Here Come the Backhoes....

Excavation machines draw closer...bringing with them a sense of excitement as well as dread. Our entire street is being ripped to shreds, sewers and old still-wood pipes being replaced, and the whole road widened to palatial dimensions. We'll have a sidewalk on our side!

This morning, we were almost astounded to discover that as we showered they had torn up the intersection just down from us (about 2 lawn lengths away). The kids are in ecstasy - a whole summer of "mighty machines" - pull up the lawn chairs, deposit kiddie pool in front yard, and our entertainment for the next 2 months is covered!

An alarming apprehension settled in my gut for a few moments: how will we get in and out of our driveway? Where will we park our cars? What if they are broken into? How will I cart my work apparatus from house to trunk without losing breath and cookware? And almost as suddenly the sentiment disappeared.

But in that brief period of time I began to understand the inklings of anxiety a lot of people generate on a regular basis when faced with change of any kind. I embrace change (my husband might even claim I jump on it and wrestle it down just to be sure it sticks around) - having grown up in a family that moved homes and towns annually we had a choice to squeeze revision close and count our blessings for the upsides, or to smother ourselves in the depressing lack of stability. Of course there were moments when, jealous of those who had the same students in their kindergarten photo as in their grade 8 graduation, I wanted merely to be in one place for long enough to cultivate a garden let alone a friendship.

I would entreaty that this constant motion made me a better person - but in reality I have allowed it to mean only that I can't comprehend others' anxiety over any sort of change. Why do people freak out when we sing a new song on Sunday mornings at church? What's wrong with experimenting with a new recipe? Why shouldn't I try to grow watermelons in my garden? Why can't someone who never has had to grocery shop simply get used to it?

I hope the excavators dig up my seemingly lost sense of lightheartedness since my latest blogs seem imploringly depressing. And because my family is likely exasperated with hearing me mutter in a somewhat whiny whisper: "If you can't change something, change the way you think about it" (you know you say it often when your 2 year old rushes to finish it before you).

Dartboards, Dirty Undies & Charred Lunches

Our living room has become a "piano bar" - or perhaps a better description would be "the legion"...

Thinking I was safe to begin the above blog - one child snuggling up to the upright organ (a garage sale gift to us) and pressing the auto song buttons while the other fervently, with great concentration, chucked magnetic darts at a bulls-eye (borrowed from the "Funtime Bus" - a toy library on wheels), I began to compose...

Snapped a photo to add and then proceeded to insert the card into the wrong computer slot - while hopelessly searching, began to smell charred odour of forgotten grilled cheese still on element. And then: "Mommy...MOMMY! I have to stinky..." which always implies a puddle and other such mess have already formed around teeny toes.

I expect change in others - my endless lack of acceptance that someone (my husband, our church, etc.) can't seem to flawlessly hurdle themselves into new-ness - and yet here I am 4 1/2 years into motherhood and still unable to grasp the basic concept that life is just not the same...I cannot begin, complete, or even attempt to accomplish all that I previously could. Why, oh why, can I not deposit that trivial reality into my skull?

Ah, we were blessed by friends and family with the gift of a child-free weekend of sun, canoeing, and reading (adult) books while lounging beside the lake, which appears to have sown philosophical musings...Shake head, gaze about, and pounce back into reality - which isn't such a bad place to be, after all! Now, excuse me while I mop the legion's floor...

Ah the dilemma...and the dusty floorboards

Be satisfied with what you have. Long for more (the good ole mantra of consumerism). I realize that the Lord instilled in us a longing and that we are forever mistakenly struggling to fill our need for Him through the filling of our lives with stuff...it seems such a fine line, though.

While reading "Who Stole My Church?" by Gordon MacDonald suddenly a disheartening revelation that my words don't match my belief..."'Jesus didn't ask people just to swallow his words, but he asked them to spend time with him and see what he was about....Did his life match his words?" (p.73)

I strain for a life of simplicity with only a few possessions and yet in our garage sits a riding lawn mower AND a push one...a china cabinet perches against a cobweb-filled corner half-filled with wedding gift china and crystal that, in all honesty, is rarely pulled out and utilized...I am in the process of ripping out living room carpet to reveal a gorgeous hardwood floor beneath...why do I crave change? Why am I unable to remain static? This may not be erroneous on my behalf - but why the need for upgraded surroundings? Why can I not simply exude gratitude for what is here, for what I have? Why do I have to "pretty up" our living environment, dreaming of larger gardens and different hues of walls and heated bathroom floors?

Conundrum. Remember the "spatula" girl? I'm surmising that "conundrum" is now one of my very favourite words (and ways of being, perhaps?). Conundrum conundrum conundrum (and I can even repeat it without blushing)!

Candy Surprises

"Mommy, quick! Come here!" shrieked my two year old from the bathroom. I sprinted (not that our house is that big - more like a couple of hurdle lengths)... "Look at the candy in the toilet!" She was intently staring into the somewhat slimy depths of the toilet, her little cherub-like face flushed with anticipation, beginning to reach into the bowl.
"WAIT! STOP! Don't grab that, honey!" What the...??? The "candy"? A translucent floating o.b. tampon wrapper...

Can we plant yet??? Please, please, pretty please???

As Jeff glanced at my stack of books, fresh from the library, littering the kitchen table surface, he began heartily laughing. What is so amusing, I wondered? In my foray into companion gardening I had selfishly plucked almost every gardening book from the newly renovated library's shelves; they lay haphazardly strewn amongst Gavin's school papers, a half-burnt rainbow beeswax candle, a half-eaten bowl of bran flakes, and Rebekah's clean underwear and pants.

"Ecological gardening???" He read one of the book titles, still amused and chuckling. "Isn't ALL gardening ecological gardening????"

I am a Gardener. Stated with some hesitation as I have only a couple of summers working for a landscaper (in which I murdered a fifty-foot poplar due to misreading of pesticide:water equation; drove a tractor backwards into a milk shed;and chopped off the first-in-five-years blooms of the owners' favourite smokebush - all stories for another subject and another time) and a few months as a subservient greenhouse go-girl so truly I have very little horticultural knowledge. What I have been blessed with, however, is this uncanny ability to grow anything anywhere. Green, bushy things happen to like me.

For weeks now I have been working the soil - turning it occasionally, yanking nasty weeds, eyeing patterns and contriving what plants are going to shortly have new homes, and desperately feeling as though I should have already carved out nests for seeds and tucked them into their earthy home. Not until May 24 - wait until Victoria's birthday has passed and safety assurance kicks in. No that I get any much thing done at any one time with little ones "helping" (although they are more that content to throw dandelion weeds down the groundhog hole - nope, hair clippings don't appear to have assisted in eviction).

And this year I am ditching the formerly ingrained idea that garden = linear. Peas and carrots and onions and beans don't have to be planted in rows??? Revolutionary! Anarchy in my gardening boxes! How defiantly delicious!

Can I plant yet? Please, please, pretty please can't I just plant yet????

Wakey wakey

I'm tired. Anyone else out there tired? Not just a I-didn't-quite-get-a-super-snooze-last-night tired but a completely fatigued-through-the-entire-skeletal-system tired?

"We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing." Oliver Wendell Holmes

What if we have quit playing because we're just too plain tired to play?

Rebekah's obsession with swinging ("higher, mom, HIGHER"...until a look of momentary dread fills her sparkly baby blues and she calmly spouts, "I'm okay for now..." translation: push me higher and I may either shriek or puke) goes over well with my tired-ness. Standing in one place, pumping my arm in a never-ending sideways motion as though I was one of those entrance gate bars at the subway working overtime, means I really don't have to do much...a blessing, really...

Magic In The Air

I admit to being a CBC Girl…when clear reception was no longer a reality on my drive, I was “forced” to listen to something different. Wow. I was shocked at how so many of the lyrics are so empty…

Taylor Swift crooning “Today was a fairytale” had my neck shackles bursting to mountainous proportions. She was only born in 1989, I kept reminding myself: what can a 19 year old possibly know about the actuality of love? “Can you feel the magic in the air,” kept ringing through the speakers, “Must’ve been the way you kissed me”.

But before the volcano of simmering annoyed-ness erupted I reminded myself it was time to think positively. Perhaps when she’s 30 and dragging around dirty-faced toddlers on her now-oversized hips she may, too, fathom that true love is more than just tingling lips and being passionately entwined? Or perhaps I am simply bitter?

Here is what “the magic in the air” looks like to me: a wink across the table that stops that overwhelming urge to strangle a newly independent preschooler; washed, dried, and put away mugs, plates, cutlery and even the disgustingly-coated half-burnt mashed potato pot; compliments when you KNOW you feel and look as though a wild wrestlemania-fan fox just had his hungry way with you; an early morning coffee left in the console as I head to work at mom’s store.

Why does society indoctrinate us with visions of flowers (that will only wilt), romantic dinners (that cost a fortune), and images of men who want to spend all day massaging your feet? Why can’t we be happy with the reality that even when we are complete critical, grumbling fusspots our husband chooses still to come home to us? (Okay, maybe it’s only me that can be a critical, grumbling fusspot?)

Sorry, Taylor. Maybe I AM just bitter….