Today is the day …

Trick or treating for LightBoy in the guise of Fimli, Gimli’s second cousin (that is, a dwarf of MiddleEarth). He is beyond excited. I’m not certain what beyond excited is, but he’s there.

LightGirl, on the other hand, has hockey practice. But things are are looking up for her too. She is, for the first time since late June, playing in the goal for practice. We think her knee can manage that. It’s a short practice. She is also excited. I put together goodie bags for the girls who eschew trick or treating to come to practice. This is a surprise for them. It is also possible that I’ve put too much candy into these bags. I tried to balance it out with some lip gloss and nail polish and CoachWonderWoman is adding some sillystring (and more candy). But after all, Halloween really is all about the candy.

Here’s LightGirl with GoalieGirl … our new goalie. Yes, she is wearing LightGirl’s jersey. She borrowed it for team photos that were taken last night as her red jersey has not yet arrived. They have become really good friends.

Well … it’s a great day.  My much maligned Red Sox have won the World Series.  LightGirl won a game and so did LightBoy.  For a woman who ordinarily doesn’t pay any attention to sports, it’s quite a day.

I was amazed that the Sox won so handily and quickly.  They did well this year.  I watched from afar.  I never hope for too much.  As a Red Sox far since I was a child I learned young.  They fold after the All Star break.  But not in 2004 and not this year.  Who knew?  Every win is a surprise and delight and every loss expected.  I’m such a pessimist when it comes to baseball.  But you know?  When you’ve had 2 World Series championships in 3 years … but the one before that was in 1918, you kinda get a little cynical.

To my friends who are Rockies fans … I am sorry.  Just not very much.

So, here’s to the Red Sox …

And here’s to LightGirl and her team.  I watched something truly remarkable happen this weekend.  I watched a group of girls learn how to play as a team.  I watched synchronicity happen.  They won too.  But the best part was watching them finally “get it.”  Yeah … that was grand.

Here’s my young woman … playing hard last Sunday morning against a tough team. I’m pretty proud of her and her whole team.

Today we’re off for another hockey, hockey weekend. LightHusband and I are taking the Girl up the coast to LibertyCity to play two games and watch a professional game. We found that the NHL hometeam developmental club (or American Hockey League) team is playing tonight. So we’re going to see that game as a team. What fun. LightBoy is staying here with his friends on his team.

Maybe I’ll get Leopard installed next week … sigh!

We have two pets. Hmmm … well … that’s not quite true. We have two animals that are considered pets and then we have a fish tank. So if you count the fish in the fish tank, I don’t know how many pets we have. I don’t count the fish. So we have two pets. They are Sam (the golden retriever) and Monty (the black cat).

Sam is also known as Samuel Allen Dawg. That’s his registered name … he is registered with the American Kennel Club. Samuel Allen is for the man who was Ethan Allen’s father. Ethan being the Revolutionary War hero … um … not the furniture store. We added the Dawg because you have to have three names for the AKC and we couldn’t think of anything else. It seemed appropriate.

Monty is also known as Montgomery Montgomery from the Series of Unfortunate Events. He was born in our laundry room on Patriot’s Day 2005. He is a beastie cat. He yells a lot. He also purrs a lot. This has saved him from many trials.

Today, as I heard Monty yelling from across the field that he wanted to come in the house (the door was already open), I remarked, “That cat is dumber than a sack of hair.” Which sent LightBoy into gales of laughter. When he recuperated he said, “Mom! That cat *is* a sack of hair.” We were eating lunch out on the deck. It’s wrong to be able to eat lunch outside in the end of October. I’m enjoying it, but it’s wrong.

Monty has been in one too many cat fights lately and he’s looking a little raggedy. His back end looks as though a five year old took after him with a set of electric clippers … and the clippers lost. We imagined what it would take to make a set of cat armor for him that would work. He needs to let his fur grow back. But I don’t imagine he’ll stay inside for vanity’s sake. Does anyone know where we can get some kitty kevlar?

After lunch we came inside and settled into our seats in the family room. The door to the deck was open. The wind was blowing. Sam is worried. He keeps watching the door waft back and forth. What is making that door move? No one is standing anywhere near it. He looks at me. He looks at the door. Why is the woman not worried about that door? Why doesn’t she see it move? The door should not move! Make it stop!! The door keeps gently moving. Now some papers flutter in the breeze. Oh wait … the breeze fans his feathers and he likes that so he forgets about the door and faces the wind. Then … the door moved in his peripheral vision again and the worry returns. I watched this for a while bemused.

Our pets are a source of almost endless amusement for me. Especially Sam. I wonder what it would be like to not understand the wind. To see a door move and worry about it’s source. Then I think … maybe that’s why the church is struggling so right now. We do not understand the Wind. We see it move a door and worry about it’s source. Instead of just enjoying the Wind and allowing it to blow and letting the Wind curl around us and embrace us, we worry about it. Maybe we should just relax and let it be.

It seemed like it might be a good time to have a lighter post.

Over at relevantblog, Mary asked: Quick: What were you doing ten, twenty and thirty years ago? … But I read about it at the center holds when Sherri asked the same question … and it’s intriguing to think about. So …

What were you doing ten, twenty and thirty years ago? Here’s what I was doing …

Ten Years Ago – (October 1997) LightGirl was three and LightBoy was 6 months + old. I was at my wits end with him. It’s pretty likely that he was screaming and I was crying. He was the world’s most miserable baby. I remember looking at him at about this point in his life and I told him that I was really mad at him for being so miserable because he was the last baby I was going to have. He stopped screaming every waking moment the instant he learned how to crawl. He’s been a happy guy ever since then. Those first 9 months were exceedingly difficult.

Twenty Years Ago – (October 1987) LightHusband and I had been married about two months and we were just moving into house in Arlington, Virginia with a housemate. All the wedding gifts meant we’d outgrown our apartment (also in Arlington) and we hated apartment living anyway. We loved that house; it had an enormous backyard, but it was at the end of a deadend street and we sometimes witnessed drug deals taking place across the street from our front porch. Our neighbors were a group house of people about our age and so we had a community garden with them. And we sometimes had joint parties and other joint activities between the houses. It was a blast.

Thirty Years Ago – (October 1977) I had just started my junior year of highschool. It would be the last year I was on the gymnastics team and the last year I was on the softball team. I was probably fretting about the PSATs. And not fretting about my grades. My father was chairman of the schoolboard. I was on the advanced track in math and science. I babysat to earn spending money. I did a lot of babysitting. The going rate was $0.75 per hour. On a really good night I’d earn $5.00.

Now -October 2007- I’m a homeschooling mom, managing a hockey team and cheering two hockey players, who does some art quilting on the side. Life certainly is strange.

So … here’s what Mary says for instructions …

It’s an experiment to see how many degrees we can separate (kind of like Kevin Bacon, only it’s relevantblog). Even if you’re not tagged, don’t be crabby, just take up the baton and run with it. Here’s what I ask: Have folks post their 10-20-30s, and then link back to the Mother Ship (www.relevantblog.blogspot.com) or write a comment here, saying where you heard about this experiment and sharing where you blog. This isn’t to build my empire, it’s to find out how far we can expand the blogosphere. After all this talk about blog tours, it got me thinking. How many people can one blog potentially reach?

Mary tagged people and told anyone to play. Sherri just told anyone to play along. I think I’m going tag some people and say that if you’ve read this far you’re also tagged … let me know that you played in comments. Let’s see how far this can go!!

Doug, Patrick, Julie, Erin, Che, and Paul

Our new bed arrived. It’s beautiful … as may be seen in the photo below. Of course, I think it’s enhanced by my “We Can Learn Alot From Geese” quilt that is gracing it. For those of you who like such things, that quilt is made with all pre-1900 reproduction fabrics. The greens are a so-called poison green which I love. The blocks came to me from a block exchange in the summer of 2005. I belong to a loosely defined group called the Historical Block Society. We make and exchange quilt blocks. That summer we made flying geese blocks that just about killed us. I asked for blocks that were set with poison greens. Others asked for blocks in blues, or reds, or yellows, etc. Everyone in the group looked askance when I asked for poison green. But now they all agree that I have the most striking quilt. Hah! It’s what you get for thinking outside the box.

So, Julie, I did clean our bathroom (before I read your comment and likely at a similar time as you 😉 ). It had also been … well … also a long, long time (I don’t want to think about how long). And it feels good to have a clean bedroom and bathroom again. Sherri, I think you’re right about being in the middle. I think I’m going to be in the middle for a long time … because now I/we are about to paint the bedroom and the family room (in no particular order) and I spent a good deal of yesterday ordering blinds for the masterbedroom, guestroom, and family room and fabric for new curtains in the family room. And Cindy, there must be something to your theory as well about home makeovers and grieving being similar. I wonder if we don’t grieve the old as we’re bringing about the new?

I did also get to spend a good deal of time yesterday with a good book … Patrick 😀

I’ve been honored to be a pre-publication recipient of Patrick Oden’s It’s A Dance. So I’ve been reading that lately. It’s really quite good … which is not a surprise to me, because I’m familiar with Patrick’s writing through his blog. Yet it is a surprise. It’s A Dance dips, sways and sashays through scripture and novel and textbook … not really one or the other and yet somehow all three. I’m not nearly finished yet, so I won’t do a proper review … but it’s quite good and I heartily suggest that you put in your pre-order now! I think it’s available here and here.

The LightKids have been on their own this week and it hasn’t been good. We need to get back into a learning routine, which will involve they and me cleaning out the school room. On the other hand, some learning takes place even when school is not in session … for instance:

Science sometimes happens out on the deck … when nature shows up.  In this case a praying mantis came calling.  LightBoy obliged and explored.  He tried eating and feeding the praying mantis.  I’ll leave you to determine which was more successful.

I don’t know.

The grand living room project won’t get finished. It made me angry at about the sixth coat of red. And I got tired. So now it’s waiting for the trim to be painted. I need to finish it.

The whole house is in shambles. It feels as though the monsters got out from under the beds and had a rumpus like the one in Where The Wild Things Are.

LightHusband’s parents, siblings and families are coming for Thanksgiving (40 some odd days from now). And the house is in shambles … rumpused, as it were.

Worse than that, I am rumpused. I am torn and lost and tattered by the events of the past year. Grief continues to assail me at the worst possible times. Smaug is generally quiet. I can do all the things a functioning adult is supposed to do. But I am sad and tired.

Every so often the thought of sneaking into the back of a church for a service crosses one of our minds. It would be good to be amongst the faithful again for a little while. But I cannot bear the rape of my soul that goes along with it.

So the droughth continues.

We have passed reasonable …

We are into silly.

Yesterday we put coat number FIVE of red onto the livingroom walls. It needs at least one and maybe two more.

I made the discovery through talking to another hockey mom that there is a special primer for dark colors. After four coats of red had been laid down. She also told me that friend of hers had painted a room red once.

It took EIGHT coats of paint.

Sigh.

This is why it is better to purchase paint at paint stores rather than large conglomerate, chain, hardware stores. The employee at a paint store might have informed me that such a primer existed and would be preferable for using underneath a strong color … such as red.

Sigh.

In other news, we got a phone call yesterday and were happily informed that our new bed is coming.

Two weeks early. Now I need to finish painting the livingroom so I can paint our bedroom before the new bed arrives. Here’s the new bed … it’s quite beautiful. We bought our first bedstead used, when we were first married. This is our 20th anniversary gift to each other. We’ve been looking at it with longing eyes for three years now.

I’m exhausted! Up at 5:30 both mornings. Out the door by 7 to go to the first hockey games of the season. LightHusband was out the door even earlier with LightBoy to his practices. The first game was at our home rink on Saturday. The second game was an hour and a half away in Maryland on Sunday. LightGirl scored her first goal on Sunday. Here is the celebration:

As you might imagine, this proud mama whooped it up in the stands for a solid minute. She played a good game yesterday. Strong and focused. All the girls did. They showed up with their heads in the game. It is so amazing to watch these girls play this game and do a good job. I love it. I love watching them be strong, think hard, and overcome places where they were weak previously. I love watching them grow. It makes the early morning sacrifices pale in comparison.

Up for conversation between LightGirl and I during our journey … “Mom, do you think that the girls program at our rink takes second place to the boys program?” Of course, she asked this question during the part of our journey where I had to pay attention to directions. But. I had to answer in the affirmative. Yes, honey it does take a back seat. But there are several reasons for that. First of all it’s a young program. It’s still building and growing. Second. Like it or not, hockey is still primarily a boys sport and girls aren’t as welcome as we’d like them to be. It’s changing, but it’s slow. We talked about how much she likes having Coach Wonderwoman (the only woman coach in our club) as her coach, and the only woman coach we face. We also talked about how Coach Wonderwoman *is* a woman in a man’s club and that makes it hard for her. That alot of people become uncomfortable when women take on roles that are perceived as “men’s” roles. She wanted to know why. I wish I could tell her.

I repeated the bones of this conversation to some of the moms I sit with in the stands. We are of an age together. We talked about the failure of feminism in this country. That we pay lip service to women being equal, but really we are not. There are few women leaders for any of us to look up to. The women that are out in front are set up to fail (Hilary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice being the two I can think of off the top of my head). They are also forced to play by the men’s rules and thus look harsh and ugly. Bitchy. We don’t like women leaders because they are not feminine. The manner in which women lead is entirely different from the manner in which men lead. However, women in leadership are not allowed to fully engage in that leadership style. They are forced to play by male rules in order to gain power. There is little parity.

I wonder how change will come about? What will it take? I hope it is the small things like playing hockey and learning to lead each other by their own standards rather than those of males are the things that will help bring the genders together. I don’t think we need to replace the male with the female … but that we need to enhance the male with the female. That it takes both to bring about good decisions and right leadership. Someday. Someday soon.

So. Painting is indeed taking longer than I thought. It always does.

The green wall is finished. It is a lovely pale shade of celery. I held up one of the drapes next to it last night and felt very accomplished.

BlazingEwe and I just finished putting the first of (maybe) three coats of red on the remaining walls this afternoon.

More tests required more doctors visits this week. More in the future. These have slowed down the progress on the walls. And have made me crabby. Crabby enough that LightBoy passed me a note last night. It said, “Go fabric shopping tomorrow.”

Instead I called my friend and asked for help painting.

Tomorrow LightBoy has early hockey practice. LightGirl has an early game. The first game of the season. The same goes for Sunday. More painting in the afternoons and hopefully we will have finished up by the end of the weekend. I’ll post a photo of the progress tomorrow. It really is pretty. I’m just tired. And, have I mentioned? Crabby.

There also seems to be a dead carcass stinking up our backyard. This also makes me crabby. I do not like smelly backyards. I do not like smelly dead carcasses. It is one of the reasons I live in the suburbs. Really. It is. I endured enough of those as a youngster on the farm. Yuck. Eweth. It must go.

I’ve joined the BlogRush rush. It’s the thing to do. Since everyone is doing it and I have to keep up with the Jones’ I decided I would. So that little widget thingy is there on my sidebar now. May everyone’s traffic increase.

UPDATE:

Pictures of the livingroom as of yesterday evening … more layers of red to happen today.

You can see the new drapes in this one … they look really good with the paint.  I’m looking forward to putting it all together.