Summer lunches...

I was 22 when Sofi was born. I was in a hurry. I wanted lots of children, I wanted them all Now and I wanted everything unpleasant in Motherhood to speed by as quickly as possible.

I spent a lot of the first five years of her life wanting things I couldn't have. I missed a lot of what I did have in the meantime. I sped through her babyhood in a daze. I forget a lot of it.

The big gap between Sofi and Judah represents a lot. Two miscarriages. Lots of tears. Lots of growing. A lot (but not enough yet) of letting go of Me and learning to hold on to Him.

Now I have two boys. I have learned am learning to slow down. God's gift to me is the occasional day like today which starts with my agenda thwarted (by a spill, or a melt-down, or a fight, or....) and then I, slowed down, have time to see what I have here, now, in this moment. The beauty that surrounds me.

Today, by God's grace, I see...

Lunch on the deck



Silly faces



Short people



My Boys





Sky-high eyelashes



Chubby baby curves and binkies



Milk mustaches

Just Writing

When you lose something very dear to you-- a person, an idea, a place, an experience, a faith-- it leaves behind (even after "healing) a narrow, deep chasm that you occasionally fall back into. There's no predicting what might precipitate this. A song, a smell, and turn of phrase, an email, a glimpse of someone you think you know in a crowded mall.... Perhaps even simply a quiet evening where your mind, free for the moment from more pressing and immediate concerns, turns a little aside from the daily routines and begins to wander down unfamiliar paths. And then suddenly you find yourself back There. And you feel the ground drop from under your feet and the memories, despair, disappointment come crowding back and the security of daily life and comforts seems hollow, false. And there you are, fingertips clutching at the brink, James Bond-esque.

You might just hang there for a moment, fingers scrabbling at the edge for the solid ground you know was there just a moment ago. You might breathe deeply, smelling the familiar smells of bed and home. You might slowly get a hand, then an elbow-- one, then the other-- up onto your church, your friends, your husband, your beautiful children, the things you still have-- the More, the Now. Now you're on your hands and knees, looking back. Danger passed. You stand up, shake yourself off, square your shoulders, smile, call someone, write an email or a blog post and on you go.

By God's Grace.
Finish the race.







check out the other bloggers just writing with Heather...

Where I'm From

(apparently I have a problem with commitment when it comes to blog memes. i loved this one right away when i first saw it, but it's taken me months to finally finish it. i love it because it's the kind of thing one can write again and again and it nevers comes out the same way twice. this version tends to weigh heavily on the southern part of my "roots". maybe i'll do another one focusing on my yankee family another day...)


I am from long-handled ice tea spoons, 
From Aqua Net, Cover Girl and Vicks Vapor Rub. 
I am from white-columned front porches, the shady refuge at the end of a sun-baked, flesh-sizzling slate walk.


I am from the dogwood tree, 
The purple iris, 
The towering boxwood  
(all shot through with wisteria, the purple-scented parasite)


I am from music lessons, arguments, apologies and sharing. 
From Fetters and Wilkinses and Olivers-- the long-livers and hard-workers and fast-talkers. 
We raise-our-hand, do-unto-others, work-first-play-later 
and respect-our-elders.


I'm from Sabbath rests, hymn-singing, and posters of sad African children, reminding me of how much I have and the importance of sharing a cup of cold water to drink.


I'm from the Old Dominion, The Mother of Presidents, and I can whistle Dixie in my sleep. I eat my greens with bacon, my grits are extra buttery and my biscuits light-as-a-feather.


I'm from the snapping turtle that missed daddy's toe, 
The time we didn't run away from home 
And brothers who weren't lost in the cornfield after all.


I am from a bent wire tree covered with amethysts,
From the finger-worn neck of a long-loved fiddle, 
From the whispering scent of Jean Naté and a marbled notebook stacked on a well-worn Bible. 

You gift-givers wove all my life around with music and beautiful words. 

I am from all of you.

Just Write

I've been trying to pull together a post all day. In between the Christmas Take-Down, the children squabbles, the cleaning, the cooking and trying to find time to play, laugh and train. Every time there's a pause in the motion and commotion, my brain starts chugging along...

"Jamie is such a passionate child. In the moment of submission to discipline, he will throw himself into my arms with tempestuous wails, bury his little face deep into my neck and cling to me, fingers clutching my shirt in a desperate grip, writhing in the agonies of thwarted will..."

But before I can make it to the laptop, something breaks, or falls over, or spills, or someone yells, or trespasses, or cries... And the idea must be shelved in the library of my memory, perhaps at some point brought out, dusted off and wrestled into a full-length post...

"Fire is so much more than warmth. The gods gave fire to man for protection and safety, light, a sense of belonging and peace, romance and familial love. Home and Hearth. Men have been fighting for it, living for it, longing for it for millennium. A fireplace is worth the space and trouble. Even in Florida."

Crash, splash, yell..........file it away again....


For so much of my life I've defined my self by my memories, my past, my family. And now suddenly I find all that stripped away and I've landed here in a foreign land far away from all that has defined me for so long. I have of necessity had scramble to find ways to define myself by other things. And I've not yet refined that process, haven't yet figured out the New Me. Who is this Florida Resident? I don't know her well yet...


This is why I love the Just Write meme. It gives me a place to file away these fragments where they won't fade away with memories, their place taken by more pressing daily matters. Heather has given busy moms like me a place to lay down the remaining pieces of our creativity for the moment in a safe place, to pick them up again, someday, hopefully, when all the noise has ceased and the uneasy peace of an empty house shadows the corners of our days.

Just Writing

swish-swoosh.  the bright blue velvety swath floats down onto the floor. 

whooosh, smooth out all the creases, ease the seams into line

zzzzsnip, zzzsnip the sharp blades even up the ragged edges of the hem. 

snap out the brocade, the sparkly gold threads woven into a story of flowers and leaves, pink, purple, green and gold wandering up and down the turquoise field. Match the edges up again and draw the cutting line-- pen marks dash-dash-dash along the curving arc, the elegant sweep of a train. 





I'm making Sofi a dress. A medieval gown to wear on her field trip on Friday. As I finger the satins, the brocades and faux furs, the beading and cording and gold chain, I sense the excitement of the urge to create Beauty. To take all this treasure, swirl it around in my magic chamber and pull out a dress of such craft that when she puts it on, she will be transformed into a Lady.


 I've done this so many times before, and I never get tired of it.



My grandfather taught my mother to sew in his upholstery shop when she was a child. She worked for him in the summers sometimes. In college, she made costumes for the drama department (her drama department). When I was eight, she helped me make my first dress. It was green with little white flowers on it. I put it on and I felt pretty. And grown-up. And I also felt that first stirring of the joy of using my own hands to create something beautiful. That is a significant feeling for an eight-year-old.


My mother taught me to sew, one of the many wonderful gifts she gave me. She taught me to make dresses and slack and blouses and hats and baby clothes and towels and table cloths. But. She also taught my sisters and me to make Costumes. She taught us how to take a drawing, the beginnings of a dream of an evening of beauty and joy, and turn it into a reality. She took us to the fabric shop and we bought satins, brocades and faux furs, beading and cording and gold chain, feathers and pearls and diamonds. We took them home to our magic chamber, swirled them around and pulled out dress after dress after dress of such craft that when we put them on, we were transformed....

 

OH! It was such FUN!





 

linking up with Heather, from The Extraordinary Ordinary, for this week's Just Write.

How clean is YOUR house?

I've often wondered over the years how other women keep house. I only have my mother's habits as a guide (at least, the only one I'm conscious of) and apparently my memories are very vague and colored with teenaged inattention to detail. I've concluded this because what I remember is mostly that our house was almost always perfectly spotless and that we (children) were required to do a ridiculous amount of slave labor on a DAILY basis to maintain this impossible and unnecessary standard of cleanliness.

Now that my children are getting older and participating more in the slave labor work of keeping house, I have realized that most likely this memory of mine is... let's say... biased, and mercifully draw the veil on my 14-year-old immaturity.

My routine (based loosely on the way my mom always did it) is:

Daily-- the house and decks are tidied at the end of the day before J gets home from work, the dining and kitchen floors are vacuumed and the dishes are washed before I go to bed.

Every-Other Day-- The kitchen and dining floors are mopped and the bathroom is "wiped down" (ei; counter-tops, toilet, mirrors)

Weekly-- Every Saturday, in preparation for the Sabbath, we do major yard work (mowing, weeding, raking, whatever is needed) and clean the whole house-- dusting, mopping (we have laminate floors, so everything gets mopped), bathrooms, garage. My goal is to spend all day Sunday sitting around in a clean house, enjoying the smell of lemon oil and not making anyone do anything.

Now, the real reason I'm asking is to reassure myself that this is an adequate schedule and that the fact that my house rarely (if ever) actually looks as if it receives this kind of regular care is due to the "time of life" in which we currently find ourselves. That is, can I blame the perpetually untidy and crumb-laden state of my house on the kids, and not on my own inadequacies as a housewife?

In addition, I'm wondering if this clean-the-whole-house thing that eats up our entire Saturday is really the most efficient way to do things. The thing is, I can't think of any other way to actually have a Clean House (all at once), since the kids... well... live here. If I didn't do it all in one day, it would never feel like a Clean House.

I'd like to hear y'all's routines and/or suggestions and (obviously) reassurances that you've seen my house (or know me well) and I am, indeed, a more than adequate housewife.





And please, don't anyone mention Fly Lady. I might scream.

Hi again.

I've been wracking my brain lately, trying to figure out why I'm so depressingly un-motivated to blog these days. It's weird. Every time I sit down to try and write, the tongue in my head that goes wag-wag-wag all day long, suddenly dries up and cleaves to the roof of my... mind. All that constant undercurrent of thoughts just slows to a trickle. An uninteresting and uninspiring trickle.

I think it just might be that the clamor and chaos of my life has abruptly reached critical mass in the last month and I now no longer have any room at all in my head for my own thoughts. In any moment that there is no childish clatter all-but-drowning out Me, I necessarily use up the last of my available energy to just Be. There's nothing left for creating anything to share.

I am only vaguely unhappy about this. Or perhaps guilty might be a better word. Vaguely guilty for allowing this part of Me to fade out... die off...without putting up a fight even. But mostly my life is too full of other things to spend much time bothering about it.

And yet, all my life is littered through with things that I've quit, as I move on to new and other interests. A veritable Hansel and Gretel trail of unfinished projects, littering the forest, showing the path back to... what? The Me that finds security in always having a little more to do than I can possibly accomplish, thus always avoiding that lonely insecure feeling of "what now?"

So I mostly (but not all) want to push through, shove off this listlessness, this creative langor that has settled around my mind, and return again to the siren call of the Words and the Stories. To persevere, for once, in this one project, at least. To continue to create a record of myself and my family. To make some kind of mark, however faint.

We'll see how long that lasts...

The lines are fallen for me in pleasant places...

I'm writing today from my pool deck....

I can smell the gardenias just outside the screen and hear the sound of the water splashing. The kids just ran inside to put on their suits for a morning swim. J and I might get in a little later, once it warms up, and sit on the spa bench and turn on the massage jets. I've got a cup of coffee, a book and a plate of grapes. I can hardly believe this is my life.

The past year has been unbelievably rough. If you'd told me on New Year's Day, 2010, what the next sixteen months would hold, I don't think I would have had the courage to face it. I would have crawled back into bed and refused to come out. I would have gone home to Mama and tried to hide there. Not that she would have let me get away with that, but I'd have tried, anyway. We have gone through some incredibly testing times-- not nearly what some of our friends have faced, but still, the toughest we've had yet in our nearly-ten years of marriage.

And yet, I can say today with completely honesty, that I am so blessed. So grateful that the Lord has brought us here. Not just Here; this physical location, but Here; this place in our lives, too. I am so glad that this year happened-- with all its pain and sorrow, all the uncertainty, the upheaval, the insecurity, the leaving. Because along with all those things came growing, and stretching and (hopefully) wisdom. In a perfect world, a world without sin, we'd have all the growing and the stretching and the wisdom without all the suffering. But in this world, to get the one, one must endure the other.

And so, while I once again have no idea what the next year holds, for the moment I am at peace. Something tight and braced in my heart is starting to unfold and relax a little more. Today, right now, I don't feel quite so rigid. Despite the broken vacuum cleaner, washing machine and dryer, the dying truck, the sick husband, the stressful work schedule, the absent family, the distressing anniversary coming up, and the physical and financial worries still plaguing us, I'm starting to be able to open my eyes a little wider and look around and see the Lord's hand in all the troubles and the struggles. I pray that I am able to continue in that peace even through the storms ahead-- able to trust the Lord's plan in the future as I remember His providence in the past.

And seriously, how unbelievable weird cool is it that we have a pool? With a spa bench? And massage jets??? Whaaaaa??? Like I said, I can hardly believe this is my life.

Things I love today

The lingering presence of my husband in a faint smell of tobacco, a pipe, and ash on the porch table beside a green glass whiskey tumbler and a worn copy of the Life and Work of Dante Alighieri.

A week off for Spring Break.

Kids, shivering in the pool, determined that "It's not cold, M-m-m-mom-mm-mmy!"

Eighty-degree days in March

Answered prayers, and the Lord's provisions

Azalea blossoms

Friends who don't mind packing into our tiny dining room, or balancing their plates on their knees while wedged, three-deep, on the two-seater couch.

My sleepy baby boy, pudgy fingers clamped tight to chubby cheek, nursing lazily, eyes rolling in contented satisfaction.

My big boy, charging from couch to floor, bouncing off the walls (literally) and shifting from superhero to knight to warrior and back again, in constant energetic motion.

My talltall girl. Long-legged, grey-eyed, stormy-cloudy-- then suddenly sunny again. From the height's to the depths and back again in nanoseconds.

An almost-decade of loving this man.

Laying it out a little

I've given up Facebook for Lent. Mostly because I've found that, since we moved here, FB has taken a greater and greater chunk out of my daily "free time". That is, time when kids aren't immediately in need of me. And I've become far too dependent on it as a crutch to get me through a rough day, when what I should be doing on those days is 1) a better job of loving my (albeit, cranky) kids, and 2) praying for wisdom and patience. Since James' sleeping habits (or NON-sleeping habits) are not changing for the better, those rough days are becoming more and more frequent and I just found myself fleeing to the sympathetic ears of my FB friends more and more.

So. Forty days ought to break that habit. I hope. If not.... *sigh*

I would like to take this opportunity to quickly mention something that's been plaguing me (and keeping me from blogging regularly) for some time. Sometime shortly after Christmas, someone (who shall remain nameless) mentioned to me that someone ELSE (whom they did not name to me, so... also nameless) mentioned to them (this is definitely how rumors get started) that I whine a lot on this blog.

*letting that settle*

Well. That took the wind out of my sails, let me tell you. Not that it's news to me. I mean, I've flat out stated it here on this very blog that whining is one of my besetting sins and something I've passed on to my kids and struggle with daily. But it hurt my feelings that, 1) someone noticed it here on this blog, and 2) it made enough of an impression on them that they'd mention it to someone else as a feature of this blog.

So I've spent the last two months second-guessing and editing and waffling about everything I post. Which means most times I just don't post at all. I have at least a week's worth of posts languishing in my "unpublished" folder, waiting for me to decide if they're worth posting.

But as I've done all that thinking and second-guessing and waffling, I've come to a conclusion. This blog is an expression of myself, with all my faults, honest and unpretentious, with no claim to superiority, or greater wisdom and virtue. I am not writing here because I consider that I have something vital to say every day. I don't write to instruct my readers, or to admonish them from a position of authority.

I am writing because that's what I do. I am writing for the love of words. I write so I will remember-- good things and bad. I write so that the people who love me and my family and who are far away, will feel that they are still, in a way, part of our daily lives. I write because the words buzz around in my head and only form into coherent, peaceful thoughts when my fingers hit the keyboard. I write so I can think clearly. I write hoping that people who read might get a little something out of it.

And so, if you are reading, I hope you are reading, not to learn anything profound, or to see "how it's done". I hope you aren't expecting to hear the daily musings of the perfect Proverbs 31 Woman. I hope you don't come looking for a daily lesson of some sort, or always expecting to be uplifted by the contents.

Rather, if you come and read and leave laughing, or feeling a little better about the day you're having, or if you read something that helps you cope a little better with the DAILYNESS of mommy-life, sometimes even if you cry a little and definitely if you go hug your babies a little tighter, then that's everything I could ever ask from a little blog like this.

So, I've got no great resolutions about improving the content, but I've come around full circle to feel comfortable again in my own, often-whiny bloggy skin. Here's to four more years of Herb of Grace, the blog!




PS. Since I"m FB free for Lent, would y'all click on over and comments here, instead of leaving your comments on the auto-post on Facebook? Pretty please?

Why I don't Coupon

A friend of mine recently posted on FB about beginning her coupon-ing journey, and once again, as I always do when someone posts about how they bought $200 worth of groceries and only paid a dime for it, I got sucked into the allure of the ultimate bargain shopping. So last night I went through the fliers of the grocery stores I normally shopped, made out my list and hit the Google to find coupons....

I found some awesome ones! For example, Campbell's Soups were on sale at A.'s for $0.88 and I found a coupon for $0.40 off two-- that makes.... $0.68 per can! Good deal! Also, Tropicana o.j. for $1.99 a half-gallon! And on and on and on...

The problem is: I get to the store aaand, of course, the store brand of soup is on sale for $0.50 a can. I foud this out AFTER I had loaded up my cart with Campbell's brand. And then when I got home I found that I had neglected to trade out two of the Campbell's brand for store brand, which, since I hadn't used the coupon after all (because I bought the cheaper store brand) cost me $1.50 each. AND I DON'T EVEN BUY CANNED SOUP.

Net savings: - $4.00

Also, it took me ten minutes of searching to find the exact right size bag of chips, which at $0.99 a bag was a steal, but the 12 oz bags were in a random cart, down the other aisle, behind a display of not-on-sale chips.

This is why I do not coupon.

Our church home group is studying The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis this semester. It's been a great read, full of convicting passages and rousing conversations. In particular we discussed something tonight that pertains to this blog. Well, it directly touches my parenting and friendships and, I suppose, indirectly pertains to this blog.

We were reading and discussing the tenth letter from Screwtape to his nephew, Wormtongue; the one in which Screwtape is "...delighted to hear... that (the) patient has made some very desirable new acquaintances..." Those new acquaintances turn out to be of the bad company sort that tend to corrupt good morals-- particularly those of a new Christian.

The passage that provoked my sudden return to the world of Real Blogging (as opposed to the pics and video that have been passing as "posts" here lately) is this:

No doubt he must soon realize that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based. I don't think that matters much, provided that you can persuade him to postpone and open acknowledgment of the fact, and this, with the aid of shame, pride, modesty and vanity, will be easy to do. As long as the postponement lasts he will be in a false position. He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent, He will assume, at first only by his manner, but presently by his words, all sorts of cynical and skeptical attitudes which are not really his, But if you play him well, they may become his. All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.

Take just a minute to think about that passage and the areas and way it may play out in your own life. No? Only me? Well then...

I know that this is something I struggle with often. I want to be liked. I want to fit in. I want to feel a part of whatever group I'm in at the moment. I want people to think I am whatever they think is awesome.

And here's how it applies to my parenting and, indirectly, this blog. If you've read my posts about Attachment Parenting, Babywearing, homeschooling, birth, and health, you know that I'm a pretty crunchy/hippy mama. I'm comfortable with that. Matter of fact, I really kinda like that image of myself. My friends back home are also hippy mamas, to a certain extent.

But then there are our ideas about child training. And the whole married-to-an-English-Teacher-Classical-School thing. And the tech-to-human ratio in our household. And my children eat stuff like Chicken Nuggets and cheez curls. And we've seriously considered attending an Anglican church. Or Episcopal. Or something similar also involving incense and chanting. Oh yeah, there's also now a mini van....

So, you see, I have one foot in each camp. And it's very tempting, when conversing with fellow members of either camp, to pretend that the other side of me doesn't exist. That I really am simply a dyed-in-the-wool Hippy Mama-- co-sleeping, delayed vax-ing, non-circ-ing and all. Or, on the flip side, that I'm the intellectual wife of an intellectual, who values "high" conversation, attends a high church and wouldn't dream of breastfeeding a two-year-old.

But the truth is, both sides have valuable truths. And I have good reasons for adhering to some of the various tenants of both stereotypes. Either extreme has it's problems, but a good balance of the two is exactly what I want in my life. The problem arises when I am reluctant to truthfully represent my actual beliefs out of intimidation and a desire for acceptance.

As I read that passage and pondered it, and as we discussed it tonight, I began to wonder about my new friendships here in Orlando and whether or not I've done a good job representing, unashamedly, my convictions. In particular, in the areas of mothering and... oh, wife-ing, or whatever you call it. I didn't come to any grand conclusions, but just a general sense of needing to renew my commitment to certain key issues and needing to be more bold in vocalizing my convictions when the opportunity arises.




PS. In case some of you who Know were wondering if I'm also thinking about Political Views in this conversation, you know it! But I'm totally not going there on this blog. Been there, done that. Not doing it again. No politics.

(almost) Pain Free

On Monday, I went barefoot all day for the first time in five years. And I felt GREAT.

Yesterday I spent three hours grocery shopping, in flat sneakers, with all three kids, and when I came home I felt GREAT.

Five years ago I went to see a physical therapist with crippling pain in my hips and low back. And when I say crippling, I mean that on several occasions I would lie down to rest in the afternoons with a dull ache and be unable to stand upright when I went to get up a few minutes later. A couple of times I had slide out of bed to the floor and crawl from my room to a low stool or chair in the living room to pull myself upright-- our bed was too high for me to reach the top to boost myself up. Many, many times my hips would bring me to tears in the evenings after a day of chasing toddler Sofi around.

The physical therapist helped me immeasurably, and also diagnosed a short leg-- my left leg is 3/4 of an inch shorter than my right. (*pause for Laurie B. to laugh hysterically*). She got me back on my feet and I wore orthotics for the next five years. Every day. Every pair of shoes. I never went barefoot for more than a couple hours-- hip pain sending me running for my orthotics every time. Exercise was key. Even a week of no exercise would send me into a spiral of worsening tension and pain.

Fast-forward to this past year. Pregnant, moving across country, highly emotional first few months. No exercise. I really didn't exercise AT ALL in the second trimester. Swimming helped keep things fairly flexible and loose in the last trimester. But after pushing out a ten-pound-plus baby, all hell broke loose in my joints and muscles. Back pain, knee pain, pinched nerve, bruised rib. I felt like I was walking around in the body of a seventy-year-old woman-- no offense to seventy-year-old women!

And then my mom gave me this book for Christmas. The difference is drastic. Miraculous, almost. I'm serious here. Anyone who's suffered chronic back pain will understand when I say that I crawled around on the floor playing trains with Judah yesterday for an HOUR and felt great afterwards.

So that's my testimonial. It's taking me SO LONG to get this written that I want to stop here for now and publish. I'll write again and tell a little bit more about what this method is all about and how it's working...

I'm pretty sure God put me on earth as a cautionary tale for other women.

And then He gave me a blog so I can tell y'all all about it.

Today, in preparation for our evening prayer time (which we JUST started attending) with several families from J's school, I spent the entire Florida still-summer-even-though-it's-October afternoon slaving away in a hot kitchen in order to impress our new community with my hot buttered dinner rolls.

When I went into the kitchen moments ago to remove the luscious dough from the bread machine where it's been rising, I discovered that I had inadvertently pushed the wrong button on the programmer-thingy and my bread machine had COOKED MY DOUGH. And not just like, baked it into a loaf, but rather cooked an entire batch of THREE DOZEN dinner rolls on the QUICK BREAD SETTING.

*sigh*

I've spent the last 20 minutes banging my fist into various surfaces around the apartment and trying to turn time back or figure out a way to get to Publix, buy more yeast and re-construct four hours of work in the next 50 min before we leave. J wisely took over and is headed to Publix to buy some of those tacky dinner-rolls-in-a-can instead. My Southern Soul rises up in rebellion within me.

Let this be a lesson to all of you who attempt to impress new friends with your baking skillz!!

*groans of agony and wounded pride*

waiting on the Lord again :)

It's such a cycle, life... isn't it? I mean, you fail and fall, you wallow a bit, then you remember the God you serve, you get a note from a friend, you get some sleep (or some protein) and you get back up and keep going. Somehow the strength is renewed every morning. Actually, not so much "somehow". It's the Lord. He promised He would and He is so faithful to renew His strength in me.

Not that circumstances have changed since last night, it's just my attitude that changed. Today I find myself able to remember all the good things in my life, instead of just the challenging things. And to see the good even in the challenging things. For example, the tiny, sharp feet kicking me violently in the hip-bone right now. There are two ways to think about that, right? Right now I'm able to smile indulgently and reminisce about the curse of the Huge Howell Feet. I mean, if the mother wears a size ten, you gotta expect some major kickage, right? Oh and by the way, can you believe my swelling's bad enough that I'm actually wearing a size ELEVEN right now???

Still, I have to get myself together a little better and try to avoid the kind of crash I had yesterday. I need to be more careful about getting enough rest, food, water and not trying to pack too many activities into one day. We almost crashed and burned again today, but after Judah's third meltdown in Costco, I decided to just go home. Best decision I made all day.

And I need to make sure, also, that I get some time first thing in the morning to spend with the Lord and my day planner. Both of those are vital. I've made that my goal for this week-- quiet time every morning. We'll see how that works out.

A quick update on the Labor is up!

A New Haircut

Since I can't show all my girlfriend's my new "do" in person, I'll have to just blog about it and y'all can do The Girlfriend Squeal from your keyboard, m'kay? Make it loud now...

Here we go!

It was my first time trying out a salon school. In this case, the Aveda Institute here in Orlando. It was superawesome. I'm very happy with the cut, I got a free massage (!!), all the products they use are all-natural and chem-free AND. AND. It only cost me $15-- including the tip!!! You cannot beat that. The woman who did it was veeery slow careful and the master teacher makes her rounds periodically checking up on the students and making corrections when necessary, so I wasn't even worried about how it might turn out to have a student cut my hair.

The woman told me, as she cut my hair, that the salon school cuts are really the best you can get since there are at least two people watching to be sure it turns out right--- and I believe her now! Especially because my bangs turned out exACTly how I like them, which (as those of you with bangs know) can be tricky.

The school itself was just a cool place to see, too. It's an enormous building with row upon row of stations and people buzzing all around doing various yummy-smelling things to other people in the chairs-- even at 8:30 in the morning there were at least 25-30 clients already there. It was hopping! I loved it and can hardly wait to go back. A pedicure is in my very near future also, especially since a 60 minute session is only $17!! Aaack! Yet another reason (besides Disney) for all y'all to come visit me ASAP!

P.S. J thinks it's too short and is officially in mourning over my lost locks, but I really like how the shorter cut makes me look like I actually have cheekbones! Despite the seven-months-pregnant-puffiness. Also, I should mention that in these photos, the part of the back that you can see looks a little "chopped-off", but it doesn't in person. Must be the way I combed it, or something... not sure...

The terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day

Well. Ok. Maybe that's an overstatement. Just a little.

But it wasn't a good day. It's was a day where, by five o-clock, I decided to just give up and go ahead and have a good cry. Which, at seven months pregnant and moving into a strange town, I feel I deserve now and again.

First: We lost Judah. Only for about fifteen minutes, but those were a veeery loooong fifteen minutes, let me tell you. He rode his scooter to the end of the sidewalk outside our back door and then couldn't remember how to get back to the house from there (it's only about fifteen feet, but he's new here). So he turned left and kept on going. And kept turning left or right when he got to the end of the sidewalk until he was completely outside the little enclave of enclosed courtyards that we depend on to keep the kids "safe". This neighborhood is very "woodsy", with lots of trees and shrubs, which is great-- beautiful!-- but meant that within five minutes (the time it took Sofi, who was out playing with him, to come in and put on her bathing suit, and us to realize she was in here and he was not) he was completely out of sight and hearing.

My easy-going, laid-back, calm husband gets very... intense... in moments like these. In my small-town naivete, I didn't fully grasp the gravity of the situation until he came back in and said, Get dressed, I can't see him anywhere, and then threw on his sneakers and ran back out.

We walked/ran up and down the maze of sidewalks, calling for him in carefully non-panicking voices and then, there he was. Still on the tricycle. Totally safe, although a little nervous. He'd been calling for Daddy, once he realized that he couldn't find our house-- which looks exactly identical to all the other hundreds of houses here.

Second; I took on the daunting task of grocery shopping in a New City. I am a creature of habit in grocery shopping. If you look at the roadways of the 'Burg, you may actually see a rut from my car wheels traveling the exact same path from store to store every week. The same items-- each from the store I know always carries them at the best price. Nine years of shopping at the same stores every week.

So today, newspaper circulars in hand, I sat down to make a list of prices and locations and map out my new route with the GPS. Only problem is, the GPS doesn't take into account what sort of neighborhoods it takes you through.

Twenty minutes after I left my house, I found myself walled in by concrete traffic barriers and cones. Looming over them were more concrete walls, covered in graffiti and filth. Trash everywhere and a general air of decay and want.

And then the car reminded me that we're not entirely sure that it's fixed yet. And I was afraid to even check my cell phone battery. Not that it would do any good, since the truck's in the shop and J's at home with both kids and no way to get to me before the muggers do.... *PREGNANT WOMAN PANIC*

I made it to the grocery store, which was also a little shady-looking, and then home (by a different route-- thanks to Google) and then burst into tears in the driveway.

All the way home I kept thinking, I have no idea how to do this. I've never lived in a city even remotely close to this size. When I moved to the 'Burg as a new bride, it seemed like a huge city to me. Our town had about 400 residents. How can I possibly learn to live in Orlando? With three kids? What if I do something stupid, like forget to check on them every two-and-a-half minutes? What if I forget to lock our car door? (We never locked our doors back home) What if I let them get too far away from me in the grocery store? What if I try to get someplace in town with the GPS and then run out of gas in a place like I saw today? What if....???

I just have no instincts about these things. All my life I've lived in small-town places where people were generally trustworthy and honest. Our kids have played out on the sidewalk with minimal supervision their whole lives-- trusting to their adherence to a set of boundaries, which they almost never crossed. I send Sofi two or three aisles away in the store to grab me something in another category. I let her take Judah to the back of Big Lots to ogle the toys while I shop. I sometimes leave them in the car while I run into the Post Office.

This place scares me. In the back of my mind are murmurings of the promises of the Lord, but right now the fears are muchmuch louder.

It feels like Monday already.

This morning, before even breakfast, the kids were already squabbling. They've been consistently getting on each other's nerves since about half-way through North Carolina.

I was feeling a little down. It's our first Sunday here and I miss my church family. We're going to visit a PCA church here, and I know there will be some familiar things-- communion, the creeds, the hymns (thank the Lord for universal symbols of the Faith). But in large part, it will be strange and new.

So I decided to make myself some grits. You know, comfort food. 'Cause everyone knows that there's nothing like grits and eggs to heal pretty much any existential angst. (Can I get an amen??)

But then I spilled the grits all over the kitchen floor. I went to vacuum it up. And let me tell you, this is a small kitchen. There simply isn't room for me, baby and a vacuum. I knocked the crisp, perfectly browned bacon on the floor. I vacuumed that up, made more grits, kept my chin up. And then I realized that we were out of butter.

At that point I had two options; a good hard cry, or a blog post. I chose the blog post, because, you know, mascara... and a new church... gotta make an impression...

My house looks sad now

It's been nearly a month since I last posted. A month full of the most unbelievable heights and depths of human experience. In the last month we have...

mourned the too, too early passing of sweet Gwenyth and her Aunt Marie

greeted the LATE arrival of Lilah Grace

said hello and then goodbye again to a brother/uncle/friend

named our son; James Oliver Forshey ("Jamie")

sold our house

found an apartment

met new friends, here and in Orlando-- both

packed our house

begun to say goodbye to all our friends, family and dear ones here in Virginia

As I look around me at the detritus of the last nine years of my life, I am often overwhelmed with sadness. In so many way, the timing of this move seems to be so horribly bad that it cannot possibly be the will of God for us. Leaving Hburg right now, practically on the eve of the birth of our third child, at a time when my sister needs my help and comfort, when our dear friends are floundering in such depths of grief, when our church is growing and blooming and our family has set down such deep roots of friendships here...

And yet, at every step of the way, we have laid the decisions on the altar and let the Lord choose for us. And He has led us inexorably toward this moment. Time after time, we've come to a crossroad and haven't known whether to go left or right, and at the crucial moment the Lord has simply and beyond our control, eliminated one or the other road, leaving us only one way to travel forward.

But as I look at the last nine years of my life, now half-packed into boxes (how is it possible that nine years can fit so neatly into cardboard boxes?), I cannot help being overwhelmed with sadness, regret and a strong desire to run away from all this change, to go back to What Life Was. To return to the Familiar and the Comfortable.

I have all these worries and fears that my head knows are not of Faith, but my heart cannot find peace over...

what if I cannot find a midwife in time and we have to give birth in the hospital?

what if I can't find any friends who love to drink tea?

do they even drink tea in Florida?

where in the world will we find a ballet teacher as good as Miss Cindy?

who will I oooo and aaah over wedding flower magazines with?

who will be friends with my kids?

what if all the women are much more mature than I, and my Sex in the City references fall completely flat?

who will I go bargain shopping with?

do I really need to worry about alligators?

will I ever find another house like this one?

Can I make it without all my friends from Harrisonburg???

I don't know the answers to these questions. But all I can do is continue to lay it all on the altar and keep putting one foot in front of the other as God provides one more step's worth of light.

When all around my soul gives way
He then is all my hope and stay
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

*sigh*

Sometimes I wonder if God put me on this earth in order for my life to serve as a tragi-comedic warning to the rest of you.

This morning, May 7, 2010, at 9:20 AM EST, ten minutes before a scheduled home showing for another repeat "customer" (a second interested party); I set my living room curtains on fire.

Yep.

On fire.

Apparently my naan-baking experience and our Scrabble fiasco did not suffice to teach me to leave the fire alone.

I lit a candle early this morning-- a lovely vanilla candle-- with the intention of filling the house with a pleasing aroma with which to greet the prospective buyer. Instead the probably-no-longer-prospective buyer was greeted with the smell of burning synthetic curtain sheers, mixed with the scent of freshly baked cinnamon buns.

I managed to salvage the situation with my mad window mis-treatment skillz. I'll show you pics as soon as I can get back into my house. As long as the smoke has cleared by then...