No response

Ok so I'm not going to take it personally, but it seems nobody is interested in getting a free homemade something from me. I really don't mind that no one wants to do it because it is similar to those chain letters or emails where if you comment an action is required on your part. So no hard feelings. My friend did the pay it forward on her blog and I thought it sounded fun.

Instead how about everybody who reads this does something nice for someone else. Look around your house at what you can get rid of that might be of use to somebody who may be in need. There are so many people out there suffering from job losses and decreased living expenses. I think when the time is dire and you personally feel like you don't have much, that is the time to give.

Another rant

So pardon me for always having an opinion on everything but I was thinking a lot about this subject this last weekend. I have been trying to get my house in order and de-junk by getting rid of things and activities we:

a. don't need (or)
b. don't have room/time for

In part of my effort I went to a successful mothering convention that had classes on organizing your home (and life) and classes on losing weight and various other ideas to get you motivated as a mother. I loved the convention and I am going for sure again next year. They had so many tips to help you get more done in a day and talked about getting rid of excuses and just finding the desire to make your life more what you want it to be. But as I was sitting there listening to women give ideas on how to save time by not taking as many trips upstairs while cleaning, and then listened to the next give motivation for exercise I felt that they were both missing the most important talent that women possess, multitasking.

Yes I am a believer that we should clean our houses everyday (even if I don't get it done all the time, by darn I try). And I also believe in trying to exercise every day. But I have discovered out of necessity that both can be incorporated into each other. Just like parking at the back of a parking lot can increase the number of calories you burn. Being a disjointed scatterbrained housewife can and does burn calories as well. I actually make an effort not to bring all my children's clothes up the stairs in the same trip after folding laundry. It is kind of fun bounding up the stairs as fast as I can only holding my daughter's shirts, and then bounding down again to get the items for the next drawer in her dresser. I have to admit that I think about the extra calories that I am burning. It is the same with cleaning up a room. I could put all the things that need to go upstairs in a basket and make one trip, granted that does make more sense. But if I run the toys upstairs one at a time I can actually feel my butt lifting (pardon the unpleasant mental image).

When I lived in my last apartment there were no stairs and again I took advantage of what was offered. There was a long narrow hallway from the front room to the bedrooms. I would just hold the laundry up on my chest and squat and do a basketball shuffle to the bedroom and then back to the get the next pile. The extra advantage to this calorie burning exercise is that if you think of how truly silly you must look you get an ab workout laughing at yourself.

One of the better tips at the convention was to categorize your shopping lists so that you get it done faster. The thing the presenter didn't count on was that I've tried doing that before and I find it more satisfying to run from one end of the store and back again several times. That not only (burns calories) but it tires out my three year old. See I get three things done at once. I get the shopping done, I get a free workout and I get a child that is ready to nap. And people say that children grow out of naps, they just don't know the appropriate schedule to ensure they will always take naps.

I know I am weird and part of me just doesn't want to listen to other people, but these are the things that were going through my mind as I sat and listened to these awesome speakers talk about really smart ideas. The realization I came to was that I am incredibly self centered and I also must have a short attention span and try and entertain myself when my attention lapses.

Anyway, all you scatterbrained housewives out there, take solace in the fact that you may not get things done as fast and efficiently as you could, but hey, you burn more calories and have a lot more fun.

Matching blankets

Obviously these blankets don't match each other but they match their own corresponding paintings in the last post. The first matches the alligator and the second matches the Lion. I sized the blanket for my youngest so that it would fit perfect in her crib. My oldest's blanket I sized to fit her toddler bed. As you can see I don't think very far ahead. I figure that I'll just make bigger blankets for them when they are in bigger beds.
I'm kind of proud of these blankets because I designed them myself and mostly made them with remnant pieces of fabric that I buy whenever they are dirt cheap. So at the risk of sounding conceited I really wanted to show them off a little. You know how it is when you are a stay at home mom. You don't get a paycheck or bonus for what you do and you don't get grades to praise you when you do something well. I figure blogging is the only way to get praise or acknowledgement from your peers.

My girls paintings!

So this blog is generally my writing blog but I have decided to start posting some of the other creative things that I do. I love to paint and these are two paintings I did for my girls for their rooms.

I love art but don't have alot of time to devote to it. The only reason that I was able to do these paintings is because I made them as presents for birthdays and Christmas. I also made matching blankets for them that I should post too. I just have to take pictures of them.

Too many words!

Ok it's official. I talk too much. In what medium you may ask. The answer is complex, this blog, the phone, to neighbors, at church, around family... ok you get the picture. I am way too superfluous with my diction. So I am going to salute Walden today; I would like to post a poem. (Although Thoreau certainly didn't embrace simplicity in regards to words:-)

Romantic Walks Down Hospital Corridors

Diagonal tiles line the long hallway,
Alternating: green, cream, green, cream.
He is watching his purposeful shuffle,
Leaning heavily on the intravenous connection,
That mechanical being closer to him than her.

She is alone while walking beside him,
Chattering and squeezing his hand at irregular moments.
She does not make eye contact,
For her smile is unbelievable.

Meandering down one dark corridor,
She raises her hand, wiping his forehead;
She raises his hand, kissing his IV;
Their walking is what matters: nothing else exists.

Tana Horton (Vol. 23, Metaphor 2004)

The art of understanding

It is no secret that tough times are upon us. Recently I was talking with someone who is suffering greatly from this worsening economic climate. She is going to have a baby in three months and her husband got laid off before Christmas. She is having a difficult time coping. Luckily she works in a profession where she will always be needed, but she is worried about what will happen when her baby comes and physically she will need to be there for her child. She wants to breastfeed and wants to only have to work a little. Unfortunately her husband is having a hard time finding a job. While talking with her I was trying to lessen her fears and help her maintain a positive attitude, for the sake of her baby. She is a very tough person and if there is anyone made to cope with challenges like this it is her, but it brought to mind a subject I have been pondering of late. The challenges each of us face always seem hard to us but they are either obvious or impossible for others to see. Each person has their own struggles. While it is easy to see that this particular person's struggles are great, it is harder for people to acknowledge that those who are struggling in different ways are indeed struggling.

I was relating to my brother how scared I was because someone my daughter plays with had lice. He almost laughed right into the phone. He said "If the worst thing you have to deal with right now is whether or not your daughter might have lice, than you've got it easy." While what he said was technically true there was a certain something missing in the delivery of his sentiment. It is difficult to be in a situation where everyone knows you are struggling, but I think it is just as hard to be in a situation where you are struggling and everyone suggests that you shouldn't be having a hard time. It is easy to feel for those who are struggling financially, but it is harder to feel for everyone who is struggling in their own ways.

Compassion shouldn't be reserved for a certain tax bracket. It is something everybody needs. Just because people make a lot of money or even just enough money it doesn't mean that they do not have challenges. Denying certain people compassion because they aren't struggling in the most obvious of ways is unfair and sometimes downright cruel.

Now I am not suggesting that my brother was being cruel to me. I think in that situation I needed a little perspective thrust upon me. It is very important to count blessings. When most of us were little were we not reminded that there were starving people in the world to ensure we appreciated meatloaf. It is important for every person to consider what is good about their lives. That is what I shared with the person who was struggling in the above situation, I tried to point out where she was blessed. It can help people to know that everything will be ok. But the delivery of perspective should be a delicate procedure. It should be tempered with compassion, so that they understand that they aren't crazy for being worried in the first place.

One of the greatest lessons I have ever learned is that people crave understanding. Even if a situation seems silly to have elicited a certain response, it was elicited. You cannot change the way you feel about something until you acknowledge how you feel about it. That is why I truly believe that trying to understand a person's situation is the absolute best way to help. Trying to walk in someone else's shoes is the best way to make someone feel better.

For example a few months ago my toddler threw a fit over eating a burger we bought for her one day. She told us "she quit" in regards to the burger. Now our immediate response was for her to "get over it" and eat. We had paid money for that burger and she was going to eat it. After stopping though and examining why she didn't want to eat it we discovered that it was overflowing with mustard. Really there was more mustard than burger. If we had stopped and wondered why she didn't want to eat the burger we would have discovered that and fixed the problem and she would have eaten her meal without any problem.

Now some people would say she shouldn't have reacted so strongly to such a small problem, but the reason the reaction was so strong was because their was no understanding. If we had inserted just a small does of understanding she probably wouldn't have thrown a fit in the first place.

My point, and I hope I have communicated it clearly, is that everyone should practice giving out more compassion and less advice. Even though it may seem (and it may really be true) that someone shouldn't complain about washing out poopy outfits, because in the grand scheme of things it's not really a horrible problem, it did make that person upset and compassion should be exercised. The best and sometimes only way for a person to be happy is for them to feel like they aren't crazy for having the feelings they have and then they will be free to try and improve their attitude towards their own personal trials.

Everybody struggles with different things. No one person's struggles corner the market on suffering. If money brought happiness than no movie stars would commit suicide or suffer from depression. Indeed some peoples struggles do take precedence over others, but that doesn't mean you should eliminate all compassion for anyone except those in dire need. I think the answer is to give higher percentages of compassion to those who are struggling to provide for their basic needs. Then give lower percentages of compassion (but still a percentage) to those who are struggling with less pressing issues.

I bet I can find more pieces than you!

So Christmas and New years are over. Did you hear that, yeah that was a sigh of relief from me. I love the holidays, they are awesome. Family, friends, music, food, lights and who can forget chocolate (it has a separate category from food because it occupies a special place in my heart). But lets be realistic, being close to family for a long period of time has it's down side. My family is well informed, funny and extremely fun. I laugh ninety percent of the time I spend with them, which is a good workout considering the other ten percent I spend eating. The downside to such an entertaining group is part of what makes them fun, the competitive spirit.

This Christmas my brother and his wife and my sister and her husband traveled to stay with my parents during the holidays. I live close by and spent almost everyday of the last week there with my family and my girls. My older brother is a hardcore gamer and brought rumikub, scrabble, and sequence to play during his stay. My sister and her husband are into gaming as well and gave my brother a real estate game and brought St. Petersburg (with an extension) and a few other games I can't name off the top of my head.

A fun game here and there is really quite an enjoyable way to pass the time. The interesting thing about my family is that they seem to be competitive about who has the most stamina regarding board games. It seemed that every moment of the day needed a game going or my dear brother was unhappy. Even that would be tolerable if those playing didn't treat the games with deadly seriousness. Such is the case with my family. We are blessed (from both sides of the family) with intense competitive drives. This makes for at least one terribly happy player and several very unhappy losers. I must admit that I was one of the unhappy losers the majority of the time. I grew into darker shades of the least graceful loser as the days rolled by.

I really don't like myself when I get like that. Even as a child I would play games with my cousins and my aunts and uncles would be slack jawed at how brazenly broody I became if things didn't go my way. My sisters and I broke at least two doors in our house growing up because a game didn't go our way. For this reason I have tried (unsuccessfully) to stay away from board games. My friends would ask to play a game and I couldn't refuse because I was trying to build friendships. Then twenty minutes into the game I would start calling people "buts" and getting a look on my face that would scare any adult alive. Most of my friends were forgiving but a few would be so shocked that they would start laughing and taking pleasure in my own displeasure. So then my strategy changed for controlling my angst, win, at all costs. The only way to avoid my dirty little personality flaw was to avoid the circumstances under which it unveils. So I got to be very good at games, and only played with people who didn't care so that I could win as much as possible.

That strategy was a good one, with anyone except my family. Not only do my own siblings care more than life about winning, but all of them (with me as the exception) married people who incredulously seem to care about it too. The tension in my parents house seemed to rise with each game. For a while most of us tried to put on the uncaring face when we lost. That lasted a few days, then came the insults. Once they marched in it was over. So finally this last Monday I told my family that I was sick of games. I decided we were going to relax and do some puzzles and watch movies. Sounds like a good idea right, NOT. My dear, dear brother came downstairs and started to insult my sister and me on our puzzling skills. Then, oh my goodness, he looked at his watch and said "Whoever finds the most pieces in the next ten minutes is the best." Yeah, this is my family.

The capstone of the holidays was on New Years Eve. Finally all our family was together. My other brother and his wife came to join the rest of the group for our annual treasure hunt. Usually our family New Year's Eve treasure hunts are a group effort with a huge group of fifty or so searching for clues in the city and around the suburbs where my parents live. But of course this year my father was in charge. He always splits everyone into teams. Which usually works well if you consider for a long time the personalities of each person and carefully assemble the teams. But of course my father didn't want to make anyone mad and allowed everyone to make their own teams. This consisted of my siblings and I forming a team, and each of my fathers siblings to form teams with their families. This left the most competitive people in the family all on one team. It was an interesting night. Lets just say that we broke traffic laws, forced open a video store after closing time and defied the laws of physics to win the contest and we were not gracious winners.

So here is the question of the day: How on earth does one learn to control genetic programming that places extreme competitive natures in people who can't seem to handle it? If you figure it out, please let me know. I am at a loss and extremely embarrassed over my behavior this last week. How anyone puts up with me, I do not know. I guess it's a good thing my family is related to me, they have to love me. Even when I behave so poorly I can barely call my behavior adult.