Thou Shall Prepare for the Soap Box

I just thought that I should forewarn those of you who read regularly, a really bad star alignment just occurred...I got the book on CD "Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver... and I am feeling very uneasy with my life direction.

I told my sister the other day that my life was feeling like a pair of jeans that was too tight. I can't exactly explain that in words necessarily, but if you are a woman reading this, I know that you are going "OH YEAH... I Totally get what she is talking about"

You know, they look good, and when you put them on to go out, they fit all fine, and feel good, you turn around in the mirror all: "Damn I look HOT in these." THEN you add one bite of an appetizer and a beer, and then you are about to bust out of them. Excusing yourself to the bathroom about every other minute just to unbutton them and reassure your belly that you promise to set it free later if it will just be agreeable for the next hour or so? As you are returning home, and your butt is having the prickles from the lack of circulation, you are making all sorts of deals with yourself about exercise and eating right if you can just make it home before something falls off.

When you finally return home and look at yourself in these jeans, that seemed all neat and perfect when you put them on…you are NOT impressed. You have rolls coming out from every space that the pants aren't, and they are making you gassy. This is not to say that I blame my gassiness on my life...but rather, somehow I think that my life fit me perfect at one point, and now...well now, I have muffin top, and my ass is asleep...literally and figuratively.*

So you wonder, "What is the nutcase talking about now?" Well let me fill you in a little. I can be a fairly laid back sort of person... (My sister is choking on her coffee right about now) But seriously, don't listen to her, I can be, I really can be. For the most part, I look at most things and confuse the hell out myself with my own ability to vacillate. Being so indecisive, and putting myself in the shoes at every angle, making picking a direction for my life nearly impossible, and it ends up looking like that sign I posted a few days ago. This is, until I become passionate about something.

It is the moments when my face lights up, I look at Jamie and I say things like "Let’s move back to New England," that even he knows, just to go with it until I come down from my soapbox. Sometimes I do, and other times? Well, we are living in Maine, so I guess you can see where I am going with this.

I am passionate about Agriculture. I am fanatical in the idea that every child, whether they live in the Bronx or in North Country Vermont, should have an education in Agriculture. I believe that it is as important as all the other things that we are force fed in our early education...I believe that it is more important in fact, than many things that we are learning. I believe that this is even more important in this generation with a Very Real food crisis approaching our country and our world.

And now, my passion for Agriculture has been combined with Barbara Kingsolver’s writing in “Animal Vegetable Miracle.” I love Barbara Kingsolver. I think I would totally be her stalker if I had it in me. Her writing is like poetry, and listening to her read it? Just as good... (This is why I read all her books, and then tried to find them on tape so that I could hear her read them too.) I have read everything she has written in Fiction, and am now working on Nonfiction. When this book passed through my radar I had to jump…with this long ass post written…please look forward to more of my Agricultural soap-boxing soon…Just a warning.

So rock on my fellow gardeners, and enjoy the long soaking rain…my beans really needed it.

*Yes I really DID put that much thought into that analogy BEFORE I even said it, and yes I am pretty clear on the fact that I have a lot of strange things going on in this head of mine, and I probably shouldn't be telling the world about it!

The Dreaded Chemistry Set

OK so, sometimes I feel like Jim Carey in Me Myself and Irene when it comes to my kids. Not that I am so unbelievably blind that I don't realize they aren't mine... (They have too much of my sarcastically bad attitude for that to be true!)

But the fact that they are really smart...smarter than me*, and sometimes I find them plotting in the basement and I am pretty sure that they are coming up with a sinister plan to take over the town...but I am not smart enough to read their equations on the chalk board, so I just pretend it is just a nice game of school and Lego's.

So anyway, my middle child, (whom I send to school with a disclaimer saying "will resort to bad things if not kept busy,”) wants a Chemistry set for her birthday. So, now I am in the great quandary of: hmmm do you give her the Chemistry set and risk the house blowing up? Or deny her interest in science and pay for years of therapy when she is trying desperately to "find herself" because her true passions were denied at 7 years old.

Hard choice. Although, it could be a positive thing, maybe she will develop a cure for teenage angst, or a magic potion that makes your husband and son put the seat down after they pee. WHO knows? It could all be for the greater good.

Although, I may need to put a sign in my front yard with this picture saying:

Beware:
Middle child too smart for her own good experimenting with Chemistry in the basement...
enter yard at own risk

*Well let me amend the smart thing...I am still smarter than the boy. Which I shouldn't be so proud of considering he just turned 3...give him time, and I will be a bumbling idiot to him too!

An Encouraging E-mail from My Uncle

Pie -

I heard this quote on an NPR interview of writer Isabel Allende: "You need to have a weird family to be a writer."

WOW! You're as good as in the writer's guild!*

love, UD**

Thanks for the encouragement UD. It is good to know that I shall never be short of something to write about...see, it IS like therapy!

*He DOES understand that he is part of that family right??? So I guess he is free game now! OOOWAAHAAAAAA (evil laugh)

**UD is short for Uncle Duncle...the very clever name that I slapped him with at a young age.

Makes Sense

So this is about how I am feeling these days about what direction my life should be headed....is that a problem???

June 3rd The Little Man's Debut

Three years ago on this date I was the size of a water buffalo, waddling around, cussing every obstetrician in the local area for not having realized that when you are 6 cm dilated, 50% effaced, and on your third child, you walk around worried that you will be featured in the headline:

"Woman Drops Child Out of Her Pant Leg at Local Bank"

After about a week of my incessant whining, and swelling extremities, my husband called in desperation. I think he was ready to deliver the baby himself just to get his wife back. When they finally talked to me, they decided that inducing me would not be a bad idea. I think that it was, perhaps, oh I don't know, 30 minutes and 1 push, and the boy was here. Even the Doctor was a little surprised, and apologetic for not having believed me that Henry was already climbing out before I even got there!

As you may have guessed this would be my Sons 3rd birthday. So I thought that I should dedicate at least one entry as a Henry Tribute Post. So here it goes:

Alright little man, I never have really understood what was going on in that head of yours. You definitely have a time of your own. You were born, walked, talked, and understood things when you wanted to, and really could have cared less about other people’s time frames.

Your wild blond hair that seems to never rest, is kind of like you. Every morning it is sticking out like every strand was trying to make a run for it in the middle of the night, and it makes me smile every time you wake me up by opening my eyes for me. I think it probably fits your personality, a mind of its own, just like you!

On one hand you are everything I was warned about with having a boy...on the other, you are much more than I ever bargained for. You are so typical in so many ways, I mean, a lawn mower can make you comatose and sit drooling while you watch it mow, as though it was the best thing on earth. Yet at the same time, you can play with your “lovey bears” like a true mother, rocking them to sleep and putting them to bed. You are my empathetic little charmer, learning how to wield your power a little more every day, a definite Gemini.

Emotional and Demanding; in one respect a true young soul, with so much impatience to just get on with it, and yet sometimes, a seemingly old soul with wisdom, that just marinates in your surroundings and then reminding us about all the happenings months later. I swear you have the brain of an elephant, and will probably be able to have a list starting at your 1 year birthday for your therapist…I on the other hand will have blocked all of this out! (Except for your smile and hugs!)

Particular to a fault, yet free spirited....My son, you are a juxtaposition...a study for sure. You keep me on my toes, and keep me madly loving you, even though you are loving making me mad!

A Little Brighter Note

On a happier note, my flowers are starting to bloom! These Irises are actually from my yard in NH where I grew up. My mother planted them when I was little (I will not refer to how old that makes them) When they moved to NC they dug some up and gave them to my grandmother. When she moved to be closer to my sister and I here in Maine, she dug them up and gave them to us. So my sister and I now have yards that have heirloom irises from our childhood. So as soon as they bloom I take pictures of them, because, well, they make me happy! (yeah I know, it doesn't take much does it?)

And then there is the Maine Lupine....which just makes me smile too!

Monday's, Politics, and Melancholy

I am not feeling very peppy this morning, but then, it is Monday morning, which is my personal Hell. You know, everyone comes home for the weekend and destroys the house. On Monday morning they all grab the lunch I make them and run out of the house to leave me with the aftermath of a chaotic weekend. Not to mention I worked part of the day on Saturday at the library so that just makes it worse.

I really think that sometimes I leave the house and the 4 other people in my family have a pow-wow about how to completely send me over the edge...

"OK So girls, you leave the markers out and let Henry draw on the carpet with them, and oh, don't forget to leave little Lego's all over the house, so she can step on them with her bare feet...she loves that. I will make lunch and leave an entire years worth of crumbs on the counter, and get the mail and separate the Newspaper into as many sections as possible to leave it, then I will take all the shoes from the mud room and leave one from each pair in every room in the house....Henry? You make sure that you poop in your underwear at least twice as soon as she gets home... OK ...BREAK!"

While I am sure it really isn't as sinister as that...I still have days where I have my doubts.

But it isn't just the chaos in the house that has me a little down. We noticed that two houses near us were looking a little, well, abandoned lately. You know the unkempt yard etc... I am not all that particular about that kind of stuff; it just made me wonder a little because one of the houses had a dad that just returned from Iraq. We found out that they had been foreclosed on, both of those houses. This is becoming common place around here. I cannot tell you how many houses I have seen under foreclosure lately.

While I understand that it isn't even someone I know really well or anything... they have three kids like I do, they have 2 that are coming up on college age, and I remember them being so excited to move into that house a couple years ago. It just sort of was a sign of the times in this country. That economic squeeze that seems to be squeezing even the middle class... (What is left of it.) And it made me sad.

The news on TV makes all of this so sterile, it all is about charted graphs, and trends. But there are people loosing everything they have. People, who have worked hard their entire lives, have lived fairly conservatively, and they are not making it anymore. It isn't a bar graph when a family goes under, it is children and parents, and their lives that will now be different, and will have an effect on the direction their lives will now travel. It just makes me angry and disheartened.

So, while I am cleaning up today, I am thankful that I have a house to clean up. And I will think about those who are loosing theirs...there just has to be a better way out there...Here's hoping for a better day in November!