A Musing Mother 6

We're redoing our kitchen and I was busy sorting through papers while standing at the kitchen table when a knock came at the door. Scott was going home teaching so I already knew it was his partner, both men still in their Sunday best. I talked to our neighbor, found a photo of his daughter, handed it to him, and he and Scott walked out the door. I finished that pile and began making rolls. Halfway through adding flour it suddenly occurred to me to check to make sure I was wearing pants. For split second, I panicked before I affirmed that I was, indeed wearing pants.  It's Sunday. It's not like I'm going anywhere or anything. I can take off my pants.  This is a particularly relevant thought process after my incident this morning. Scott had already taken the kids to church and I figured I should put on clothes to go to church. I knew I bought a blouse and a belt yesterday and it was still in the car in the garage. In my underwear, I found that the garage door was open. I...

Friday was our 22nd wedding anniversary. 22 years ago we dreamed of rainbows and unicorns, making babies, making a home, and being in love forever. Yeah. You know how that goes. This year we spent our anniversary in ICU. Alyssa, almost 19 years old, wants to go on a mission but kept having episodes with her heart picking up an extra beat and short circuiting. A couple of weeks ago she was having an episode that wouldn't quit so she drove herself to the emergency room. The medical team was able to hook her up and catch about 30 seconds of it before it slowed back to normal and the cardiologist on call determined she had an extra biological pacemaker in her heart. The way to stop the episodes is to kill a little piece of her heart by threading some tubes through her vein via her groin area then zap it. The procedure was successful and quick. The part of the heart was between two chambers so it was hiding. Once the tubes were in her heart, they stimulated an episode and f...

I wrote this on my Facebook page: Makayla just wandered upstairs and found me reading on the sofa, pants discarded, as usual. She laughed at me. I laughed at her. Then I realized that Makayla Jensen is not my daughter. Go home, Makayla! I'm not putting my pants back on just because you are here!  There are now two camps. People who agree with me and people who have absolutely no idea why anybody would discard pants upon entering home. Fortunately, I've found that I'm not in a camp all by myself. I found an article of 10 Reasons Why I Hate Pants: Best summed up by this Venn Diagram sent by Scott's cousin:  

We're getting our kitchen redone and have finally reached the stage of final plans. A couple of days ago, the cabinet guy came over for final measurements. I greeted him, let him in and walked out the back door, grabbed a shovel and dug up worms in the side garden with the chickens. We found some huge, juicy ones. I'd had a hard day at work. It relaxes me. I returned to my house and commented that working with natural elements like wood and granite must be so grounding to him. Mike, the cabinet guy agreed. Then he added, "Except for working with the wackos, it really is great. By the way, what were you doing out there?" Nothing. Mike, the cabinet guy dropped the final plans off about an hour ago. I couldn't answer the door because I didn't have on pants. Pants are not necessary nor are they even preferred when at home alone. I only knew it was Mike, the Cabinet Guy, because I peeked out the window as he drove away. I grabbed the plans and looked them over. Bes...

I was out to lunch with my dance friends on Saturday and the conversation turned to our daily difficulties. One woman claimed she struggles with spelling. Horrifically, she mentioned. Another also struggles with spelling but doesn't know it. I know because she published a book on Amazon and I bought it. One can't write. Another hates to read. I struggle with time and space, I announced. They looked at me like I'd just teleported from another galaxy. "Like Star Trek?" No, like I can't judge space like a normal person. I'll be trying to find a parking spot and find the teensiest one and attempt to park the car. Scott will tell me "You won't fit, you won't fit," and I will pay him no mind. Of course I'll fit. I can park the car in the smallest of spaces after much back and forth and then announce, "Yep. It's too small." He just rolls his eyes. One day a woman waited for me in her car outside of Target until I returned from ...

All I was doing was looking for an image of my great, great, grandmother. What I found was a newspaper article about her father and the demise of a certain grizzly bear that did not want to go down quietly. William Dees, my ancestor, was the first school teacher in a little community in southern Idaho. He and 11 other families settled the area, greatly offending the Shoshone Indian tribe. They were recorded as being "fierce" and "a menace." In fact, the entire settlement spent all summer someplace else, returning only to harvest their crops. Eventually, they did return to their community for good, only to continue struggling with their crops. Just to be clear about what these homes consisted of, they were dugouts. Little more than mud, dirt and grass. Home, sweet, home. Additionally, the settlement struggled with wild animals wandering into their corrals and killing their animals. While I sometimes worry about the stray raccoon or hawk stealing away my chickens, or ...

I know I'm being actively quiet. I've written post after post about my life right now but didn't publish them because it just didn't feel quite right. I'm hoping by the time I'm finished writing THIS post, I can click "Publish." I'm going through a refining process right now. I'm learning lessons I really need to learn in an environment that is painful yet not mortally wounding. I'm in a situation where the rules keep changing, the players don't follow conventional rules, and it's not fair. I could go into the details so you could know how crazy the situation really is, but it's a moot point. I don't believe the point to my refining process is to BE right. Peripherally, I think I need to truly believe in myself and in my rightness, based on the particulars, but the details of what I'm learning are still a little fuzzy because I'm in the middle of it right now. Here's what I've gained so far: My self-worth is ...