Top 5 in pictures: things I want to learn

Ok, this is fun.  Are you game?  What's that?  Oh, I can hear you now.  You nodded.  Here goes: this is my top 5 list of "things I want to learn".  But with a twist!  It is all in pictures.  Can you guess what they all are?  I think I made it pretty easy.  

Bruce McCall Knows Men

Never Disturb a Nest

Casting Call

Gone Fishin'

Illustrator Bruce McCall provided me with my fathers day cards this year.  It took me a while to "get" these illustrations, but once I did I was chuckling with glee in front of the card display.  I bought four -- one for my father, my husband, my brother in-law, and my father in-law.  When I like something, I tend to buy in big quantities like that.  Plus, each of these cards fit their personalities, as if Mr. McCall was watching them as he did his artistic thing.

Fastest Way Outta Town

I love the humor/darkness/contemplative/outrageous/manly feel.  I felt deeply touch by what I see as this universal vulnerability:  we're all hoping to stay on the lighter side of things, even if it seems crazy and improbable (as with Gone Fishin').  And then there is this other crazy notion that we all want to fly and climb skyscrapers and live dangerously.  While we play Atlas in shouldering the burden of these two realities we have this pull that tells us: just go fishing... or play cards...   And we're such simple creatures.

Shaker Re-Enactment

The kiddies get down Shaker style: the Milkmaid, the Minister, and the Ministers Wife!

(Thanks to Papa for the photo!)

Tick check!

Summer is here. Flowers. Green -- so much green. Fairs. Weddings. And ticks. So many ticks!

Hubby and I have picked 4-6 ticks off the kiddo's so far. Mostly poppy-seed sized ninja ticks. They are so small! And tricksy! And they hold the potential to inflict such harm. Lymes disease -- yuck yuck yuck! We're vigilant and the children have been quite remarkably compliant, allowing us to do a 'tick check' every night before pajama time.

Besides it being tick season, it's also the season of travel. Mostly people travel to our part of the world -- New England offers sundry appealing destinations. We're staying put mostly, as a young poor family must. We make our own fun in the lakes and rivers and trails right outside our door.

From now until September, we have weddings and a family reunion, a short 5-day vacation in July and the Lowell Folk Festival. Lots to do -- and fitting in time for swimming, hikes, and bike rides. I wish we could enjoy some of the vacation time my German relatives enjoy -- some of them have 10 weeks of vacation a year! If we had that, I'd just take a few weeks off to stay home and relax. But alas, being workaholics comes with being American I guess.

Anticipating the boom of summer is almost as fun as anticipating the quiet, slow implosion of fall -- and Fall means pumpkins, blueberries, and county fairs. But we're not there yet. Once school lets out, happy and safe summer to all!

Lovely blog.

If you want to smile today, check out the blog Pecanoot!

Gorgeous art with a lot of soul.

Found the link to this gem on my crafty friends blog, The Crafty Musings of Laurie Coyle.

I greatly appreciate art I can understand and connect to, and this blog is an oasis.

Falling apart. Letting it fall. Which way do I choose to see it?

Why is it that there are these things I try so hard to build in my life, and they end up just falling to pieces? It's as if the harder I try at something, the more quickly something else crumbles before I can catch it. I've got my little finger stuck in this crack, my foot propping up this weight, and my forehead pressed against the whole thing, just praying it'll hold for one more day.

And then a thought flashes through my head: "Just let it all go". And I imagine this thunderous crash and this cloud of dust, and then me, standing there with my hands empty. And I know that if I do that, then there isn't a chance I can go back to playing SuperWoman. There isn't a chance I would put myself in that position ever again, or expect anyone else to either. And I would get to choose the story I tell: did everything just fall apart? Or did I let it fall?

The subtle difference between those two things? Choice. Sometimes I forget I have that little word in my back pocket, always. Last year when my husband and I went though our separation, we could have just kept going on our destructive track. But no, we had a choice. And so even though it seemed like a crazy and horrible thing, we split up for a few months. Everything we had painstakingly built suddenly started to come apart at the joints... and we let it come apart.

This cycle seems exhausting and not just a little desperate to me. Either I am perpetually holding something up and keeping it from falling, or these things in my life keep crumbling and I keep rebuilding. The notion I hold onto is what I mentioned above: choice. Maybe life is a constant process of building and destroying and somehow every time we build something, we build it better and different and stronger.

And so now I find myself surprised. I have painted myself into a corner again: I am working in a job where I am carrying a lot of stress and responsibility. I am working nights and don't have a social life anymore. I have been neglecting the relationships in my life that are most dear to me. I don't see my children enough. But the job has also brought me immense satisfaction and I have learned more than I even know now. Despite what I thought I had learned, I have retreated into SuperWoman mode again, and once again have my forehead pressed against the whole damn thing, praying for a way out.

And again I am faced with a question that feels bigger than I can handle: is it all going to fall apart? Or do I just let it fall?

It's all in there.

The things I am looking for are always there in front of me. They just come in packages I don't expect.

Trust = letting her chop the hotdogs with the sharp knife all by herself

Patience = letting him get his shoes on by himself

Joy = the mention of cake or snuggling or reading a book lights up their faces

Faith = allowing her to help me plant flowers, even if I might think she'll be too rough

Love = all I have to do is sit down and open my arms, and all of a sudden my lap is full

Hope = always on the lookout for these moments

Eat your veg!

Having fun with an education project at work where I am making placards for the dining room tables that promote balanced eating.  Have found some fun graphics online and thought I'd share.  Some alternatives to the oft-seen USDA food pyramid.

In remembrance.

Photo credit: http://www.iraqwarnews.net

With conflict ripe throughout the world, there are so many opportunities for fighting and war.  Knowing who is "right" and who is "wrong" seems impossible; the conflicts are never black and white. One guarantee seems to be that innocent people die everyday; people that get caught in the crossfire, people that were at the wrong place at the wrong time.  For those people, my heart aches. For the people that are displaced from their homelands by conflict and bloodshed, as well as the people who have no means to flee: my thoughts are with you today.  And for those brave enough to protect these people, I wish you continued strength.  And for those that have fallen while protecting the innocent, may they rest in peace. 

I am a patriot: I am proud to be living in America.  But it is a complicated pride: our country has compromised it's conscience so many times.  I pray that our leadership walks the middle path and does everything he can to prevent further crimes towards humanity and the human spirit.

For all those serving in our Armed Forces right now, thank you for believing in what America is made of and what we can be to the world.  And remember to tread lightly and think of these words:

"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without".  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

The ties that bind.

I'm looking ahead, as many people do before a birthday. And also looking back. Sitting on my couch right now, it's midnight and I just got off of 10 or so hours of working. I am in my pj's and my husband is in the other room, wisely in bed getting ready to sleep. I'm no so proud of myself because I just polished off the remainder of a bag of chips. And you'd think I knew better, turning 26 next week and all.

So I'm thinking about myself and taking stock: 26 years old, have been married for almost 4 years, have 2 beautiful and wild children, and currently reside in a lovely cottage nestled beside a brook. Not bad. Never thought I'd have all these things so soon in life, but I'm beginning to enjoy the unexpected (anticipate it even. Is that possible?).

I still chew my nails when I get nervous and I tend to 'eat my emotions' when I am stressed. But hey, we all need things about ourselves to work on, right? Add exercise and patience to that little list.

I imagine all the experiences that make me Mummy Dearest and see them all as threads. Some are dull, like a blue thread (that would be my school years). Some are yellow (my backpacking trips), some red (my love), some silvery (my relatives) or glittery (my sisters). And they are all sewn into and bound around this thing: me. And these threads connect me to places and people and events; to the past and to things yet to come. Unravel or snip one, and something changes or falls loose.

Am I trying to say that we're all just big, messy craft projects of the universe?! I lack the eloquence of the poet and the clarity of a rested person. I think I know what I am trying to say:

At 26, I feel like my life is a uniquely crafted, interesting, and complex creature. I want to say more about marriage and friendship and resolutions. I want to project into the future, talk about regrets, and count my blessings. But I don't think I'll do those things. I am just going to stop and look around this year. Pull on threads. See what they tell me about myself.

When I look in the mirror at my back, I see the tattoo I got for my 25th last year -- a symbol of struggle and love and life and God. As for this birthday, I think I'll remember it being blessedly quiet, like the moment in the morning before the kids are awake and all I can hear are cadences of birdsong and all I can see is mellow green as the rising sun shines through veiny green leaves.