It’s been storming in California for days. Our backyard is flooded, but only temporarily. Our drainage system just needs time to catch up and shunt off all that water. In the front yard, the runoff is meandering down our quiet street, pooling awhile here and there.
The sun came out to dazzle us for a little while. It will rain again soon. But seeing the water sparkle makes it all worthwhile.
I’ve been working on a project that I learned about through Amanda Soule’s SouleMama blog and her book The Creative Family. It was the perfect project to allow me to practice with all the awesome new tools I got for Christmas.
What is it, you ask?
It’s a bunting for decorating. Some might call it a banner. It’s reusable, unlike crepe paper. I thought it would be nice to use this to decorate for Asher’s upcoming birthday party. I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m pretty stoked about how it turned out!
First, I bought fat quarters and spent entirely too much money. (If I were already a sewer with lots of useful fabric scraps lying about, this wouldn’t have been necessary.) To cut out the triangles I used the Fiskars rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat my mother gave to me for Christmas. I also used the little Gingher embroidery shears that Lucas and Asher gave me and the Singer “Prélude” sewing machine from Mom and Dad.
That rotary cutter is an amazing and beautiful tool. Cutting took only a fraction of the time I thought it would take.
Isn’t my Singer pretty?
Over several short sessions, I sewed the triangles closed. Today I sewed the bunting all together using wide bias tape. It went very smoothly. I am still debating about whether to pink all the triangle edges.
I think it’s very festive! The bunting is six yards long and I have enough triangles to make another of probably the same size. I think I will, since I’m not sure what I’d do with all these leftover triangles. I suppose I could try to make a quilt, but I think I’m not really ready for that yet.
It’s 10:30 a.m. on a holiday. My boys are all home and presently engaged in drawing backdrops for the Lego movie they plan on making today. I have no idea how they will accomplish this, given that we have an old-fashioned camcorder and not a fancy digital camera, nor any editing software. Perhaps I’m overthinking it. I’m hearing phrases about aliens and space police and stop-motion. Asher is helping, so it will be interesting to watch with one eye how this project unfolds (and potentially is destroyed by Baby Godzilla) .
I’m sitting here in my office in my living room trying to work and not pay too much attention to everyone. I’m trying to edit a strategy guide for a ubiquitous game franchise and it feels for all the world like I’ve read these exact words a hundred million times before. (OK. Maybe I’m not trying all that hard if I’ve stopped to write this post.)
Rain is falling outside and my throat’s a little sore, but I know there’s no point in going back to bed to rest more.
I’ve signed up for a class on developmental editing for fiction—I’m interested in learning how other people tackle this sort of thing, especially since I work in a vacuum most of the time. I’m hopeful that I’ll learn a bunch that will help me land more such projects. So I’m looking forward to the class and also hoping that it won’t take too much time away from my projects.
I’m starting a new project tomorrow and I’ll be working directly with the author. I expect another big nursing copyedit to come my way, but this one won’t be a whole book. I’ll be editing test questions and I expect that to take about two months, starting any day now.
My meeting with my uncle, who is the editor in chief for a religious publisher, was very productive. I get to look at his fall list and choose some books that sound interesting to me. I don’t know if I’ll really get my pick(s), but it sounds like a strong possibility. His books are very clever, scholarly, and carry some cachet, and the prospect of working on something challenging sounds good.
So, at the moment, I’m feeling pretty great about where I am in the world. Some interesting new things are on my horizon! Oh! And I bought a fabulous new coat yesterday.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars seeps into my home via the playground—a Waldorf playground, mind you. Neither of my children have seen any Star Wars movies, and yet …
Asher: “I’m R2D2. I say ‘beepboopbopbeep’ and I have no arms. You want to be Yoda?”
Me: “No, thanks.”
Asher: “You want to be a guywalker?”
Me: “No.”
Lucas: “What about Leia Skywalker? She’s Luke’s sister. Do you want to be her?”
Me: “Not really.”
Lucas: “What about Ahsoka?”
Me: “Who is Ahsoka?”
Lucas: “YOU DON’T KNOW WHO AHSOKA IS?!?!?”
Me: “Nope.”
Lucas: “She’s Anakin’s PADDYWON.”
Me: “What’s a paddywon?”
Lucas: “I don’t know.”
Asher: “I’m R2D2firefighterStarWarsCloneWarsdoctor! Beepboopbopbeep! Yoda fights a creepy bad buy named nofing. I’m cooking dinner. Meatballs and getti. You want to come to my factory?”
Lucas recently painted his first canvas. A local craft and fabric store is having a sale on artists’ canvases. We bought a 12 by 12 in canvas for Lucas for something like $2.87. He used my craft acrylics—nothing very fancy. It was such an exciting treat to paint on a new surface! Alien art is cute.
This was a good reminder that I had lots of plans to paint. Hmmm … must get to that sometime soon.
Poor baby has pinkeye today. It doesn’t seem to be slowing him down any. It’s a different story for me, though. I hope he will be all better tomorrow.
Jan 15, 2010 Edit: Our pediatrician says it’s not pinkeye. Asher has a virus and it has caused viral conjunctivitis. This morning both his eyes were very, very red but not constantly goopy. So, basically, there is nothing we can do for him but let his immune system fight the virus, and support him in all the usual ways.
Today is exciting because this afternoon Ian and I get to meet with Lucas’s second-grade teacher to see how he’s doing in school. (Our meeting should have occurred last November, but we didn’t make our appointment [insert guilty feeling here].)
Since our Waldorf school doesn’t give out grades, this is our big, mid-year opportunity to find out what’s going on with Lucas and how he’s progressing academically, socially, artistically, and emotionally—from his teacher’s perspective. I know what I think—that he’s brilliant and creative and diabolical and sensitive and totally likable—but then, I’m his mother, and decidedly not the one trying to teach him maths and cursive handwriting!
I’m not a very patient person. About a hundred times a day, I have to take a deep breath and try to start over. Try to put aside the anger or frustration of the last moment and enter this moment with calm and right intention.
Start over.
It’s a practice; it often fails me, or I fail at it, but sometimes it works. It’s a constant effort to achieve forgiveness and regain my patience because we four bumble around each other in this smallish space, spilling food and bonking heads and fetching water and failing to share and making room and feeding bellies and cleaning messes. Without this starting over, this negotiation and mindful regrouping, we would never get through the day—any day, even the good ones.
I write here about the things I want to focus on, the good feelings, the good moments of family life because I want to remember them. Truly, our lives are so full and we enjoy so much good fortune. Conversely, I really try not to wallow in my feelings of frustration and rage, for doing so doesn’t do me any good and it harms the people around me. My children thrive when I’m present and patient. When I’m insane and shouting, we are all miserable. So I write to remember the good things someday in the future, but also to regroup and refocus right now on why I do what I do, why I am here and not elsewhere. It helps me remember my purpose, it helps me feel better about who I am and my current place in the universe. It helps me start over.
It’s easy for me to slip into complaining, and while I do think that occasionally writing about the crappy parts of this Mommy job is essential to maintaining my sanity, I try hard not to do it all the time. For if I don’t actively write about the great stuff, the sweet parts of this work, I easily drift off-course into dreary waters where dragons lurk.
For me, it’s a constant internal struggle and sometimes—usually—my riotous feelings must be subsumed in the needs of the family. Sometimes I hate it and want to break things, but doing so doesn’t change anything for anybody for the better. So I start over. Sometimes, on the other hand, I do have to cry or walk away for a while—to take care of myself and also to show my kids that I am a human being, that my feelings can be hurt when they are careless. If I’m careful about when I reveal this notion that Mommy is human, it can help us all start over. Sometimes I shout and lose it, and then crushing waves of guilt knock me off my feet. And then, once again, I start over.
The truth is, when Daddy is with us, I feel like 100 percent better and really do stay happier and in the moment. We can take turns being the strong/good one. He is my best friend and when he’s with me, it’s easy to see and feel how gorgeous all this that we have together is, how blessed we are. It’s when he is away and I’m with the kids for hours and hours without him that I start feeling lonely and stuck and jealous and hurt and a little bit like … how the hell did I get here?
And then some milk spills, or someone gets hurt, or the oven beeps, or a diaper needs changing, or a book needs reading aloud. Something happens—whatever this moment holds. I take a deep breath, and I start over.
Aren’t they beautiful? So humble and ordinary, and yet so perfectly formed. Asher has learned to associate mushrooms with Uncle Teeve, thanks to our walk in the Santa Cruz woodland last November.
I’m still banishing the January gray with little finds of color. I offer you the single blossom on my “pseudo-shamrock” plant. I don’t know what this plant really is, but it’s been here as long as we’ve lived in this home—10 years. It’s in front of this plant that we leave our little offerings to the leprechauns in March.
Sometimes the difference between being happy and being sad is in learning how to see.
