The other day I was cleaning the kitchen. It was a long and frustrating task. You’ve heard of people being color-blind? My family is trash-blind. They do not see trash. It is invisible to them; it blends into the flotsam and jetsam of all the stuff surrounding it. So I was tidying up. I found the hotdog rolls in the hotpad basket. I found a hard crumpled roll behind the breadbox. I found two (2) empty papertowel tubes. Yeah, I don’t know why the person who was kind enough to replace them with a full roll of paper towels was unable to take two extra steps and throw the empty tubes away … but there you have it … trash-blind.
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Then I found this:
Emergency Vampire Garlic
Yes, that would be LightGirl’s handwriting.
I almost fell out laughing. I will keep this for a long, long time. Maybe it *will* keep the vampires away. Kinda like clapping your hands keeps the polar bears away.
Later on LightBoy and two FlamingLambs came through giggling and laughing, chattering happily about what Halloween costumes they had planned this year. LightBoy is going to be a dwarf, one FlamingLamb will be a devil, I missed the other descriptions. They all inspected the garlic and agreed that it was an important addition to the kitchen. The conversation continued as they discussed a neighbor girl who does not celebrate Halloween, “… she’s Catholic and thinks Halloween is of Satan. She just follows what her church tells her to do without thinking. But she’s nice anyway.”
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Wow. Out of the mouths of babes. We used to not *do* Halloween. We used to go along with the whole Halloween is evil thing. I never quite understood it, because I’ve always known about the real history of Halloween and understood it’s roots as All Hallows Eve … that is the eve for All Saints Day. I’ve always understood that the history behind dressing up in costumes and putting candles in hollowed out pumpkins was in order to frighten evil spirits away, not call them down. In any case, in this day and age, I was always a little confused about the whole evil spirits running rampant on Halloween thing anyway. It seemed a little … well … medieval.
On the other hand, I didn’t want to make waves over something so insignificant. So we went along with all of it. We kept our children safe and sound and went to “Harvest Parties” at church. Truthfully, I never saw what the difference was. All the children got dressed up, ran around getting pumped up on too much sugar, and came home with bags full of candy. The only difference was they’d stayed in one place doing it … and had boring, dorky costumes.
Then I got belligerent. If there truly was something wrong with Halloween, we plain old weren’t going to do anything at all. One year we went out to dinner with friends. Another year we went to the mountains. Then I began to realize … there’s nothing wrong with Halloween. So we decided to celebrate it.
My kids have been pirates and witches and cave people and this year LightGirl wants to skate as a vampire. She is infatuated with vampires this year. There is that last tiny part of my brain that wants to me to be afraid of this. The rest of me is assured that this is a phase. In part it is a phase of exploration of something new and shiny. In part it is to test me and see if I will holler. So I just look at her when it comes up and try not to roll my eyes at the ridiculous makeup. Choose from our wide range of modafinil forms tailored to your specific needs: – Modafinil tablets: Convenient, easy to take, and perfect for busy individuals on the go.
Here is the other reason I am unconcerned. I know her heart. During the years that we did not do Halloween, I was told that it was important to keep my children safe so that they would grow up to be “Godly.” I’m still wondering what that means. I thought I knew what it meant at the time. At the time, what I did know was that it was important to keep my children separate in order to be safe and thus become “Godly.” If they were not separate they would lose that chance … somehow. It was a weird and strange logic as I began to really think it through. There were some sane underpinnings to it, despite the oddness. But the stark command that I could not get past without bruising my forehead on it, was this:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. ‘There is no commandment greater than these.”
I began to consider that loving God and loving our neighbors included living and being amongst them … including on Halloween. That there was nothing to fear. And so … there is nothing to fear. Including vampires. LightGirl’s heart is wonderful. She is of an age now where she is struggling through who she is and what she believes. She is discovering what her faith is and what it will become. But I rest easy in the fact that she has the heart of a Jesus-follower. She does not know this yet, but she loves God and she loves her neighbor. She has learned and is learning the role of being a light in the world. I see this played out over and over again as she brings her teammates together on her hockey team. It is a remarkable thing to see 11 or 12 eleven, twelve and thirteen year old girls who get along and do not form cliques. The parents all shake their heads in wonder at this … but I know that a very small part of the reason is that LightGirl wanders amongst them with her shepherd’s heart looking for the lost sheep; pulling them back into the flock. And that is the best vampire protection of all.
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The October 24th SynchroBlog includes 26 people sharing their thoughts, their experiences, and their expertise on the subject of “A Christian Response to Halloween” (or at least something remotely connected to that idea.) Perhaps not all the writers are Christian, and that is actually even cooler. Please check out these offerings of love, and gore…uh, I mean lore.
The Christians and the Pagans Meet for Samhain at Phil Wyman’s Square No More Our Own Private Zombie: Death and the Spirit of Fear by Lainie Petersen Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping John Morehead at John Morehead’s Musings What’s So Bad About Halloween? at Igneous Quill H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-N Erin Word Halloween….why all the madness? by Reba Baskett Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent Hallmark Halloween by John Smulo Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings Sam Norton at Elizaphanian Removing Christendom from Halloween at On Earth as in Heaven Vampires or Leeches: A conversation about making the Day of the Dead meaningful by David Fisher Encountering hallow-tide creatively by Sally Coleman Kay at Chaotic Spirit Apples and Razorblades at Johnny Beloved Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground Fall Festivals and Scary Masks at The Assembling of the Church Why Christians don’t like Zombies at Hollow Again Peering through the negatives of mission Paul Walker Sea Raven at Gaia Rising Halloween: My experiences by Tim Victor’s Musings Making Space for Halloween by Nic Paton
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.
Oh … bother, as Winnie the Pooh might say.
I’m at the part of the project where I’m bored. I’m just bored. There is nothing more boring than white primer and white ceiling paint and cutting it all in in excruciating detail. Bored.
Bored.
And the children are crabby. I’m offering them to the highest bidder. They are sitting in the next room crabbing at one another and calling each other the.
most.
vile names.
When they are not whining and crabbing at me. They are supposed to be doing their school work. One of them will not be allowed to go to her beloved hockey practice this evening if she does make substantial headway on her missed schoolwork from yesterday (she was illin’). The other one has proclaimed that he is now “hall monitor.” I’m not certain what he is monitoring. Perhaps the flies which have taken over the house. In any case, if you’d like them … come and get them. They are making me crazy … and since I’m already bored, this is not a good combination.
Here’s what the livingroom looked like this morning … and it won’t look much different tomorrow. White. Blech. I want to lay down the color. I am impatient and stiff-necked. Like an Israelite.
I seem to have become popular lately.
With spambots. It’s quite an honor. Not.
So I’ve done some tweaking of my spam-o-lator. I hope it doesn’t affect of you, my adoring fans ;-). If it does, please let me know. I’ll retweak.
I’m going to back to painting and my usual role … meanest-mommy-in-the-world. I’m making my children do their school work … when they have a cold. What a horrible mother. I’m teaching them how to persevere and other nasty chores.
I have to keep reminding myself to breath. There just doesn’t seem to be time to do that. I’m running, running, running and getting nowhere fast.
A recap of the last three days.
Tuesday. Wake up at 4:30, pack the last few things. Shower. Get in the car and sit for 10 hours. Arrive at home at 3:30. Check the house … the house doesn’t look nearly as clean as I thought I’d left it. But it is … I’m just slightly neurotic. Unpack all the dirty clothes and sort into hampers with the LightChildren. Get back into the car with hockey gear. Go to hockey practice. Re-connect with team and parents. Make certain discoveries about a dinner of crow that I must eat. Return home for twenty minutes. Run out to another meeting til about 10:15. Second meeting a complete waste of time.
While en route to second meeting (this meeting is at Curves and is part of a non-diet guided eating program I am participating in), I see a very large and obese woman driving in a car near me. She is eating something scrumptious. I immediately become jealous and angry with her. What is WRONG with me? Now I’m jealous of large, overweight women?? Because they can eat whatever they want without dire consequences. I, on the other hand, suffer bags of hot nails when I eat scrumptious things. There is no justice. Not that I actually **want** to blow up like a blimp, but … you know … I also want some ice cream. I am having to face my inner demons of emotional eating. They are legion. When you really do only eat to live and can no longer use food as a tool to assuage every other emotion you have … well … then you have to actually feel the other emotions. It can get dicey. Let’s just also say that these last several days have been those particular days when a woman has *lots* of extra emotions to feel and leave it at that.
Wednesday. Wake up at 6 a.m. and wonder what on God’s green earth is wrong with me that I’m up so early. But I’m going to run with it. Make a “to do” list. It looks do-able. Start on the “to-do” list. Get side-tracked by breakfast. Get sidetracked again by attempting to locate cereal which was mis-packed from trip home. Continue this downward spiral. Eventually end up writing e-mail, making phone calls and then eating breakfast by 10 a.m. Remember that meal of crow? Yes. That too, was eaten on this fine morning.
Leave at 1 p.m. Take LightBoy to Latin class. Go to my counseling session. It was a good session. Several epiphanies were illuminated and I felt lighter. Return to pick up LightBoy and do some block design with BlazingEwe and another friend. This turned into some supportive counseling for all three of us. Return home. Turn around and take LightGirl to another session of hockey practice. Home by 9:30.
Today. Up at 6 again. Screw the to do list. It just highlights my shortcomings. Take LightGirl to her follow up orthopedist appointment. She has been released to full play. No goalie yet. She has to be able to drop and get up without using her stick for support (about another 4 to 6 weeks). Come home. Fight with the printer to print ONE page. Lose the fight. Go to Staples for school supplies and to laminate a couple of things. Fight with LightBoy over booksock. Win the fight. He pouts. Return home for lunch. Leave again for my annual physical. My doctor is very concerned that I have not been recuperating from my little bout with pancreatitis very well. She says I need to see the gastroenterologist … like … tomorrow. Not next month. So. I am. Return and spend time with Blazing Ewe. Go to grocery store. Have dinner. Fight with LightBoy over spinach salad. Win again. He doesn’t pout.
One interesting thing happened while I waited for my doctor’s appointment. There was a young boy about LightGirl’s age also in the waiting room. He had on a very nice pair of sneakers. He also had a cell phone. All of a sudden, I noticed he took off one of his shoes and put it on a chair. He stood up, backed away from the chair and took a photo of his shoe with the cell phone. Now … I don’t know about any of you … but I am dying to know why he took that photo. There just has to be a good story there.
Tomorrow, I go back to the doctors … the gastro’s at 8:15 a.m.
I just want to get into the school room and clean it up. I need to plan next week. I want to get some organizing done so we can get this show on the road. It’s just killing me. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.
It’s just been a killer re-entry … that’s all I can say.
UPDATED Sept. 3 to include photos from the slightly famous LightHusband.
Today was a momentous day in our family.
It was the 106th anniversary of my grandmother’s birthday. She’s been dead for seven years, but I still mark it.
Nooooo … that wasn’t it.
Today we took LightGirl to a local tiny airfield and she rode in a glider. She had a fabulous time. This was an early fourteenth birthday gift from her own grandmother, LightMom. Her cousin who just turned fourteen also had a glider ride to mark her fourteenth birthday. So to mark their coming of age and their great-grandmother’s birthday they flew up in the air with remarkable ease. They loved it.
We had a marvelous time watching and the weather couldn’t have been better.
There was something coming-of-agey about the whole event that I didn’t really anticipate. The glider is towed up into the air by tow-plane. Once the plane and glider are at a certain height and place (the two pilots know what the right place is) the tow-plane releases the glider and the glider then rides the thermals for a while.
I thought about that as LightGirl walked away with the glider pilot and nonchalantly got in. The tow plane and glider lifted off and she was gone for a while.
That’s what college will be like. We’ll take her away to be under the tutelage of other older adults. They’ll tow her around for a while. Sometimes she’ll be in direct contact and they’ll be towing her. Sometimes she’ll be on her own. But she’ll be gone for a while. Then she’ll come home. Pretty soon the periods of time that she’s gone will grow longer and longer and then she’ll be gone and on her own. She won’t need that tow rope anymore. She won’t need an older pilot helping her either. She’ll be ready to fly all by herself.
It’s not too much longer now. I hope I’m ready.
I am scattered today. My mind is skittering around and trying to process several things all at once.
One of the things that I’ve been sorting through and want to do some more reading about (if I can find it) is a theory I’m beginning to nourish about the differences between the Celtic Church and the Roman church during the 500s and 600s and just why was Pelagius declared a heretic? I wonder if it had a lot more to do with who he represented than what he thought. But I’m still thinking and reading and need to organize my thoughts before I can do any serious writing about it.
We had dinner with some friends up here last night. It was funny (weird), but I’ve known about these people all my life. Just now we’re becoming friends. Another person dropped in towards the end of the evening. I’ve also known of him my whole life. But not known him. They all knew and hung out with each other all summer every summer. Their families summered here. I just came to visit my aunt for a few days here and there each summer. Sometimes I’d spend a week. We had a conversation last night about the gangs they ran with. To them those gangs had been all inclusive. To me, I could never find an opening. LateComer declared “Oh, if we’d known you were here, you’d have been part of us.” None of them remember me; they remember my youngest brother. But I remember them. Which leaves me wondering … am I really that withdrawn?
I remember the first time I took the MBTI and got the Introverted result. I thought it was wrong. But now I as I look back over my life and remember all the times I’ve tried so hard to be outgoing and failed. Or gotten it wrong. I remember being shoved out, off the porch to “go find the kids, they’re all over the place.” But I just could not do that. I wouldn’t know what to say when I got there.
So I’m trying to put all that together. It felt like a sucker punch. It wasn’t meant that way. LateComer was trying to make me feel belatedly included. But … the reality hit hard.
I’m continuing to recuperate, but not as quickly as I’d like. So thoughts like this … “What if I have pancreatic cancer?” keep springing into my head. I have to say them out loud so that LightHusband can help me push them away with the reality of this takes a long time to recuperate from. But I have a strong imagination, it likes to win.
My cousin and her children came to visit yesterday. It was fun, but too short. Next year, we’ll gather here again for a longer day. I will feel better and be able to do more.
The next big battle to fight with LightGirl is getting her into some decent clothes for Thanksgiving dinner in November. I’ve got 84 days. We’ve invited LightHusband’s parents, siblings and their families for the holiday. So far it looks as though everyone will come and they’re all excited about it. My 11 year old niece exclaimed, “I’ll go if I have to drive myself!” And it’s an 11 hour drive for her … But this side of the family dresses for holiday dinners. So. LightGirl will need something appropriate. Not made of tissue paper. Not looking like a ‘ho from the ‘hood. In other words, nothing from any of the local or on-line shops for girls her age. I will have to make it. Not a big deal for me. But it will take some … (how shall I say this?) … negotiating. So … let the games begin.
As I may have mentioned here before, my family gathered together this weekend. We usually do this once a year. We try anyway. It almost didn’t happen this year because of sundry different events in all of our lives. It wouldn’t have been the end of the universe, but we would have been sad. We don’t make a huge deal of this gathering, but we do attempt it. It’s important to each of “us kids,” for different reasons I suspect. But important nonetheless.
My brothers amaze me. Both of them and in different ways. My youngest brother was such a goof growing up that I never really could imagine him as an adult. But he’s an amazing adult … yet he’s never quite lost his sense of wonder and silliness that make him so much fun to be around. He’s the one who simply decided he wanted to learn to sail. So he took the little sunfish out into a 12 mile an hour wind and made the boat go. It went backwards at first … for quite a ways. Then he made it go forwards for a long ways. Then he got it turned around and came back … after he tipped over a few times. But he did it. I’ve wanted to sail my whole life, but I doubt I’ll ever have that kind of courage. He never sits still … and when he does, he falls asleep. Just like he did when he was a kid. He runs a tent rental and party goods company in western Massachusetts. But he’s not content with that. He’s also building temporary structures all over the country. Oh … and he’s making new structures for the Red Cross to use instead of tents for the next hurricane season. They are like small houses and they’re beautiful. So much better than tents and can be stored in cargo crates like they put on 18 wheelers to be trucked to where-ever at a moments notice.
My other brother already lived one life as a vice president for a blood products and testing company. He made enough money to take a year off and travel around the world. When he came back he got married and now he’s running and building the jam company that my parents started. Oh … yeah … and he’s refinishing a house while raising his family. This involved taking off the roof of the house to add another floor to it. Literally … raising the roof!
Now both of my brothers could not do what they do without the help of their wonderful wives. They are both married to strong women who support and push them to greater things than they could do on their own. You know … the sum is greater than the parts, yadda, yadda … They are fortunate to have married well. I am fortunate to have gained sisters-in-law who fit into our family so well. I am fortunate too because we have such a grand and diverse group of nieces and nephews.
Here’s a picture from my favorite time this weekend … it was after dinner on Saturday night when LightMom, LightGirl, my oldest niece and I all did the dishes together. I washed, the girls dried, and LightMom did the organizing of dirty dishes … she kept the goods flowing. We had some great conversation … some of it was light, some heavy. But it was all good. The girls whined at first, but then we got to talking and they pitched in.
We had a really great time and the dishes flew. The time did too. LightMom observed, when all was said and done, “You know, one of the worst inventions has been the dishwasher. It took away the talking time.” I agreed with her. There is something about sharing a task that allows people the freedom to talk in ways that they don’t otherwise do. In particular, I treasured that evening because my niece isn’t always terribly open. But she was with a dish towel in her hand. In that room with her grandmother and her aunt and her cousin … and a task to perform, she felt safe enough to talk a little about the things that were on her mind. They weren’t terribly big or important … but the fact that she finally opened the door a crack was a treasure to me. It reminded me of the value of working together and doing small things together.
Those are the things that build a relationship and give it a foundation. Some how it’s not the fun, but the work that brings us together and keeps us there. I wonder why that is?
One of the good things about being a mother is that I get bragging rights. I don’t use them often. I like to save them for just the right occasion.
Today is one of those.
We’re having a rest and recuperation day. This weekend was fun. We had my whole fam damily here. As soon as they left, LightHusband’s mother and father arrived with nieces and nephews from his sister’s family. Then his sister and her husband came for dinner. So last night we had dinner for 12. Dinner for 14 on Saturday. Dinner for 12 last night. Yep … we’re ready for a low day. So it’s fishing and sewing and swimming and reading and …. what. ever.
LightBoy casually announced that he was taking his pole down to the Big Dock and drowning a worm. Here’s the result:
A twenty inch large mouth bass! (LightHusband guesses it might have weighed over three pounds!!) Which he hooked, set, and caught … all by himself. Then he released it to live to tell the tale another day. But the grin tells the whole story. He’s one happy guy.
