Tuesday, September 18, 2012
New Routines for the School Year
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Summer Dreams
The other day, I woke up from a lovely series of dreams. They were simple dreams in which I was taking long walks with my children, or doing yoga, or swimming. When I woke up, I was energized and happy. I couldn't wait to get started. I had such fun in the pool later -- doing jumping jacks, running, and other moves from water aerobics. It was really refreshing and joyful and the children thought it was really funny to see such a goofy mommy. The next day I mowed our crazy lawn -- not a flat surface in sight. It's all dips and hills and weird angles -- I suppose that, when our house was built, the county didn't have the same requirements for making lots level as they do today -- no yard could have settled in this particularly weird way. Even though I am now covered in mosquito bites, thanks to our friend, the Asian Tiger Mosquito, I felt strong, empowered, and happy to have a mowed lawn.
Friday, June 8, 2012
7 Quick Takes Friday
This is my first attempt at linking to 7 Quick Takes at Conversion Diary (one of my favorite blogs). As I make the attempt to be both topical and random, bear with me.
1. I need a job, y'all. Chickadee #2 will be in school full time (8 to 3) next year. For the first time in 9 years, I'll have days free. I would love to find a local or work-from-home job writing, particularly about subjects in which I'm interested. I'm currently (as in, right now while I'm blogging) working on a report, my only task for a great employer. But it is boring boring boring (sorry, but true) and doesn't give me enough income (last year, I made less than I had in my work study job freshman year of college). Any thoughts, leads, advice? I'm also a great editor, if I do say so myself.
2. I love 80's music, of a certain type. I usually listen to Pandora Radio, a station of my own creation (The Psychedelic Furs Radio) while I'm working on my report. Right now, Duran Duran's "Save a Prayer" is on. Many moony hours were spent watching videos at my uncle's house (the only relative who owned a VCR in those days -- thanks, Uncs!). My grandmother, who lived with my uncle and his family, was offended that her "stories" were preempted by Simon LeBon. I miss you, Nan.
3. The school year is coming to a close. What the heck am I going to do this summer? I've instituted rest time every day. I think it will help me not get so crazy by 4 pm. Pray for me.
4. I found out last week (via Spectracell micronutrient testing) that I'm seriously deficient in many nutrients, particularly the B vitamins and calcium, and some other things. Nutritional supplements are in my future, which I hate because I don't like taking what I term "horse pills".
5. I'm not losing any weight, but not gaining either. I plan to go to the pool a lot more this summer. The chickadees are no longer in imminent danger of drowning, so I can actually deep water walk while they splash. That will help.
6. I am in love with Dr. Ray Guarendi. I heard part of his radio show a few weeks ago that has seriously changed my life (changes were coming anyway, but something clicked as I listened to him). A woman had called in about her 8 year old son, who was constantly defying her and not accepting her discipline. She was going crazy and the younger children were imitating the older child. It sounded so much like my situation with Chickadee #1 that I listened closely. He told the woman that her problem wasn't that her son misbehaved -- all children misbehave -- but that he didn't accept her authority over him. She needed to assert that authority. The woman used a "time out" technique with her kids of making them rest their heads on their arms at the dining room table for as many minutes as they were old. The 8 year old was either not doing it or was complaining through it or trying sneak out of it (by reading or drawing within his circled arms). So, Dr. Ray told the woman -- it's okay to have the kids put their heads down if that works for you, but if they don't, tell them that they don't have to do it, but that everything stops (e.g., snacks, privileges, driving to activities, even school) until the discipline is carried out. So simple. So effective. My children are actually obeying me a lot more and putting their heads on the table gives them, and me, a chance to calm down when things get heated. Thanks, Dr. Ray. I have claimed my authority as a mother. Since Chickadee #1 just turned 8, it only took me 9 years. Whew.
7. I made agreat recipe the other day for some friends -- Slow Cooker Butter Chicken from Canadian Living magazine. Tasty and healthy. Success!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Celebrating WhyMommy
As you know, my friend and fellow mom, Susan Niebur (aka WhyMommy), passed away on February 6, 2012. Susan was a wonderful wife and mother, a faithful friend, an accomplished scientist, and a writer whose words moved mountains. Susan's interlocking communities of mothers, SJE parents, and bloggers are still feeling the reverberations her absence causes in our lives. I've seen women in parking lots who resemble Susan and, after an initial surge of happiness (Oh, THERE she is), have cried all the way home.
On Thursday, in School of Community, I recounted how, that morning when I was getting ready, I chose a dress because I wanted to look especially nice for the day, then realized that it was the same dress I wore when I stood beside Susan when she was received into the Catholic Church at her confirmation... and promptly started to cry.
I wanted to look especially nice because, on Thursday, the Girl Scouts at SJE celebrated Susan in a special way with "Girl Scouts Do Science," a program that included speakers and opportunities for the girls to do hands on experiments.
With the help Susan's husband, Curt, I located a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who was willing to talk to our girls. She gave a great presentation -- she works on the Cassini mission to Saturn. The girls were so excited by the idea of a spaceship taking seven years to get to a planet and asked many interesting questions. She talked about how the Cassini spacecraft was analogous to a human body and how, with math and science knowledge, we are able to communicate with it so that it will find things out for us about this very interesting gas giant planet.
She also talked about how exciting the Space Shuttle program was for her as a young girl and how affected she was by the Challenger disaster -- something about which most of our girls had not yet learned. It was interesting to see how many questions that passing reference generated -- they seemed to fixate on the disaster rather than on how inspiring and awesome the whole program was.
The middle school science teacher at SJE then talked to the girls about her journey to loving and teaching science -- she told us that, as a young girl, she had not liked science. She had always loved math, but science didn't really capture her interest until high school. At that point, she became fascinated with biology and how all living things, from the smallest cell to the ecosystem around us, work in harmony and fit together. She showed a cool video by They Might Be Giants on the scientific method and encouraged the girls to question, question, question and test, test, test.
Finally, we had another of Susan's friends (and a member of her prayer group) who is a biomedical engineer give us a great talk on her dissertation research. In it, she worked on creating artificial tissue. Her powerpoint presentation fascinated all the girls -- how they could separate the different kind of cells present in tissue using different kinds of solutions that would attract only one kind of cell, then grow those cells in culture, with the goal of then putting these different kinds of cells back together to create artificial tissue that works like the original. At the end of her talk, she told the girls that we need people like them to be scientists, researchers, biomedical engineers, chemists, in order to help find a cure for cancers like the one that killed Susan. It was such a powerful moment. All of us adults ended up in tears. All the hopeful potentiality in those earnestly listening little girls... drat. I'm crying again.
All I can say is that Susan would have loved it. I loved it on her behalf. I was so honored to be able to plan and bring to fruition this work in honor of one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. And I think that Susan would have been right there with the girls as they did experiments, getting her hands dirty as she showed them how oil and vinegar (with the help of a little Dijon mustard and a whisk) can become emulsified, how static electricity works, how to combine vinegar and baking soda and an empty water bottle hands to blow up a balloon without using your mouth, and other fun things. At every experiment station, I could feel Susan there, gently encouraging the girls, really getting excited with them as they learned about density, static electricity, or whatever.
Thank you, Susan, for inspiring me and for sharing your light with me and so many. I think of you every day, and pray for you all the time.
On Thursday, in School of Community, I recounted how, that morning when I was getting ready, I chose a dress because I wanted to look especially nice for the day, then realized that it was the same dress I wore when I stood beside Susan when she was received into the Catholic Church at her confirmation... and promptly started to cry.
I wanted to look especially nice because, on Thursday, the Girl Scouts at SJE celebrated Susan in a special way with "Girl Scouts Do Science," a program that included speakers and opportunities for the girls to do hands on experiments.
With the help Susan's husband, Curt, I located a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who was willing to talk to our girls. She gave a great presentation -- she works on the Cassini mission to Saturn. The girls were so excited by the idea of a spaceship taking seven years to get to a planet and asked many interesting questions. She talked about how the Cassini spacecraft was analogous to a human body and how, with math and science knowledge, we are able to communicate with it so that it will find things out for us about this very interesting gas giant planet.
She also talked about how exciting the Space Shuttle program was for her as a young girl and how affected she was by the Challenger disaster -- something about which most of our girls had not yet learned. It was interesting to see how many questions that passing reference generated -- they seemed to fixate on the disaster rather than on how inspiring and awesome the whole program was.
The middle school science teacher at SJE then talked to the girls about her journey to loving and teaching science -- she told us that, as a young girl, she had not liked science. She had always loved math, but science didn't really capture her interest until high school. At that point, she became fascinated with biology and how all living things, from the smallest cell to the ecosystem around us, work in harmony and fit together. She showed a cool video by They Might Be Giants on the scientific method and encouraged the girls to question, question, question and test, test, test.
Finally, we had another of Susan's friends (and a member of her prayer group) who is a biomedical engineer give us a great talk on her dissertation research. In it, she worked on creating artificial tissue. Her powerpoint presentation fascinated all the girls -- how they could separate the different kind of cells present in tissue using different kinds of solutions that would attract only one kind of cell, then grow those cells in culture, with the goal of then putting these different kinds of cells back together to create artificial tissue that works like the original. At the end of her talk, she told the girls that we need people like them to be scientists, researchers, biomedical engineers, chemists, in order to help find a cure for cancers like the one that killed Susan. It was such a powerful moment. All of us adults ended up in tears. All the hopeful potentiality in those earnestly listening little girls... drat. I'm crying again.
All I can say is that Susan would have loved it. I loved it on her behalf. I was so honored to be able to plan and bring to fruition this work in honor of one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. And I think that Susan would have been right there with the girls as they did experiments, getting her hands dirty as she showed them how oil and vinegar (with the help of a little Dijon mustard and a whisk) can become emulsified, how static electricity works, how to combine vinegar and baking soda and an empty water bottle hands to blow up a balloon without using your mouth, and other fun things. At every experiment station, I could feel Susan there, gently encouraging the girls, really getting excited with them as they learned about density, static electricity, or whatever.
Thank you, Susan, for inspiring me and for sharing your light with me and so many. I think of you every day, and pray for you all the time.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Food for the Soul
I remember, a long time ago, someone related a story to me. In it, the person recounted an unbeliever taking to task a parent for "corrupting" her child's mind with all this claptrap about religion, God, etc. The unbeliever sincerely thought that religion was inherently bad and that parents should allow their children to "make up their own minds about all that stuff." In response, the parent said, "When you have something really, really wonderful, the natural thing as a parent is to want to share that with your children -- to help them have this great thing that you have." It reminds me of the question Jesus asked, "Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?" (Matthew 7:9).
And it occurs to me, since everything these days seems to revolve around the issue of my weight, that I am actually giving my children, and myself, a stone. A millstone. And I keep right on picking it up and passing it on. How you can simultaneously carry a stone and pass it along is not apparent to me, but I acknowledge that this is what I'm doing. This book I'm reading, Made to Crave , is wonderful in that it reminds us that we are supposed to be filling up our days with love of the Lord and reliance on His Word. Lysa TerKeurst's slogan is "Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food." For myself, that's a lesson I keep having to learn and, despite all evidence from previous times in my life, it appears that I'm not a fast learner.
At a recent mass, as I waited go to Holy Communion, it occurred to me that I was really hungry. The prayer that welled up in me was something like this -- "God make me hungry for You. Make realize that the places in me that need to be filled can only be filled by You. Help me to distinguish the kinds of hunger I feel and to feed them with the correct food."
And that is my prayer right now, as I sit up late (it's 2:13 am) writing -- my body is craving something (water and sleep, I am sure). I'm tempted to travel into the kitchen and try that awesome ice cream cake I made for Chickadee's 8th birthday, or the even more awesome cake Costco made for her First Holy Communion party. Instead, I'm going to have a tall glass of water and turn off the light.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Rejuvenate Me, Rejuvenate Me, Rejuvenate Me
Yesterday at just about this time, I was sitting on the beach in Monterey, California. I'd found a nice "bench" of sand from which to survey the Pacific and, honestly, I only intended to bid farewell to an ocean which had overwhelmed me with its beauty and power in ways I had not expected. I'm an East Coast girl -- to me, ocean means the grey Atlantic, which one approaches via miles and miles of flat, farmland and freshwater marsh. It means the Boardwalk downeyohshun, saltwater taffy, suntan lotion, and seagulls fighting for scraps. The Pacific took my preconceptions about oceans and turned them inside out -- instead of grey, it was the bluest blue. Instead of marshland, mountains are its gateway. Instead of the tackiness of Ocean City, MD, it breathed solitude and natural splendor. I loved it. I loved me being there. I achieved an important childhood dream on this trip and one adult dream. Ever since I was a little girl, I had wanted to go whale watching -- ever since reading Nightbirds on Nantucket. And I did do that -- I saw a humpback mother and calf (though I missed the calf breaching because I didn't want to get pitched overboard in the rough sea so was holding on tight to the railing in the wrong part of the boat) and the three killer whales which paced our boat and showed their dolphin-like natures by arcing through the water like arrows. My adult dream was to celebrate ten years of marriage to a wonderful man who loves me with all his heart, soul, mind, and body. And I did that too. It was a wonderful trip.
So, why, on my last morning there, as I was bidding farewell to the blue Pacific and watching the fog roll away from the coastline, did I find myself fighting tears as I composed an impromptu prayer? Looking at the Pacific, I rocked as I sang, "Rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me. O Lord my God, oh please help me. O give me courage, o give me strength. Rejuvenate me, and please bring me to be the person as you want me. Rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, O please help me. To say no to myself. To say yes to myself. O please help me to choose wisely. Rejuvenate me, oh come to me. Amen."
As I have gotten older and have gained more understanding of myself and the condition which I've imposed upon myself, I am trying to be kinder to myself and more loving towards the fragility of my own life. Ever since Susan died, I've been thinking about the sheer sadness of death -- the loss of the light of this wonderful woman and all she had to offer to her family and friends and to the world at large. Every once in a while, it pops into my own head that I'm closer to the end of my road than to the beginning, and I feel very tender towards myself. I think that I'm a pretty cool person and I have a lot of interesting things going on in my mind, my heart, and my soul. And I'm sorry that I won't be in this life forever. And, at the same time, it occurs to me that I'm wasting time. Wasting time hating my body. Wasting time being tired and sore and in pain. Wasting time being overwhelmed by things. Wasting time being out of control. And that makes me feel very tender towards myself too.
Hence the prayer, which I will sing every morning, perched on my bench of dirty laundry, regarding the ebb and flow of my family life.
So, why, on my last morning there, as I was bidding farewell to the blue Pacific and watching the fog roll away from the coastline, did I find myself fighting tears as I composed an impromptu prayer? Looking at the Pacific, I rocked as I sang, "Rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me. O Lord my God, oh please help me. O give me courage, o give me strength. Rejuvenate me, and please bring me to be the person as you want me. Rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, rejuvenate me, O please help me. To say no to myself. To say yes to myself. O please help me to choose wisely. Rejuvenate me, oh come to me. Amen."
As I have gotten older and have gained more understanding of myself and the condition which I've imposed upon myself, I am trying to be kinder to myself and more loving towards the fragility of my own life. Ever since Susan died, I've been thinking about the sheer sadness of death -- the loss of the light of this wonderful woman and all she had to offer to her family and friends and to the world at large. Every once in a while, it pops into my own head that I'm closer to the end of my road than to the beginning, and I feel very tender towards myself. I think that I'm a pretty cool person and I have a lot of interesting things going on in my mind, my heart, and my soul. And I'm sorry that I won't be in this life forever. And, at the same time, it occurs to me that I'm wasting time. Wasting time hating my body. Wasting time being tired and sore and in pain. Wasting time being overwhelmed by things. Wasting time being out of control. And that makes me feel very tender towards myself too.
Hence the prayer, which I will sing every morning, perched on my bench of dirty laundry, regarding the ebb and flow of my family life.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Physical
I had a physical yesterday which included me crying my eyes out in the doctor's office. I wasn't crying because I received bad news (yet), but because I am so incredibly frustrated with what is going on with my health. I don't feel like a normal 45 year old woman should feel (Yes, despite my unbelief, I am 45... until Sunday, when the clock slews back to 29). Even if my blood pressure is normal, as it is, and my cholesterol is stellar, which it usually is, I am smart enough to know that I can't go on skating by this way forever. Diabetes runs in my family and I did have gestational diabetes with both chickadees -- an indicator of possible diabetes later. I'm having all sorts of blood work done and the doctor referred me to a vascular specialist because of some specific things that are happening. She also prescribed a medication which is supposed to help with pain -- not a painkiller, but a medicine that works on the nervous system and how it perceives pain. I don't like the idea of taking a daily medication, but I also know that, if I develop diabetes or high blood pressure or heart disease, I will be taking medication daily anyway. If this medicine can help me not be in constant pain, it will be better for me in the short and the long run. On the upside (ha ha ha), the primary side effect of this medication is nausea, so I'm inclined to eat less. So, that's the update.
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