Quoting a quote. Recording a thought.

from Anne Lamott-

My priest friend Tom Weston says that God's will for each of us is to have a
life. "And it is up to us to go and get one. Find some work, some love, some
play. Taste things. Be of service. Feed the hungry and clean the beaches and
clothe the naked and work for justice. Love God, love your neighbor. Help build
a world where it is safe to be a child, and where it is safe to grow old. And
love cats, and the occasional dog." I think this pretty much says it.

I periodically return to this pondering-- the living of an "ordinary" Christian life instead of a high-rollin' Full Time Ministry lifestyle. It is a beautiful thing to us-- though still uneasy at times-- to put ourselves at His feet with the rest of humanity, without the special status and influence that comes from being a vital part of a church (as volunteers or staff).

One of ye olde pastors wrote my husband recently, asking for his take on our Orlando experience and whether there were hard feelings. It gave us a few weeks of intermittent pondering, prayer, and struggle. (Truthfully, the struggle was mostly my husband's-- as Wife, I was an am essentially a nonentity to these men; my opinion has never been a matter of interest.) What do you say, when the four years there were four years of conflict, drama, power plays, strife, and galling unlove? He implied that we should feel warm and fuzzy and peaceful and want to go on fishing trips with him, and that he sensed that maybe that wasn't true, and that troubled him.

Bizarre. We spent years trying to share our concerns, our needs, our panic, with our leaders. He acts like it's all a mystery to him. I'm all for forgiving everyone involved, and will continue to do that (it is a process, I admit). But no fishing trips or warm fuzzies are going to be forthcoming to assauge anyone's sense of guilt. Simply put, your church, under your leadership, was a nightmare for us.

My husband wrote a beautiful, measured response last night and sent it, and I hope (but doubt) it closes the discussion. Quoting it here would certainly get me into trouble, so I won't. But I am tremendously proud of him for the way that he said those things.

And tremendously glad that we're saying them from here, rather than being embroiled in the drama there.

too long it's been, young jedi.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It has been a long time...

It's midnight, I drank coffee at 8 pm, and it looks like I'm in for some insomnia as a result.

Good time for some catchin' up, I suppose.

New Old House:
We love living alone again. The house is not as expensive to heat as we'd feared (ie as my father had direly predicted). It's an enormous project, overwhelming at times, but we love it. The yard is full of flowers and lilac bushes and an enormous arching dogwood (blooming now) that takes my breath away every time I see it. We have a small problem with the refinishing job on the wood floors, one I need to schedule a visit about this week. Oh, and our renter's insurance was mysteriously cancelled by State Farm last week. But that should be easily fixed or replaced.

Someday, I'll write about what I learned last week about its original builders-- a childless couple who owned a hardware store on the square. But I want to save that to be written well, as it deserves.

Bird:
She is amazing. Talking a little, running around like a banshee, full of fun and mischief and will. Her favorite things are watching the Sesame Street Old School DVD episodes, taking baths, eating just about anything, and most especially running around outside and getting dirty. I am a little toddler-tired, and beginning the season of Weathering Tantrums Without Giving In, but so thankful and blessed every day that I get to spend my life with her. She is a wonder.

Orlando Houses:
Hooboy, not good. Our downtown home is still for sale. We thought we had a workable offer last week, but the offerers had misunderstood or misrepresented their financing qualifications. Our financial belt is tight, and getting tighter. Our tenants seem unable to buy the other house, and will be leaving at the end of their lease May 31. (They say they could have the money together by the end of June, but if they're wrong, that would ensure that we miss the best season for house-selling almost completely, and they're $40,000 short at this point. They've had a year to get their finances in order for this, and they haven't done it. I don't know what to do other than follow through with the deadlines we set, which means that they need to get ready to move out.) Which means their last rent payment comes in this week. Which instills a bit of panic in my breast, at the thought of having two houses for sale. We're sweating. But our best bet is to get that house ready and sell it early in the summer.

The downtown house is a big question mark right now. Why hasn't it sold? It's beautiful. We may drop our price again (we dropped it last month, which generated a lot of interest but no offers) and see if we can just get out of this. It's cost us so much money it makes me ill.

I hate feeling like we made a bad decision when we bought that house. It was a very good idea if we were going to stay in Orlando, which we believed we were at that point. But a year later, we'd decided to leave, and now, a year later than that, it's still up for sale. I worry that God's trying to teach us something, that we're not depending enough upon Him or displeasing Him and causing Him to not act on our behalf. Then I remind myself that that kind of secret blackballing is not the God I know, not the God that has been so good to me in my lifetime. I fret, I stew, I stay up too late at night worrying. Like this.

Enough said. Onward.

Health:
My attendance at a water aerobics class faded away with the move, and now that we're not residents at my parents' house, it would cost me $40/month to resume. Can't afford it. I'm trying to hoof Bird about in the stroller a few times a week, trying to do an exercise video occasionally, trying to eat well. Doing fine, I guess, but I feel less empowered about my health and shape these days. Oh, and we do all have health insurance again, which is good for one's peace of mind-- Husband in particular had been without for about two years. So, we survived that little gamble, thank God.

Dog:
Just lovely, greying a bit about the muzzle and sleeping more as she gets older. Eight and a half years now-- easing toward old age. Peeing and sniffing all over her 1.8 acres with abandon whenever she's allowed outside. (Need to build a fence to better protect our two Outdoor Gals when our finances stabilize.)

...Assuming they do stabilize. (Back to money again.)

This is a long season of bated breath and trying to be assured of what's hoped for and unseen at this point.

He has always been faithful to us. I dislike the doubt that creeps into my heart over this. We truly have made the best decisions we knew how to make as we moved here.

So we wait, and try to feel out what our next move should be. Trying to be full of faith, not anxious, believing that whole Romans 8:28 thing.

It's getting harder as the weeks drag on, though.

Oh, to be in O-town again...

Well, it's finally happened-- something makes me long with all my heart to be in Florida this week.

Best of luck to our little buddy in his public debut. My husband had a great (if sometimes bewildering) time teaching him guitar while we were there.

I always wanted to see that restaurant, too.

Good thing my beliefs don't determine my hairstyle.

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Reformed Evangelical 57% Fundamentalist 57% Emergent/Postmodern 54% Neo orthodox 39% Roman Catholic 39% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Classical Liberal 36% Modern Liberal 14% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

...What's funny is that the results indicate I'm more Reformed than my husband, which we both know is not true. Other than that, not much of it interests me. Pretty simplistic quiz for the complexity of the results, in my opinion.

The ripping out of carpet has finished. The wood floors have been refinished and are beautiful. We're painting windows and baseboards and door frames. I'm sore and very tired of being so busy. We've decreed that, once we move in, no home projects will be attempted for at least a month.

But even in my exhaustion, I am excited. A home again!

Not quite dead yet.

Hi, I'm not dead. Just wanted you to know.

My mom retired, my babe switched from two naps to one, and suddenly there's less time for writing during the day. Also, I'm knitting sweaters for babies like one obsessed, which takes up evening time that isn't spent working. Also, I've been ripping carpet and ancient linoleum out of a 90-year-0ld house with my bare hands.

(No, we don't own it yet. I'm a house-half-bought optimist.-- get it? Glass-half-full? Oh, never mind.)

So this little spot's being neglected.

But not forever. I'll be back in a week, maybe less. I semi-promise.

Thrumming. Caveat. Family. Poverty.

I should be working right now.

Instead, I'm sitting here thrumming inside, thinking about all that still needs to be done to get us into the house. Much to do, many inspections to schedule, money to be obtained and spent.
But, oh-- to have my own house again. To make my own coffee in my own mug and sit on my own front porch and drink it. Utter bliss.
~~~
I'm a little nervous about my New Year's post. I won't take it back, and I'm not sure I want to delete it, but I do worry that it's possible for people to find it who might be hurt by it. I truly don't want to hurt anybody. But the vast internet can be a small place sometimes.

So, you: you who have read it, have some connection to the situation described, and are hurt or shocked or similarly affected:

Please ask me questions before you make assumptions about what you read.
(You know what happens when you assume, after all. And who wants to be one of those? Not me. And not you.)

Thanks.
~~~
Happy thoughts tonight:

We moved when the bird was just five months old. Bird's grandparents saw her first steps, heard her first words, fed her her first cookies. They will help teach her to read, help teach her to garden, and teach her the value of family.

She has a great cloud of family surrounding her-- from both her dad's and her mom's side. Every few weeks, she gets to visit (or be visited by) a cousin, an aunt or uncle, or other family. As she grows up, she'll not just hear about how much she is loved by her family-- she will experience it. I won't be telling her stories about her extended family-- her extended family will. She'll know their faces, their voices, their laughs-- not just their pictures-- by heart.

I know not all babies are as blessed, and not all families are conducive to this kind of joy in relationship-- but she has a wonderful thing going here. And the brother or sister (or multiples thereof) that follow will enjoy the same blessings.

Even with all the upheaval, financial stress, and life-reordering, I would still do it again in a heartbeat for even half of the benefits we're receiving because of it. I am, in a sense, deeply thankful for all the hurt and betrayal and conflict and disenchantment and misunderstanding we've experienced-- because it has led us back here.

Isn't that amazing. God intended it all for good-- for the most wonderful, rich, amazing good.

Fabulous.
~~~

My husband went a-thrifting today and came back a little dismayed by the poverty he saw-- using thrift stores, not as a source for hipster fashion, but as a source for basic needs.

There are many families who live desperate and isolated lives here, especially out in the mountains. I know that poverty existed in Orlando, but something about the layout of its neighborhoods isolated and hid the need there. We were insulated from all the hurting people. They had their own grocery stores, their own parks, their own missions and churches.
Here, the need walks right past you at wal-mart, or bumps into you while you're hitting the garage sales. It's a bit disorienting, just like the men in overalls were the first night we arrived and stopped at Walgreens.

Or maybe the better word would be "reorienting."

I hope that there's something we'll be able to do to help.

Consumption.

Hmm. Linky links:

This recent post, from a favorite blog.

And this, about a commitment I've been interested in all through 2006.

And this.

I know I can't buy nothing new, since we'll be moving into a new house.

But how close could I come to it?

Hmm.

Happy New Year.

My husband and I are not big resolution types, but here's one that we have lying around on hand for just such an occasion.

From this year forward, we strive to be unremarkable, ordinary, unworthy, unobserved Christians. No more fronting Jesus Rock Bands for hundreds of screaming fans. No more speaking at retreats. No more breezy PR newsletters to financial supporters full of carefully chosen (and excluded) details about the remarkable results of our Life In Ministry.

(What would those newsletters have looked like if we'd been honest? In a nutshell: "We aren't getting full paychecks, and couldn't live on them if we were. My wife is having panic attacks, and our leaders could care less as long as I'm still productive in my church work. Speaking of those leaders, I am being manipulated and lied to by men that I thought were my friends and role models. Our church just committed to a building that is going to cost it its financial security and become an idol to be worshipped and sacrificed to. That same hipster church makes most of its members feel unhip and unwanted. Many of the mature members are leaving, leaving mostly spiritual babies behind. We're finding it difficult to do our jobs-- draw people into a church-- that grosses us out. We're standing up for what we believe is balance and truth, and we know it's going to risk our career in ministry-- and also our future, because now I'm having my own anxiety attacks that dwarf my wife's by comparison, my blood pressure is through the roof, and my health is shot to hell." Hooboy, would those have been interesting reading.)

Back to that resolution. We want to learn contentment-- no, joy-- in living out the gospel daily without a Master Plan of Spectacular Results-- or a spiritual heirarchy above us doling out approval or disapproval based on our usefulness to its own Master Plan. We will be love, salt, light to the "least of these" even (and especially) if it will not advance our own causes, popularity, power, or sense of piety.

...From Jim Palmer. I haven't read his book, but I'll likely check it out after seeing this:

“God has been trying to free me from the burden of doing something spectacular for him. It has a way of distracting you from the opportunities to be salt and light where you are…I’m starting to recognize that I am immersed in a sea of hurting people every day. If I simply pay attention and follow the promptings of the Spirit in all these little ways, my life is ‘ministry.’” What is at the bottom of our need to do some “great” thing for God? Why do we tend to discount or not value how God works through us along the everyday paths of life?

Hoorah for the everyday dirt paths. No more spiritual tollways for us-- the price is just too high.

Yurty yurt yurt.

2006 is the year of many things for me.

The Year of the Move Back to Our Roots.
The Year of the Baby Bird. (She was born in November, 2005)
The Year of Nomadic Life.

All of that is fairly obvious to anyone who knows us.

But it is also, for me, the year of Yurt Dreams.

My first yurt-sighting was in the documentary about the Weeping Camel. Amazing film, but the homes of the families kept snagging my eye. Beautifully mobile, simple but with richly painted supports and beautiful textiles. I was intruiged.

Then I looked up yurts online, saw the modern versions, and was absolutely smitten with the architecture and light and space. I started seeing yurt references everywhere. There were even yurts on LOST last summer. I felt haunted by the idea.

I researched yurts as vacation lodging, yurts as vacation homes, yurts as full-time homes. I researched prices, builders, building code issues. At one point, I started drawing floor plans.

Why I want so much to own a yurt is beyond me. I know it can't be as fabulous as I imagine it to be. I've seen pictures of everyday yurt living, and it looks kind of cluttered and awkward-- straight furniture butted up against round walls. I know there can be moisture problems, heating and cooling problems.

My husband laughed at my obsession, and I've pretty much abandoned the idea.

But then I see pictures of their ceilings, and something in me, again, sounds that clear note that I feel when I discover or learn something that's pivotal. (He's going to laugh at this paragraph, too, when he sees it.)

But why do I feel like that?

This idea from a British mom on Flickr who messaged me recently makes me tear up tonight.
Children, gardens, bread, and a yurt as community playspace.

Hmm.

I hope he fed his children with that $150.

Our realtor called today-- first time in months he's called on his own initiative. Offer-hope rose trembling in my heart until I heard the tone in his voice, and I could tell it was not good news.
Our a/c unit, located in our backyard, has been vandalized. Busted into, the condenser coils stolen for scrap metal. The thief makes about $150, and we're out a $2,000, two-year-old a/c unit.

Can you believe that? No fingerprints due to rain, no evidence. Our homeowners' insurance should cover it, but there will be a big ol' deductible. I'll call tomorrow to find out how much. So frustrating, when the house is already bleeding us dry financially.

The more frustrating issue is, once we've had it repaired, the house is still basically untended. The thief could very conceivably return and double his money. We're going to have to lock the back gate in hopes that that will be enough to keep it from happening again.

Oh, God, please sell our house. We need to be out from under this.


~~~

Other than that, life's been good. The babe is a total joy, other than her persistent desire to eat houseplant dirt and play in the dog's food and water bowls. The holidays have been fairly simple, due to my family's decision to white-elephant the giftgiving this year. And we're enjoying our perhaps-church-home more and more as we keep going (on the weekends we're in town, anyway). We have a New Year's invitation to a party with people our own age, which feels nice, and I have a couple of nice surprise gifts for my husband and daughter, which is fun.

I went to a Christmas service underground on Sunday night, in a local (tourist) cave. Flute and female voice only. Absolutely beautiful acoustics. I will reuturn next year, with friends.
(I love our area's limestone caves. So amazing, to know that underneath our calloused, unknowing feet are caverns and rivers and waterfalls and all sorts of wonders that we are never aware of. This one had been used for moonshining, so its ceiling was blackened in one area, and many of the stalactites were broken off for souveneirs decades ago-- but it's still astonishingly beautiful, even abused as it's been.)

~~~

Oh, and that house? Yes, we're going the home-equity route. Financially, it's not the cheapest move, but life is not all financials, dadgummit. Consider this:

• We have been living in my parents' basement for eight months. EIGHT. LONG. MONTHS.



• My husband longs to be "the man" in his own household again, and I long for it for him (although it's far easier for me to live in my childhood home on my parents' dime than it is for him).



• We deeply miss our stuff, our winter clothes, our other pairs of shoes, our own pictures hung on the wall, cooking our own food. It is amazing how much we missing the little beauties and comforts of the life we've built together over the past eight years. I cannot put words to the ache we both feel, but we both feel it.



• We miss time alone with our child, and the joy of having friends over for dinner and hangouts. Both of those are awkwardly difficult to impossible to achieve while living here.



• We've found a house we love, a house that now has other interested potential buyers. In the year I've been hunting for a home in this little town, I've seen nothing that suited us as well. If we don't "rent to own" it now, another family is clamoring to do so.

The decision's been especially hard because my parents are not going to completely understand. My dad is the king of thrift, and he thinks this is wasteful-- to say nothing of his opinion on buying a 90-year-old house. And I hate to displease him.

We are deeply thankful to my parents for their generosity. We are happy and comfortable here. We love them dearly, and still love them, and have been blessed financially and emotionally by our stay with them. But all that doesn't change the fact that we feel a real need to establish our own household here.

The day that we pretty much made our decision to pursue this, a friend called who, like us, has escaped Florida ministry and found a new life in business in his parents' hometown. He and his wife rented an apartment, then found their perfect home (also an old house). They're paying double right now-- rent and house payment-- because they didn't want to lose the opportunity to own the house. They're completely at peace with this.

"Life is not all dollars and cents," he said, and something in my heart sounded a clear note. (So much of our hearts sound a clear note with theirs-- we love being their friends.) There is peace in this decision for me, even if it costs us some money. In the five years we've owned houses in central Florida, we've made more than a little money. We have some to spare, and I'm okay with "wasting" some on this.

It's hard to displease my parents, but I am thirty-two years old. You can't live your life to please your parents forever.

And oh, how we love that house. We will be so happy there... even though our lifestyle, until the house sells, will be an exercise in How Cheap Can We Possibly Live to keep that home equity line of credit as low as possible.

We'll be eating beans and rice, wearing layers, stripping ugly wallpaper, staying home and playing board games on the weekend, but we'll be in our new home.

...it sounds just lovely to me.

First steps today.

I am so proud. She's so excited, big grin on her face as she totters her few steps, soon falling.

She's brave. She gets up and tries again, not just when we prompt her. She wants to learn this, and it's working.

Life changes now. My tiny baby, she toddles. Goodness.

(We also took her this morning to get her picture taken with Santa-- a fundraiser for Children's Hospital. She didn't cry or even reach for me when I plopped her on the big man's lap. What a sweet, curious, brave girl I have.)

I'll figure out later what on earth I'm going to do now that she's completely mobile-- and beginning to shriek when she can't have her way. For tonight, I'm just proud of my little Bird.

To remember.

You'd woken suddenly, two hours into your nighttime sleep. You screamed in that way you scream when you don't know why you're awake, don't like being awake, and don't know how to quit being awake. I held you as you struggled, trying to whisper and sing to catch your attention, stop the crying. Nothing was working.

And then I had a thought. And we stepped over to the window, turned the plastic rod on the blinds, and the grand, soft, white world was shown to you. White hillsides, black trees, soft gray sky.

You froze, settled your head on my shoulder, and sighed a little tiny sigh. I held you, mesmerized, as I watched you drink in the beauty of your first snowfall.

A few minutes later, I turned you away from the window, just to see. You lifted your head, shifted your weight, and laid it on my other shoulder-- your face now pointed toward the window again.

I didn't move again for quite a while.

Bird, you saw what I see in the snowfall tonight.

That was pure magic for me. Thank you.

Here comes the ice, doo de doo doo....

The house is shaking with the ferocity of the thunder as an absolutely amazing arctic front moves into town tonight. This evening after dark, it was still over sixty degrees. It's still pretty warm at 51, but we're supposed to get down to 36 by midnight, and 36 is the high for Thursday, with 18 being the low. I think that means that it will only get colder and colder and colder.

At least 1/4 inch of ice, followed by 2 to 4 inches of snow, they say. I'm not planning to drive, that's for sure.

It's bad form to glory in bad winter weather around here-- Dad's worked for the highway department for 35 years. When the roads are bad, he has to call his employees away from their families and endanger them. He hates it.

So imagine me whispering when I say this:
It is so fun to have snow coming and nothing to do but cozy up with some hot chocolate tomorrow and watch it fall. Yay.

Our first snow in five years. Bird's first snow, ever.
~~~
I've been buying Christmas gifts for parts of our families this week online. It's fun. Spending money online is always fun to me. You ever wanna blow some money, just hand me the cash.
I found out that my brother-in-law's six kids (four adopted) rarely get personal gifts from their extended family. People tend to buy them all a few movies to share, or give their parents gift cards to spend on them. We decided, come hell or high water or dwindling bank account, that we were going to make sure those kiddos knew that we love and think of each of them individually this year. I've been shopping amazon and the disney website and ebay for them. I'm finally finished-- and now I know what Hannah Montana is can say that I've bought a Japanese comic book online.
~~~
Buying Bird gifts is also fun, although it's challenging to find something that she'll love and play with long-term. She changes so fast. I've gone a bit retro with her this year-- I bought her some beads that remind me of some I had as a baby, a set of cardboard "bricks" that have been fought over in kindergarten classrooms for decades, and about seven hours' worth of 1970s Sesame Street episodes (ie, NO ELMO until she's old enough to request him herself-- let's delay the annoyance as long as possible). I think I'll enjoy them all at least as much as she does.

It took him a while to hit the floor, but he got there.

Toddler tantrums are amazing things to me. As a mom about to enter this phase, I view them with a combination of curiosity, dread, fear, and horror-- not unlike the universal desire to peer at the carnage of a wreck as one drives by. Because in a very literal sense, THAT COULD BE ME. Soon.

But this particular little Halloween tantrum is so well-documented that it mostly just made me grin. Don't you feel just a little sorry for him? After all, he'd been told that there WERE no Stormtrooper costumes. And obviously, once they reached the party, he could see that his momma had told him lies. LIES. Oh, the injustice!

...and his momma snapped pictures the whole time. I love it.

Flashback.

In either high school or junior high, I adored this poem. Can't remember which.

What a wonderful bird the frog are!
When he stand he sit almost;
When he hop he fly almost.
He ain't got no sense hardly;
He ain't got no tail hardly either.
When he sit, he sit on what he ain't got almost.

-Anonymous

I have not thought about it once in probably fifteen years. Came across it online tonight, and it brought a wide grin to my face. Then it occurred to me that other people may have seen my delight in these kinds of things a little odd.

I've never been one of those people who are wired to modify their behavior based on what other people think. Even in junior high, that most agonizingly self-conscious period, I shrugged if something that intrigued me was considered "uncool."

I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure this poem would have been one of those things. I also wrote long notes to my friends in rhyme, had a pet pink JcPenney's shopping bag (rolled into a poofy ball) named "Durf," and made knotted friendship bracelets from embroidery floss a full year before the craze hit my school (which made me uncool at the time, but cool a year later when I was an expert and could design my own patterns).

I remember losing a friend in eighth grade because I refused to say that her bulimic vomiting and dare-based makeouts with Popular Boys was okay with me. I wouldn't answer questions about my sexual experiences (in seventh grade!) at a slumber party. Uncool. I kept on being a girl scout through high school despite its obvious uncoolness. I never did curl my bangs into an enormous Hairspray Cliff. And I didn't care if the popular people liked me or not, which was perhaps the greatest Uncool of them all.

Other than being smart and a girl.

...but I had a happy adolescence. I enjoyed my friends, had my secret crushes, excelled in band (flute) and academics and attended various gifted enrichment programs in the summer. A few guys liked me, and I generally didn't like them back, with one important exception who's downstairs sleeping in my bed right now. And I emerged from adolescence pretty much unscathed.

And really, I still like that silly poem.

Ah, life with a bambino.

Really, all you can do is shrug and laugh after a while.

But if Dante had it right, and hell has creative levels of agony as he described, one level certainly involves having to tend to a grumpy, phlegmy, hoarse one-year-old through an endless night where she cannot go to sleep because of the snot dripping down the back of her throat.

While the caretaker has a bad case of the same cold, no less.

Poor little gal. At least I understand that I have a cold, and know how to blow my nose and clear my throat, and am not terrified beyond all reason of the rubber nosesucker.

Failing.

I'm sorry, this post-every-day thing has been a total flop. I'm trying, truly. It's not working, but I'm trying and guilting and now I'm posting even though it's past 1am and I really need to sleep.

~~~

I got a flu shot today, being a good little worker bee who Believes the Government that these things are good and helpful, particularly when Living in the Same House with a Small Child. My daughter is also being periodically shot full of vaccinations and such, because I in my heart am a good worker bee who wants to believe in doctors and science and the government and society and all that. Every time we go, I wonder if I'm wrong, and how on earth anyone knows who to believe about this and every other parenting decision.

I mean, really. How do you decide? Cribs are Good. Cribs are Bad. Breastfeed for Years. No, Stop At Twelve Months, You Freak. Time Outs. No, Spanks. Juice. No Juice, Ever. Soft Shoes Help Babies Learn to Walk. Soft Shoes Make Their Feet Misshapen.

It never ends. Guess it's good for my sense of control-- ie, I am never in control, I can't make all the best decisions, even though I want to.

So, we get the shots, and hope we're not giving her ADD or asthma or any other widespread childhood abnormality by doing so. She sleeps in a crib, and wears soft shoes, and doesn't drink juice, and is now being weaned, and I hope that all those things, if not the RIGHT decision, will at least not hurt her. I hope God makes allowances for good intentions in these things, and will catch her and sustain her where we let something slip.

~~~

My dog looks awesome in her sweater. Kinda lumpy and matronly and silly, but nonethless, awesome. And as expected, she loves it. I'll share a picture once the last cuff is sewn on. I bought floofy yarn for the Bird's first sweater last night. Onward!

~~~

Weaning is a sad thing. During the two times a day she's now allowed to suckle, she clings to me fiercely, intent and focused. No more giggles and games and squirming; she values her time there. It breaks my heart a little, because now I'm taking away something she obviously still enjoys. I wish she'd stayed flippant about it.

She has her first runny nose and a fever tonight. Part of me wants to go wake her up and hold her, just out of love and my desire to hear her breathing, but that would be stupid.

Time to go join the sleeping husband. There's a baby monitor down there by the bed; if she needs me, I'll hear her sooner down there than up here, fretting and surfing the internet.

adios.

Financial Conundrum.

I really, really hate this.

See, there's a house we've found-- a beautiful 90-year-old house that's almost untouched, has pocket doors and a grand staircase and four bedrooms and a playroom and a mudroom/laundry room all packed into less than 1800 square feet. And a basement. And nearly two acres of land on three lots, much of it planted in old bulbs and shrubs.

I adore it with all the white-hot houselove in my nest-oriented little heart. I want to sit on its front porch in the swing with my coffee. I want to raise my babies there. (I want to conceive more babies there.) I want to shuffle up and down those stairs in my old age. I want to be the person who has its floors refinished and its kitchen modernized and its walls painted, taking care of it so it'll be there in another hundred years.

(Did I mention that it's had two owners in those 90 years? Just TWO?? And that, other than some ugly paint and wallpaper and siding and shag carpet, easily changed, it is basically completely original?)

And, based on what we believe our Florida real estate is worth, we can afford it-- even though it needs its floors refinished, its walls painted, a dishwasher installed, etc etc. But the owner needs to sell it, and we don't have the moolah yet because our property hasn't sold.

We first saw this house last June. It has been for sale by owner since then; no one has bought it. But she is about to list it with a realtor.

And I am so afraid that we will lose it. She offered this week to rent it to us with all the rent going toward the purchase price when we are able to buy it. It's a generous offer, but we still can't afford that along with our other mortgage/utilites/etc in Florida.

Do we take out a home equity loan to do this? Is that a really stupid idea? That's what I'm trying to figure out. And it's so hard to gauge financial risk like this when your heart's all pitter-patter for the 16-pane-over-1 windows and the window seat in the dining room.

...sob...

Wage Peace.

I had almost forgotten about this poem. I'd been told it was by Mary Oliver, who is amazing, but now (upon Googling to find it) I learn that it's from a poet who lives in New Mexico, Judyth Hill.

I like that she lives there.
I like that her name includes the word Hill.
I'll have to check her out.

This is the kind of person I want to be. Sometimes I hold the rubble and terrorists and confusion in for far too long, dwelling on it, letting it poison me.

I want to be able to release it and instead relish all that's here to be enjoyed. And there is a LOT to savor.

WAGE PEACE

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

Knitting=crack.

Okay, I gave up on the pumpkin, as the baby's being born Monday and the SOLE source of knitting supplies in town (the wonderful Wal-Mart) had neither an orange yarn soft enough for a baby hat OR the right size OR style of needles.

So I found a spot online where I could put in a few custom measurements for our sweet canine(along with my yarn gauge) and it spits out a customized dog sweater pattern.

How cool is that? All her jackets and such are bured in our storage unit, so she could really use a warm sweater for the winter that's knocking at our door now.

And I've stayed up WAY late twice working on it. It is so simple and rewarding to see it grow. I have the top finished; the rest should follow fairly quickly. It's a pretty multicolored wool in rose and teal and purple and tangerine, and it's set off by Claire's black coat beautifully. I'll come back and post a picture at this spot when it's finished.

Plus, I ordered this and now I'm all jazzed about knitting a sweater for the Bird. I almost bought yarn today but forced myself to wait until I finish this project. I could easily become one of those knitters with six thousand skeins of yarn and unfinished projects. I want to fight that urge.

We're going to be driving for four hours today, and I'm all excited because that means four hours in the car with my dog sweater parts!