wow, i haven't heard this led zepplin song in forever...oh, and now it's spin doctors, i love this song, too...i wonder if some of these eighteen wheelers realize just how fucking big they are?...

...must chat with the kids about playing video games and ignoring their clipboards...whew, that went better than i thought it would...whaddya mean "should i do my math work?"...maybe they just don't listen to a damn thing i say...where are the scones?...

...pick a category for book club...check out some great pictures of cooking at co-op...darn, those kiddos are cute...i should take pics of my classes...facebook...cyber tribe...love...love...love...

...oh shit, piano...we're late...let me stop vacuuming and get everyone in the car...grab dalai lama book on the way out...dependent arising? have i read that before?...oh yes...now i remember...sorta...

...home...bake cookies...kids outside--hurray!...hubby home...laundry...computer...so many blogs i've composed in my head...no brain cells left to write full sentences...thoughts still clamoring to spill out...best i can do...james joyce is rolling in his grave...

...peace...

ps--here's something i've been thinking of lots this week. a quote by someone else, so it's really good...

"How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

-Trina Paulus, Hope for the Flowers (which i've never read, but this quote was in kids are worth it, which i read periodically...)

parents and church

so, while seeing the-rapist today...i hit on something. she was all laid back in her chair, listening, and then when i finally got on a track, on this track specifically, she sat up and started writing.

see, i've been struggling with church. and my friend jen posted this quote about how church is meant to be participated in, not consumed. (it was much more eloquent, but that's the gist of what spoke to me.) i don't really like the church i've been going to. but i don't feel called to the other church either. i've always been kind of a "go to the nearest catholic church" kind of gal. well, since i became catholic, which was eleven years ago...so for eleven years, i've been a...you know what i'm saying.... but the pastors at this church...i just don't get what they're saying a lot of the time. i mean, i understand saying something and meaning something by it, but something totally different can be interpreted...i get that. and i try to give them the benefit of the doubt, whenever i can find the room. but some of the things these guys say...i feel like they teach a worship and devotion that is mindless...that doesn't make sense on any level, but that you're just supposed to power through. they don't ever talk about a natural draw to that mystery...ever discuss the natural appeal of jesus...just how he established his authority and how we should run if we ever happen to witness someone doing the things jesus did. they never teach us how to discern, or question, or think about the mystery...just to be grateful for it, obey it, and tell others about it. and they seem so lost themselves sometimes...hopeless, really bogged down by negativity.

now i realize this may just be their personalities. and i try really hard not to be judgmental...to ask more of myself than i ask of them when i'm trying to listen to their homilies and understand what they're trying to teach. because i'm an adult, you know?

but the way they explain our relationship to God, it's so one sided...God is great, we are worms. and that bothers me. because i've been a parent for over fourteen years...longer than i've been catholic...and never have i felt my children are so far below me. i realize God is God. but why would God create humans to be so far below, so unworthy? i mean, i know these are human terms used to try to define something very not human...and that these terms reflect the views of the humans as much as their actual experience with God. but it's just been difficult to be journeying my own path of parenting, and my path of spirituality in my culture that compares my relationship to the Ultimate Creator with a parent/child relationship and then places the child so far below the parent.

i think this is why buddhism appeals to me so much. but i don't think christianity has to come off like this. what i told my the-rapist was that sometimes christians just paint God as such a punitive parent...and as i don't use punishment often, if at all, in my relationship with my kids, this christian punitive aspect is not jiving with me. and i feel a little adrift... which means i also feel like my kids are kind of adrift... and that's just not a comfortable spot for me.

so she prayed with me as i left. we don't do that together often. but today, i guess she felt it was a good idea. and it was. because i know the answers to this dilemma for me will come...with time and patience and probably some interviewing of some sort...but the answers will come. it was really was nice to have someone journey into the mystery with me, even if it was just for sixty seconds or so.
peace