Like many I have been thinking of things to be thankful for every day this month. I have been posting them on Facebook and thought I would record them here as well.
Nov 1:I am thankful for the Glorious weather we have had the last few weeks. Kind of like an apology for the non-summer.
Nov 2: I am thankful for Downward Dog, it really is a rest pose.
Nov 3: I am thankful to for everyone who made last night an enriching one, for my awesome committee, Robin and that my feet aren't sore this morning. Thanks to our touching speaker and beautiful singer and accompanist. I am thankful for all who attended and brought food and decorated. I am thankful for Gratitude.
Nov 7: I am grateful to know WHY I have felt so miserable for the last 5 weeks and grateful to Donnalee for helping me figure it out. (allergies)
Nov 8: I am grateful for the opportunity to serve, I am overwhelmed with love.
Nov 9: I am grateful for Yoga (I really like Yoga I was grateful for it twice!)
Nov 10: I am thankful for my sisters.
Nov 11: I am grateful for wool coats
Nov 12: I am grateful for the washing machine and electric dryer. Greatest inventions ever.
Nov 13: I am grateful to know Sarah who happens to be the reason I got out of my warm slumber this morning. She is a delightful soul and we are going to miss her deeply.
Happy Anniversary! Starlings has belonged to us for 1 year today. That was a very happy day, we have been so blessed and I have been grateful every single day.
Starlings, May 10, 2010 in the a.m.
I spent the mid-day moving mis-placed tulips and weeding in preparation for the great bark dust dump scheduled for this weekend. The azaleas are the only thing in bloom just now but they are brilliant, there are a few last tulips that haven't died yet and the poppies and iris are taunting me. I can't wait to eat from the gardens.
Last night I made a very small rhubarb crisp, it was the first rhubarb harvest at Starlings and the first harvest of the year from the gardens. Happily, (considering my sketchy history with crisps) it was a success.
Starlings, May 10, 2011, 3 pm. With 3 bickering children.
The sun has come out, the birds are singing and I am typing this on my porch. The kids are running and laughing and swinging.
A coldfront blew in this past weekend. Coincidentally, the furnace went out the night before, we called furnace folks in spades but no one would return our call for 3 days. On Monday there was a snowday for the public school kids but no snow. Our furnace was also fixed that day; it wasn't broken, just a sensor that needed to be reset, it cost us $90 to learn that.
Snow on our shingles, I just think they are so pretty, It was our first snow at Starlings which was a blessing even if we were freezing at the time.
On Wednesday, I found that the pipes to the washing machine in the garage were frozen so I filled up the washer with hot water by the bucketful from the laundry sink. Eventually the washing machine defrosted (with the help of a space heater) but later that evening and maybe or maybe not related to this event the downstairs water heater broke and leaked all over the basement. Inspection of the almond colored appliance revealed that it was made in 1980. Obviously replacement not repair will be the order of the day. Of course, this happened at 5 pm the night before Thanksgiving.
We won't be having hot water until Monday at best. Happily the upstairs bathroom has a separate water heater so we can have warm showers, but no dishwasher of washing machine on Thanksgiving Eve!
I had the fun task of cleaning all the dishes and the kitchen before Thanksgiving food was made, during and after by boiling water in the tea kettle.
This wasn't to be a complaining post, I just wanted to illustrate why we chose a snowflake theme for Thanksgiving decorations.
The Gardners and the Warrs heeded my pleas to come to Starlings for dinner and we had a lovely evening. All the important foods were here, hummus included. The sweet potatoes were divine and the heritage pastured turkey from Kookoolan Farms (thanks to Kristin's mad bartering skillz and generosity) was the best turkey ever known to mankind. Even Moose thinks it is the best turkey ever. We will have to keep inviting Kristin to Thanksgiving forever because we could probably never afford such a turkey on our own. **Flash to the scene from A Christmas Carol where Scrooge buys the enormous goose***
Here is a photo of Moose carving the turkey, he was the only person man enough for the task (it must be all that working out on his birthday weight bench.)
I-Shuan made an absolutely darling "Welcome to Starlings" sign as a housewarming gift on her new "Silhouette" machine, so perfect and thoughtful.
And the greatest blessing of all, we have wonderful, fantastic, amazing renters in our old house. A giant weight has been lifted from our shoulders. Thank YOU! Amen.
The other day I was speeding along the freeway listening to Natalie Merchant's Kind and Generous on the radio. This song has always made me think of my Heavenly Father and how kind and generous he is to me. How I am in debt to Christ for his gift to me. I sang along "la la la la-ing" through the autumn leaves and the late autumn sunshine, just as the song ended I saw the spires of the Portland, Oregon temple peeking through the evergreens.
I debated with myself as whether or not we should stop. I knew that the kids would complain but the spirit told me that this was the time so I took the exit and within two minutes we were walking around the temple grounds with my middle child murmuring about how he just wanted to go home.
Soon it became evident that everything was new and exciting to my 4 year old daughter. It had been so long since we had been to the temple she couldn't remember any of it.
We sat at the reflecting pool and talked about the temple, what it means, what you must do to be able to go there and that in the temple we make promises to Heavenly Father that we will keep his commandments. My husband is not LDS and sometimes it is had for me to talk about the temple with my children. But there in the sunshine it was easy.
As we walked back to the car my daughter said to me "Mom, you know what I was doing back there? I was promising."
"Promising what honey?"
"Promising that I will do what Heavenly Father wants me to do."
Remind me in a dozen or so years to remind her of the first promise she made at the temple. OK? Thanks.
This little trip took us a grand total of 10 minutes but I hope gave us 4 eternities worth of memories.
We were standing in the kitchen yesterday afternoon when I looked out the window and witnessed The Fall. The maple that has been sprinkling leaves for the last few weeks decided to let it all go and we watched as it rained leaves. It was magical as so many moments have been this autumn, we stood and watched the yellow rain. After a while a gust of wind blew through and the leaves fell ever faster. Now our lawn is covered in a yellow carpet. A wet carpet as the fall happened just a few hours before a very heavy night of rain.
I am feeling much better this Sabbath day. This week I have knocked on the door of despair, have had some prayers answered and some prayers I haven't found the answer to yet. I have regained peace.
I am so grateful for the lovely Indian summer we have had, full of sunny but not hot days; it ALMOST makes up for our nearly non existent summer. I am glad that it has rained because I need to plant my spring bulbs and the earth was too hard to dig in. Hopefully the rain has softened it up.
I got my 2nd BlogHer check, and again I made about 11 cents a day, and even though I should have used that $25 to buy shoes for the kids, Moose said I could do whatever I wanted with it.
Things have been happening on the selling the old house front. Good things, bad things, disappointing things, stressful things, but things, things that require risky decisions to be made. All choices are equally risky and safe.
I am not going to say just what because I don't want to jinx it. I believe God is in control and has a plan for us that we can't always see but I also believe in jinxing. ( I totally jinxed myself out of getting a big calling recently. I was certain that it was going to be a BIG one, one with a LOT of responsibility but because I told people that I jinxed myself into one with very, very little responsibility. SWEET!)
I can however relay facts.
Fact one, we still own our old house.
Fact two, said house is empty.
Fact three, we can not afford to pay 2 mortgages next month.
Fact four, rental management properties have been spoken to.
Fact five, someone is interested in buying said property but since no paperwork has been made it is still only interest and interest doesn't pay the bills.
Fact six, November is coming quickly.
So last night as I tossed and turned in my bed while I tossed and turned decisions in my mind I knew exactly what I was going to do with my BlogHer check. Buy pumpkins. What better way to soothe mid autumn nerves than with big orange squash?
This morning I put the situation to the kids, I had a $25 limit for pumpkins and the pumpkin farms charge a lot of money for the attractions and the pumpkins and as far as I can tell none of them do what they used to do which was pay a fee to do everything at the farm which includes a pumpkin. So we hashed it out and decided to buy pumpkins at Winco (17 cents per lb.) and go to a pumpkin farm that had free attractions.
The main attraction was the "Hay Pyramid" I even managed to get some pretty decent pictures from the broken camera.
And just when you think it isn't possible to love Boba Fett any more than you already do, I give you....
Boba Fett the Basilisk, complete with hissing.
On the hayride Camrock spun a tale about how it was really a vehicle taking us to a Zorg prison camp. In this picture he was singing a song, presumably a prison song?
As we left we bought some apples for a snack and corn for dinner and a full hay bale. The hay bale will serve 3 purposes; first, Halloween decoration for my porch, second, a target for my avid archer son, and third, dry matter for the garden.
I wanted to write today about how awful I feel, how everything is going wrong and how I can't wait to kick the year 2010 into the rubbish bin. This entire year has been full of one really big good thing (buying Starlings) and smaller and just as delightful things (making new friends, a good hydrangea crop, my chalkboard) all mixed up in a sauce of garbage. I am so tired of things going wrong, and stress and fighting, mistakes, plain bad luck, broken dreams and my talents turning to failures.
But I won't instead I will try to scrape up the good things that have happened to me this past week or so.
I went to Seattle (garbage) with La Keira (GREAT thing) to see Betty Debbie (New Friend) and celebrate Bettysday(good thing.) I couldn't find an uncrushable jersey dress so I fashioned a nurse's cap and sported it about Seattle. We had a tea less High Tea at a Tea Shop and it was very good.
On Monday I completed 32 years on the Earth (good thing,) had a free sushi lunch at Sushi Town (good thing) and spent the day choosing my winter yarn supply (good thing that turned bad.) Then I went to dinner with La Keira and Nathan and Moose at Benihana (very good thing.)
My nephew, Little Moss, was born early Tuesday morning which was a joyus thing, followed by the worst day in the history of selling our old house (very bad thing.)
On Thursday, I learned how to make homemade bagels (good thing) then went to the Temple (very good thing) and came across the 2nd best name ever "Rosamund Skipworth" (good thing.)
There is a very pretty magenta colored hydrangea in my yard. That is a good thing.
Our beautiful World: I think my potato plants are so beautiful. So green and leafy, and last year when I harvested the potatoes, it was like digging buried treasure and they lasted most of the winter.
Blessings: My little garden. Didn't plant until well after Mother's day as we had just moved in. But Moose made it a priority early on. We used the boards from our old garden boxes at the other house. I already had all of the seeds. The cost was $38 for 20 lags of soil. With the rotten spring weather we aren't that far behind everyone else.
Striving For: The strength to endure. Praying that the old house sells.
We hit the beach twice this week. The first day was so-so and we had to leave early but yesterday we fled the heat and went to our favorite beach.Camrock was on a mission and he set right to work building a model of the battle at Omaha Beach. He made waves with the tip of the shovel. Speaking of shovels we found this amazing shovel that is just about 2 feet tall and very light. I feel it will become a good friend if we can manage not to lose this one! We played in the sand and frolicked in the sea, even me! I was exceptionally brave, I played in the cold water with Boba Fett and at the tide pools I picked up 2 hermit crabs because every one else was too afraid. Not to mention posting a picture of me in a bathing suit on my blog. And then we stacked rocks the kids are getting pretty good at it I asked Boba Fett to put his head close to the rocks for the picture. he is so funny! The weather was so fine, the sky was clear, it was the perfect day at the beach. And when we got home it was the perfect night to sit on the porch in the twilight.
"Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? 'Tis not so; all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight? Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake; And soon we'll have this tale to tell- All is well! All is well!"
Life has been really hard lately.
Nothing terrible has happened and we are all healthy and happy it is just that life hasn't been as charmed these last few months it once was. The other night I was lying in bed thinking, and I realized that a LOT has happened to me in the last 6 months, some of it good, some of it bad and some of it neither good nor bad, but they have all been hard things. All of them take some adjusting. I got out a paper and pen to write them down and there were 38, right off the top of my head, 38 hard things. Regardless, I am sure that I look much older than I did 6 months ago.
Some of the good things were moving into my dream house, having my sister move to town, having my parents come visit, my dad buying me an amazing mailbox, my eldest son turning 10 and having a great response to my hair accessories. I had a wonderful Retro Housekeeping Party and a lovely inaugural Memorial Day barbecue.
Some of the neutral hard things were having my brother-in-law move in with us for a month, trying to set up a new house and be friendly with the new neighbors, I put my house up for sale, showed a house for 3 months while living in it with kids, I moved house. I have to live without my washer and dyer and refrigerator until the old house sells.
Some of the bad hard things were my sister breaking my heart and getting married without any of her family there, my old house still not selling and watching home sales plummet since the day we put it on the market, My tooth troubles reached a peak with a crown, mercury removal sickness, residual pain and extreme sensitivity = pain.
I had find a job. Looking for a job was one of the most humiliating things I have ever had to do. Finding a job is not easy these days (especially after a 10 year hiatus from the work force) and the indignity of on-line applications knows no bounds. It wasn't the fact that I had to look for a job that was humiliating, it was the way I was treated, disrespected, patronized, taken advantage of and ignored.
After a month of job searching all I had to show for it was 3 severely neglected children, 2 interviews at The Spaghetti Factory but no job and finally a job as a contractor for a sewing business, which was not fun, barely paid and from which I was fired this week. I am an outstanding seamstress and I was fired. Fired! I can't even get a job and the one measly bit of work I get I can't even keep. I used to think I would be able to make a living if I needed to and now I feel pretty useless.
Which leads me to mention my sewing rut. Things are not going well in my sewing studio these days. Everything I make has a dreadful flaw and takes twice as long to make as it should. It happens to everyone and normally, I would just it off to bad luck and persevere, but suddenly my sewing needs to pay and my time is money. The sweater I have been working on since Christmas is still an UFO.
And money, when you have 2 mortgages to pay, houses to maintain, a new house to furnish, and 2 yards to maintain, money becomes annoyingly scarce and I find myself really worrying about what will happen if the car breaks down, or if someone gets sick or if ANYTHING unexpected happens.
To top it all off like a moldy banana peel on the top of this pile of kitchen waste is the fact that this has been the coldest, wettest, most gray spring ever. Portlanders come together to complain about the weather, usually we don't talk about the weather, but we all reached our limit in May and this June stuff is driving us mad. We say things like "Can you believe this rain?" In Portland! While I was picking up strawberries at a stand this week I was trapped under the tent for 10 minutes while I waited for the hail to stop. My kids were 5 feet away in the car.
I realize that all in all I am very blessed and my troubles are small compared to others. But it has been a lot to handle in 6 months and I am really feeling the strain. I know that the Lord is preparing me for something, trying to teach me things and I am trying to accept it all gracefully, but it doesn't make it less hard to get through it.
There have been so many blessings in the midst of all of this turmoil and I am grateful for them every day. I have 3 wonderful, beautiful, healthy smart children, a loving husband who is a great provider. I live in the promised land. My husband has a job. I live in my dream house.
As I was watching General Conference the phrase "The mother should not work outside home" kept running through my mind over, and over, and over again. I feel so blessed that I haven't had to work outside of the home, that was a special prompting and I am glad that I have so far been able to follow it.
I have wonderful friends and family who have helped us through all of this. Relationships have been deepened and strengthened. Love, joy and service abounds.
So I try to keep my chin up, focus on the good and keep plodding along. Sometimes I think simply "All is Well."
And our food storage. This afternoon the bishopric announced that there had been an imaginary earthquake yesterday and the Stake Presidency has challenged us to live off of our food storage for 6 days.
I. Am. So. In!
Here are the rules I am setting for myself. If it is in the house we can eat it. If it grows in the yard, we can eat it (too bad I haven't planted a garden this year.) We will be drinking water from the faucet. The milkman comes on Wednesday, I am still going to get milk but I will not open the new bottles until Saturday night - that means from Thursday to Saturday I will have to use my wits and my freezer. Electricity and all of my appliances and kitchen gadgets are approved. Seriously, there is no reason to be extreme.
I am so glad that my bomb shelter food storage room looks like this:(Hey, I just moved in)
And that I adhere to the food storage maxim "Store what you eat, eat what you store." Trader Joe's I love you! And that I have plenty of sweeteners. Challenges I foresee:
I tried to get to the Farmer's market yesterday for fresh veggies but I kept getting sidetracked by garage sales and I never made it. We have very little fresh veggies right now.
Trader Joe's did NOT have any flour tortillas last night so I will have to make my own. Not the same.
When I went to get eggs at the farm this week, they only had 1 dozen so I have 10 eggs for a week of living off of food storage. Maybe my friends that have chickens will bring me a housewarming gift of eggs? Gifts totally count.
I only have 1 bag of chocolate chips.
I have kinda been dipping into the food storage since we put the old house on the market to save money as well as to make more room so some of the things I THOUGHT we had we may have eaten.
Let the games begin.
P.S. The Bishopric is glad that we all survived the earthquake.
I am a huge fan of service. I have a testimony of the blessings it provides for the giver. Providing services reaps nearly as many blessings as the receiver. I find that nothing cheers me up as quickly as serving another.
Lately my ability to provide service has been less, it is hard to step outside your self when you feel like your sanity is hanging by a thread. Though I have found some ways to show the Lord's love to others in the past few months the bulk of my service has been in the way of providing opportunities for others to serve. To serve me.
Next week, we will be moving into our new house and we will be providing opportunities to serve by the bucketful. I look forward to it.
But even better news is that I can see myself being in a position to give service in the very near future.
In the meantime I invite you to share the blessings service with my dear friend who started a new blog 52 Weeks of Pies, wherein she will perfect the art of pie making and reap the blessings of random service. I love it! Really, I am so impressed with this idea. I might just try and think up a way I can serve every week. Thanks for the inspiration.
When discussing my obsession (otherwise known as the fabulous house on which we have an offer accepted) I keep saying to my friends "I don't deserve that house" and they always come back with an enthusiastic "Yes, you do!" While it is very gratifying to know that all of my acquaintances are certain that I deserve the best house in town, I think that I am not expressing my feelings correctly. What I think I really mean is that it is too good to be true. An illustration, if you will: It's like you are an ordinary girl and you somehow find yourself engaged to Cary Grant. You aren't quite sure how it happened but there is a ring on your finger and Cary Grant keeps hanging around, making eyes at you, declaring his love etc. You discuss things like guest lists and honeymoon destinations. It really looks like you are going to marry Cary Grant but you can't quite figure out how you managed to hit the jackpot. You feel a bit wary because how could Cary Grant even notice you let alone pick you out of all the stars in Hollywood? It just feels to good to be true and you are really afraid that Grace Kelly is going to show up and change his mind.
That is how I feel about the house, incredibly grateful, lucky and wary. Suspicion?
I realize that my story is preposterous because as everyone knows, Cary Grant wouldn't wait for a wedding, he would elope.
Monday I popped into Target to deliver 24 rolls of Advantix film canisters to have the images put on a CD. Advantix was a film fad of the early 2000s which we were a party to much like the disk camera I had as a tween which I earned by selling greeting cards door to door. I have lurking suspicion that in 10-15 years (or maybe less) no one will know how to get those images off the rolls and my son's babyhood will be lost!
They wanted $100 for the job which was not something I was going to spring for so the gal at the counter did some fancy trickery with her calculator and said she could do it for $45 but I would have to come in on her shift and she also loaned me an obscure battery so that I could get free the final roll (which includes the first moments of Boba Fett's life which have never been seen) from our broken camera. She was SO NICE. Thank you Target Lady!
On Monday, the guy in the produce section of Albertson's said that he would save me some boxes to pick up on Tuesday. On Tuesday, the guy who looks and talks like Chris Rock was there instead and knew nothing of any boxes for me. Hopelessly discouraged I went to Trader Joe's where after a preliminary "We crush our boxes as we go" they found me a dozen wine boxes which are perfect for packing books of which I have 750 so you know, boxes are important. So nice, why does anyone shop anywhere other than Trader Joe's? Thank you Trader Joe's!Today, I was having a morning where everything was going wrong, the climax was when I was rushing to the car with a piece of peanut butter and jelly toast balanced on each hand and then they toppled and landed face down on the gross garage floor.
No breakfast for us.
On the drive I hear "Goody Two Shoes" by Adam Ant on the Radio and it changed my whole attitude. Suddenly I was no longer thinkng about all the bad thing that had happened but was thinking about dancing instead. Thank You 97.1 Charlie FM!I then stumbled upon a knitting group that meets in the rec center while Nutmeg has her ballet class. They were so nice and friendly and loaned me a tapestry needle as I had forgotten to bring one. Definitely a better way to spend the day. They said I should join them. I think I will. Thank You Knitting Ladies!
Nutmeg has been really trying us lately. She used to go to sleep all by herself in her own bed with no problems and stay there. But lately we have to lie with her for an hour before she will sleep and then woe betide us if she wakes up and find that we have abandoned her. I am the one that puts her to bed and have been getting so frustrated with her because after bedtime is Mommy Time! I am anxious to get to my knitting and my movies and my snacks and chats with Moose.
We had been resorting to tactics that go against my core parenting philosophy and it felt bad.
The other night it dawned on me, instead of lying there frustrated with her while reading easy fiction or browsing blogs I could use that time to study the scriptures. I have been unsuccessful in finding a time that works for me and that is seriously hampering my goal to rejuvenate my relationship with my Savior. So for the past few night Nutmeg has gone to sleep without tears and have been reading the scriptures pondering and praying. What a blessing! See, it is all how you look at things.
This is what has been touching me this week, The Relief Society Declaration. This is often overlooked and forgotten but it is so key to who we as Sisters in Relief Society are.
THE RELIEFSOCIETY OF THE CHURCH OF JESUSCHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
are beloved spirit daughters of God, and our lives have meaning, purpose, and direction. As a worldwide sisterhood, we are united in our devotion to Jesus Christ, our Savior and Exemplar. We are women of faith, virtue, vision, and charity who: Increase our testimonies of Jesus Christ through prayer and scripture study. Seek spiritual strength by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Dedicate ourselves to strengthening marriages, families, and homes. Find nobility in motherhood and joy in womanhood. Delight in service and good works. Love life and learning. Stand for truth and righteousness. Sustain the priesthood as the authority of God on earth. Rejoice in the blessings of the temple, understand our divine destiny, and strive for exaltation.
I particularly love the lines "Our lives have meaning, purpose and direction" and "Find nobility in motherhood and joy in womanhood."
---Cary-Grant,-Joan-Fontaine-791379.jpg)
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