Not-the-usual things I'm thankful for

We are heading straight into my most UNFAVORITE time of year when everything is syrupy sentimental and consumeristic AND people state the obvious as if they are blowing minds with their astute thoughts. Things like, "I'm thankful for my family," which is totally true and also not deeply cognitive if you are over age 30. 

Anyway, I do need to count my blessings more and am determined to really think a little more carefully about it. So since it is Nov 21, here are 21 thankful. 

1---I'm thankful for a brain that thinks deeply even though it means that people who don't think deeply kind of drive me nuts. 

2--I'm thankful I was finally issued a district computer even though I asked for one in August and had given up that I would ever get one. I have learned how to live without it so it will probably sit unused but I still got it and am glad. 

3--I am thankful that I keep having periods because it will make me EVEN MORE HAPPY when I finally, someday STOP HAVING PERIODS. 

4--I am thankful that M had a recent book project that he asked me to help him with. It was actually fun to plan with him and help him color at the kitchen table. He even said, "This is fun!" and you never hear 13-year-olds say that 1. with their moms or 2. about anything involving school.

5--I am also thankful that M has finally stopped wearing shorts to school and has adopted the pants I bought him. I hate to spend money on stuff for my kids that they never use. It also made me very cold to watch him walk into school in early November in shorts. 

6--I am thankful for the early dark of November because I enjoy hibernating from now until early March. It is a restful time of year that I think far too many people don't appreciate. I try to appreciate it.

7--I am thankful for a new friend with physical and mental disabilities because he helps me notice things about how other people (and probably me before I knew him) treat people with physical and mental disabilities. 

8--I am thankful for 25 years of marriage with D. Most of the time.

9--I am thankful I spent the other day watching my dad use his new pizzelle maker I ordered for him. It makes me happy to do things to help my parents since I will never actually repay them for all the ways they helped me. 

10--I am thankful my kids have two generations of parents behind them who have supported education. I tell my kids all the time that they have a leg up on a lot of other kids simply because they lucked into having grandparents and parents who believe education is the most important thing. 

11-I am thankful for the new old-person sunglasses that fit over prescription glasses because sunshine glare is really bothering me.

12--I am thankful that I NO LONGER CARE what people think of me which means I will wear the old-person sunglasses that fit over my prescription glasses and be not just happy but THRILLED even if I look like Bono during the Zooropa years. 

13--I am thankful I am working with JCPS high schoolers at the same school two days a week. I feel like I'm developing relationships which run of the mill subbing doesn't get you.

14--I am thankful for my new paper calendar which, even though I don't believe anything different happens on January 1, does let me sort of "put to bed" the past period of time. I like those clean, new sheets of paper.

15--I'm thankful we're changing our podcast format a little bit so I can read more fun stuff I want to read and not feel so stressed.

16--I'm thankful that more clothing manufacturers are making softer clothing for those of us with sensory issues. 

17--I'm thankful I've got a pretty good "asshole-dar" and recognized a long time ago that Elon Musk is kind of a dick....when others were still fan-boying over him. 

18--I'm thankful my kids can take jokes and don't take themselves too seriously.

19--I'm thankful more companies are using less wasteful products, and that I'm paying more attention to it.

20--I'm thankful for my kids' neighborhood pet-sitting business because it has taught them the importance of earning money and caring for sometimes old and feeble animals.

21--I'm thankful that G is trying new foods, including sushi. Given his sensory issues, this is something I really wasn't sure would ever happen. 

Letting traditions go

Last year, when my dad was going through his cancer and chemotherapy/radiation, I reached out to a former boyfriend who is now a chaplain and asked him to recommend some books to help me deal with my feelings. 

My medication keeps me on an even emotional keel, for the most part, but intense stress gums up the works. With the pandemic, my keel was wonky anyway; dad's diagnosis and treatment left me feeling way unmoored.

I read several books he suggested, including No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh and When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron. 

Between my own therapy and going through therapy with G, I've learned a lot about how anxiety and OCD work, and so I've tried to get better and more mindful about my acts of "letting go." I've tried to remind myself to feel whatever unpleasant feeling I'm having, hold it and sit with it until it doesn't hurt anymore (or not as much), and then let the desire to control the situation dissipate. 

I've also tried, in these past 20 months since COVID appeared here, to really not force myself to do things I don't want to do. 

Now, this doesn't mean I'm not working or doing the mom thing because those are things I need to do. Those are the tending to the tree work so that in the future of 10 or 20 years, I have shade in my garden.

But what I'm letting go of, and I've always been pretty good at this, is letting go of the stuff that really hasn't ever been necessary except that everyone else does it, and so we feel that it is required. 

I compare this to cutting back all the dead stalks in my garden each fall and throwing away all the dead leaves that fall on my grass. Someone, somewhere, decided this is what you do, and so everyone with a yard followed suit (in the same way that we all bought into the yard to begin with). In truth, cutting back stalks and removing every shred of leaves is detrimental to the health of the landscape. Birds and insects use those dead stalks and dead leaves to overwinter. The dead leaves decompose and provide nutrients to my flower beds. 

Essentially, going along with whatever every other homeowner does is extra work for me that harms my yard. 

We are going about our normal Thanksgiving which has always been okay with me because I've only ever had to make two dishes. When the day/time come when my MIL doesn't want to or can't do Thanksgiving, I do not necessarily think I will adopt the practice of bringing everyone together. I cannot say for certain. That could be next year or 15 years from now. 

But I hate entertaining. I really don't like to cook. And so I would have to find a way to do it that would not make me miserable. I know too many people, friends of mine and family, who do Thanksgiving (and Christmas and Easter) and stress about it. 

And yet, it is a holiday that we all do because someone, somewhere told us we had to. Did any of us ever formally decide, "Yes, I want to celebrate this holiday in this particular way?" Or have we all just done it because we've always done it. 

I have decided this year that our Christmas is changing. I am doing a long-term sub job until the district's winter break, and I am going to be tired. Subbing wears me the heck out. Plus, at the best of times, I hate shopping. So I have decided that I am not buying gifts for anyone. My children have everything they could ever want (and would rather have money anyway, I think). 

Our family is supposed to leave on a short trip soon after school ends, and this complicates the Christmas planning too, so I'm not planning. With airlines and delays being what they are, I have no guarantee that we will even get back when we are supposed to, so I'm not doing our "normal" at all. I'm not even going to try. While we are gone, if I feel inclined to buy someone something on our travels, I will get it. But I'm not buying everyone stuff just to have them a gift at Christmas. 

(I should say that this non-traditional Christmas is bringing its own OCD stress with it. The irrational part of my brain is pretty well convinced one of my parents is going to get COVID today at Thanksgiving and will be on a ventilator at Christmas, making our trip not happen.)

I am not putting up all the Christmas trees because the kids only help because I fuss at them, so I am putting up one tree that I will do myself and not ask them for help. I don't even care about Christmas, and I am sick and tired of trying to make my family a holiday that they don't seem to care about (although I suspect they will complain this year because it "isn't the same.") 

I feel like screaming from the rafters to every woman I know: STOP DOING THIS SHIT FOR YOUR FAMILIES UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY ENJOY DOING THIS SHIT FOR YOUR FAMILIES. IF YOU FUCKING HATE IT, then STOP. 

This year, I am listening to the crazy screeching lady in the rafters. 

The kid line up

There are few things I'm traditional about. 

Mostly what I've watched my family do is modify traditions through time. Things simply change, and the harder a person fights to keep things exactly the same (tradition), the worse it is. 

I think I learned from my mom that it makes more sense to adapt than to fight and then be angry that things haven't stayed the same. She was an adapter; she watched too many people in her family be unhappy trying to keep things the way they had always been.

I was never big on dressing my kids up cute for holidays. They mostly didn't cooperate, and I'm not a dresser-upper for holidays so eventually I moved on. I guess my tradition when it comes to dressing my family for holidays is seeing how much like hobos everyone looks. 

But there is a tradition that my side of the family has done since our kids and my brother/SIL's kids were young:

THE LINE-UP

At first, it was easier to lie them all down than to try to stand them up and keep them in order. 

It got a little easier, but the two youngest didn't get it, and the middle boys were (and still are) complete doofuses.

N took a lot of pride for being the tallest....

but her one year-younger cousin eventually took the title of tallest grandkid (which he currently still holds)

And then the next cousin took her spot in the height of grandkids line-up.

AND, unfortunately, now her younger brother has taken her spot:

To make her feel better, we did a LINE-UP by age, and she was queen again:

The gratefulness that comes with delaying gratification

I have two parents who modeled for me the internal power that comes with delaying gratification. 

I don't know if this stemmed from their own experiences as being one of five or six children in their respective families of origin. I don't know if it stemmed from both being brought up relatively poor. I don't know if it was because of their Catholic faith. I don't know if they simply have personalities that made delaying gratification easier. 

Whatever the reason, my parents modeled an ability to look long-term, weigh decisions carefully, and not get everything they may have wanted when they wanted it. My brother and I did not get everything we wanted when we wanted it. My parents were pretty good at saying "no."

Now, at the time, I hated this. I didn't understand why we couldn't get call-waiting back when that was a newfangled feature on landlines. I didn't understand why we couldn't get MTV when all my friends had it. I didn't understand why my parents wouldn't buy me the name brand shoes I wanted. 

But my parents lived within their means and valued education over all else. One of the greatest gifts they gave me as a result of delaying our familial gratification was a college education with no loans or debt for any of us. 

Because they said no, as an adult I appreciated and respected delaying my gratification. This doesn't mean I LIKED it. Delaying gratification sucks, more or less. 

When D and I got engaged, I told him we would not marry until he finished his master's degree. He had been sitting on his thesis for a while, and I was determined he would finish it. So we set our wedding date 18 months out. We didn't get an apartment together but lived in our parents' homes to save money for a down payment on a house. We decided to live only on his salary and get whatever house we could afford on that so that we could save everything I made. 

All of these decisions were efforts in delaying gratification for a bigger and hopefully better outcome. If he completed his master's, he would hopefully make more money long term. It would hopefully provide more stability. If we lived with our parents, we could save more money for a down-payment. If we lived on one salary, it would make it possible for us to save a lot and me to stay home with our children without too much adjustment down the line if we ever had a family. 

But delaying gratification means not getting exactly what you want and definitely not when you want it. Living with our parents was not fun for two madly in love people who just wanted to have lots of sex with each other. Living on one salary meant we had to budget and give up getting material things we might have gotten on two salaries. (But it did allow me to have the money to put towards a master's degree.)

Ultimately, being taught to delay my gratification made me a person who is able to take a long view and not get my panties in a twist if I can't have stuff instantaneously. 

It makes it easier for me to not lose my mind by not having Thanksgiving (and likely Christmas) with extended family (or even closer family). 

Delaying gratification actually gives me a greater sense of gratefulness for all the other holidays I have completely taken for granted because we just did those without thinking. Being together for Thanksgiving and Christmas is just.what.we.did. 

There is an ache because we can't do the "normal," but that ache is also what drives my sense of thankfulness. If we decided to all be together, I wouldn't have that ache, which means I wouldn't have that poignant feeling of appreciating the abundance of the past and hoping that next year, perhaps because we have erred on the side of extreme caution, we can all safely be together again without anyone missing.  

November thankfulness, Days 1-17

Usually, I try to post one thing each day in November that I'm thankful for, and I always try to find the most unusual things I can find.

I do this because it is all too easy to be thankful for the obvious. It doesn't take a whole lot of thought to feel thankful for my family and good health. I try to pay attention to the things that I typically ignore that, though small and seemingly insignificant, bring me pleasure or joy or a sense of wonder.

Though numbered these aren't in any particular order:

1--I'm thankful my uncle, who passed away earlier this year, wanted me to have the V family history and entrusted me with it. He knew I was interested and would take care of it. I hope to one day find out where the family originated, though the local settlers came to KY in 1779 from Pennsylvania. Where did they live before that?

2--I'm thankful for good-smelling candles and hand soaps. I normally do not hoard candles or soaps (or anything if I can help it), but I have found considerable comfort since COVID began lighting candles and smelling nice scents when I wash my hands, which is a lot. 

3--I'm thankful for having time at home with our stupid cats. Normally we are running a lot during the school year, but online school is giving us lots of snuggle time with these goobers. A whole lot of frustration is averted or minimized when you get to see cuteness. 

4--I'm thankful for G's therapist. Though the pandemic took the remarkable strides G made between fall of 2019 and Feb of 2020 and more or less dumped them down the drain, being able to have periodic telehealth appointments with Dr. S helps keep G on track as much as anyone can be on track during a worldwide pandemic.

5--I'm thankful that the pandemic gave me time in the spring to learn how to crochet. I find it very calming. I listen to my audiobook and work with my hands. It is very meditative. I would not have done this were it not for quarantining.

6--I'm thankful that G wanted to clean and rearrange his room yesterday because it launched me into a day of purging. It feels very, very good to get rid of stuff. It feels very good to think about whether items I own are things I actually use or wear. Do I love them? Do they just take up stuff? Are they junk to me? 

7--I'm thankful that I can read. While I may not read 100 books this year, as I did last year, I'll be pretty close. Reading has been hard this year because of my frequent doomscrolling between pandemic news, social unrest news, and election news. Still, I'm glad it provides me a means of some escape.

8--I'm thankful N got her first job this summer. While she has long had a neighborhood pet-sitting business (which her brothers are now doing more than she is), this job has helped build her confidence and real-world experience. 

9--I'm thankful I could sub for someone who had breast cancer surgery. More importantly, I'm thankful I could sub for this person because I hated this person when I was a kid. It reminds me that a childhood perspective can be sometimes flawed and/or limited. It helps remind me that hanging onto childhood animosity can be stupid and limiting. 

10--I'm thankful I was COVID negative, at least as of last Tuesday. I do not know if that will continue to be the case (especially since another uncle died, and I went to the funeral home). We all wore masks and tried to distance, but you never know. 

11--I'm thankful for my OCD because it prepared me to be vigilant during a pandemic. Prior to COVID, I carried 3 hand sanitizers in my bag. Now I carry 4. I had trained myself to not touch my face. OCD generally sucks, but not when it comes to pandemic lifestyle changes. I handwash like a BOSS. 

12--I'm thankful to be listening to music more. I have recently re-upped songs to my playlist that I had forgotten. When everything is "meh," a little Violent Femmes and Beastie Boys send my energy back to middle school levels (at least temporarily; who can sustain that junk at age 47).

13--I'm thankful for texting and Facetime. With COVID rates rising (I originally spelled rats; Freudian, I think), we're trying to keep away from grandparents. It DOES suck to not see them, but I think about pioneers and families that traveled to California from Japan who NEVER SAW THEIR FAMILIES EVER AGAIN. They didn't have reliable mail service; heck, many pioneers didn't know how to write at all. As much as people complain about "kids" not knowing how to delay their gratification, I think we've got an entire society that sucks at it. (Grown-ups, I'm talking to your asses.)

14--I'm thankful for the public library system. They do curbside pickups now, and since reopening have been a lifesaver for me and the kids. I tell them regularly how much I appreciate them making books available.

15--I'm thankful I've let go of this notion that I have to stay "socially connected" to people I really and truly have zero relationship with or who I actually (and actively) dislike. To stay "friends" with someone you genuinely don't like and don't spend time with and who actively makes your life unpleasant when they post stuff is bonafide dumb. It took me entirely too long to recognize that. 

16--I'm thankful I'm don't have to be an "always right" parent. I'm often wrong, and it is much better to admit that (both to myself and my kids). Just because something is "right" for me doesn't mean it is "right" for my kids. It seems like recognizing that before they are adults makes life easier. That doesn't mean we always agree, but we always discuss. 

17--I'm thankful for hand-me-down clothes from my children. I recently acquired an old Stranger Things t-shirt, a pair of leggings, and a perfect cardigan wrap. 

Why I don't understand New Year's resolutions

I don't dislike the new year; I just don't care about the new year.

If other people want to celebrate it, then good for them, although I have to make a small little snarky remark about its arbitrariness and the fact that most people set ridiculous goals for themselves that they will almost immediately decide are too difficult to actually attain.

It's not that I don't like goal-setting.
I actually do like to set goals, but I think it is better to set goals for things I actually enjoy doing and want to do.
Like reading and traveling.

I've also learned that setting goals sometimes has adverse effects.

A couple of years ago, I set a goal to read 50 books during the year, which sounds like a great "make yourself a better/smarter/more well-rounded person" goal.

The problem was that by September, I was reading books, not for the sheer joy of reading books, but
with the "50 BOOK GOAL" hanging over my head every second.

I did make my goal but it kinda sucked, which I hadn't anticipated.

That was the first and last time I set a quantitative goal for myself related to reading.
Since then, I've set a 1-book goal, selecting a book I haven't read but think would be good for me to read.
Last year was Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men.
This year, it's another Pulitzer Prize-winner: Gone With the Wind.
I'd like to finish it by spring break, but I've got the entire year.

I don't set lofty goals to do things I don't want to do, like go to the gym.

My goal is to make it to the gym one-time per month since I would be willing to shell out $15 for an hour at the gym if I could just show up and pay-as-I-go. If I end up making it to the gym twice in a month, I've reduced my cost for that hour to $7.50.

I do need to take the Praxis to finish up my high school certification, so I've set a deadline of March. I guess that is a goal, but I've given myself three months to get it done because I'm not eager to do it.

What I don't understand about New Year's resolving is that people seem to forget that THEY ARE STILL THE SAME PERSON with all the idiosyncrasies and oddities and quirks and hangups they had at 11:59 pm.

None of that changes in one minute.

It often feels boring and like I'm downer Debbie being a realist, but there are times, and New Year's is one of them when I'm really rather glad I don't look at the coming 12 months as something amazing and wonderful and dream-fulfilling.

There will almost certainly be moments when it feels like that, and those moments will be surrounded by chores and bullshit and aggravations and boredom and worry. 

Happy Hyperbole Heart Day

My sons are the only individuals in this world who can get away with calling me beautiful.

I sort of shiver when they do it, but they are children and my sons, and if they think I am beautiful as their mom, I can live with that.

D, on the other hand, is not allowed to tell me I'm beautiful.  I don't remember a time when he ever has, but I think I remember having a conversation with him in which I said I don't want to ever be called beautiful.

I do not think I am beautiful.  Attractive....occasionally.  I have "windows" of attractive, and they are usually quite short-lived.

I do catch D, from time to time, giving me a googly-eyed look, to which I go "Wha?" and then he stops.  It is in those moments that he is maybe thinking, "She's beautiful," but he knows better than to tell me that.

He would get this:

Today is Valentine's Day, a day on which I do nothing special to show my love to those I love.  I don't give the kids candy or cards, nor does D get anything.

Ok, technically, he did get this, which I made during the children's worship service this weekend....but it was mostly to have something to do while all the littles were making their mommies and daddies valentines.

I expect nothing from him and would actually be royally pissed if he went out and spent $50 on flowers for me.  That $50 could be better spent elsewhere....like on a souvenir from our upcoming anniversary trip.

I have the same philosophy about Valentine's Day (and all holidays) as my mother (she is a wise old bird).  If a person spends time with me or lavishes special things on me one day of the year, and then doesn't make much time for me any other time, then that one 24-hour period doesn't really mean anything special.  My mother would rather go out to lunch with me on 12 regular, boring Tuesdays of the year than spend 1 "magical" Christmas Day.  

When I think about love, I tend to focus on the boring aspects of it---the mundane, the routine---because that seems to me to be what love is really about.  That seems to be the 95% of it.  The thrill doesn't last long in the beginning, and when it reasserts itself at random times throughout a relationship, it doesn't last long then either.  It pops up to say, "Uh, I'm still here" as a reassurance that all is not hopelessly dull, even if it is mostly dull.

When I think about love, I think about what I want to instill in my children by the example of my relationship with their dad.  That we find each other funny.  That we don't have knock-down drag-out arguments.  That we give and take.  That we sometimes, albeit not very often because that is pretty expensive, take time just for us.  That we provide a stable foundation of relationship on which they grow.

These parts of love don't get the glory.

Valentine's Day cards are all about soulmates, about one person fulfilling every single need in the other.  About one person being beautiful or amazing or the everything to the other person.  I'm a fan of hyperbole, but this is just hyperbole on speed.  I stopped getting D these cards because I felt they were all bullshit (and they also cost $5 a pop).

D is not my soulmate, an expectation that is too high for one human being to meet.  I don't want to idolize my husband.....because I have to share a bathroom with him.  Idolizing a person with whom you share a bathroom is just holding too vast of opposing ideas in one's head at the same time.

So I choose to remember that he is human, and I am human, and we somehow try to make our humanness work together happily.

Thankful for a blessed curse

I am not talking about my menstrual cycle.

That is an annoyance and one that will, eventually, go away.  It is not a lifetime sentence.

But being an empathetic person is different.  It is both a gift and a curse.  I cannot imagine being any other way, and yet I often wish I could shrug it off as easily as a coat.

My best friend, K, and I used to have discussions in college about our tendency to overthink, which I now suspect is our shared tendency to both overthink and over feel.  It is exhausting.

I have said for many years that I catch people's emotions like a hooker catches the clap.  Having three children isn't easy for someone who has this tendency.  It's is like dodging emotional bullets all the time.  It feels like I have a harder time than many shaking emotions off.  (Of course, I don't know this for sure since I only have the misfortune of being inside my own head and not every other person's head.)

I suspect this is why I can't lose myself in movies and television the way other people can.  Seeing people emote on television is inviting more psychological bullets into my life for me to try to avoid.

One thing I wonder is whether my empathy spawns my anxiety or whether my anxiety spawns my empathy?  Perhaps they aren't related at all?  I don't know.  But I know for certain that fear is an emotion it takes weeks and weeks for me to work through.  I watched the films Melancholia and On the Beach (remake of 2000), and I still am not over them.

Reading is different for some reason.....maybe because it is imaginary and not in-my-face like television or real life.

As much as I hate being empathetic because of the emotional discomfort it causes me, it is also something I consider a gift.  Maybe I'm off my rocker about this, but I almost feel like people can sense it about me.  Kids, especially.  Maybe I am more obviously vulnerable than what I think I am.

I think my honesty is part of it.  I say what others think and are too uncomfortable to say themselves.  Is this empathy or stupidity?  Maybe both.

Every year around Thanksgiving, I try to think about all the things for which I am grateful, and there are many.  Most of them are things I didn't earn.  A family of origin that loved me and taught me responsibility and the value of learning.  A brain that works quickly and makes weird and wonderful connections.  A body that is mostly healthy with all appendages working up to this point.  A husband who values many of the same things I value and three healthy children to whom I am trying to instill those same values.

I despise sentimentality so it is in looking at my life that I acknowledge the burden of these things, too.  The brain that works quickly is also the brain that worries and has caused me pain with its over-empathizing.  The relationships that are well worth it but also, at times, the cause of much worry and anger and frustration.  The mostly healthy body that also currently has laryngitis and nighttime coughing fits that are interrupting my sleep.

These are not overwhelming burdens.  They can barely be considered burdens in the grand continuum of burdens, really.

But in my empathizing heart today, I am with those who have lost mothers and fathers and siblings and children, with those who fear what may come politically, with those whose financial burdens seem insurmountable, with those whose lives are chaotic, with those who learn frustratingly slowly, with those whose emotions they cannot control, with those who lack friendship.

My empathy forces some of the joy out of my personal thankfulness---the darkness and the light combined. 

The thing that is currently stuck in my craw

As a rule, I do not get my feelings hurt easily, so I'm gonna blame this on perimenopause weirdness. Or on general Christmas-associated grouchiness.

I love quirky things, and I especially love quirky, homemade things.  I'd say probably 60% (and possibly more) of the decorative items in my house are not from stores.  They are items I've purchased from artists and/or craftspeople, things I've made or up-cycled, or things other people have made for me, or things other people bought from artists/craftspeople.  

While I might look at store-made stuff at Target or Hobby Lobby, I generally don't want it because those are what zillions of other people have in their homes.  I like seeing the stuff in my house and remembering who made it for me or who bought it for me during their travels.  I like for my house to have a story.  

The problem is that not everyone values this.  Some people really, really seem to value gift cards.  

Now I am not anti-gift card at all.  I think gift cards are the perfect gift for teachers because if even 10% of their students give them gifts every Christmas or teacher appreciation week, they will run out of room in their houses very quickly.

My family does a dirty Santa gift exchange every year, but it has gotten increasingly less fun because all everyone buys is gift cards.  Gift cards with a little bit of candy tucked in the bag with the gift card.  

I have made the mistake of trying to give fun, quirky gifts.  A few years ago I painted a picture (the one with the rust-colored flowers), which I thought was actually kinda pretty and gave it as a gift.  

Last year I went to a local business that sells fair trade items made in developing countries and bought a bowl made of curled magazine pages and a wooden sculpture for holding one's glasses.  I like that these are handmade items and that the money generated from them goes to sustain people.  

This year, I made a mug and a vase in pottery class.

Every year, I feel like my gifts go over like a lead balloon.  

I know this is not a statement about me, although the middle-schooler who lives inside my head tends to say, "See, you've always been the black sheep, and you always will be."  

I know this is more of a "We like different things" issue.  

Which makes me think I might be done participating in the dirty Santa gift exchange.

I don't want to buy gift cards.  I think it defeats the whole purpose of a dirty Santa exchange. 

The worst part of this is it has me looking at my pottery and thinking it's crap when I know it isn't crap.  It isn't great pottery, or even good pottery, but it is my pottery, and I enjoyed making it, and I think it is cool.  

The above is a small bowl/tray.  

 Another small bowl/tray.

I am keeping this one. 

These will be hung together in my house.  

A little dish for kitty treats.  

Ermagerd! I hate Mother's Day.

I do not have a legitimate reason to hate Mother's Day.

I have a lovely relationship with my mother, as well as my mother-in-law.
I am a mother to three pretty great kids, and all things considered, I have a good relationship with them.
I didn't struggle to become pregnant.
I never lost a pregnancy.
I tell my husband exactly what I want for Mother's Day, and he buys it for me. (This year....a chainsaw.)
I refuse to get up during the night with the middle child or get up in the morning with him on Mother's Day, and my husband does it.
The is nothing for me to dislike about this day.

But I loathe Mother's Day as much, if not more than, Father's Day.

I hate it because it is a day to celebrate, to sentimentalize motherhood, an experience that is, at least for me, all full of conflicted feelings.
Motherhood blows at least 70-80% of the time (sometimes 99.9% of the time if it is a really bad day or week).
And yet, I wouldn't change it at all.
How f*cked up is that?
It sucks, but I wouldn't change it?????

It is a day in which, because it is a thing, I feel like I should, maybe a little bit, be worshipped.  And I am, sorta, with the cards and the gifts.  But I don't want to be worshipped because 1. that is ridiculous and 2. that means tomorrow, when I'm not worshipped, I'm just gonna be pissed off.  I will be thinking to myself, "Yesterday you were all sweet to me and today you're screaming at me because I put the corn flakes into the pink bowl instead of the orange bowl." Mother's Day is false worship.  It is worship because someone, somewhere, in some office noted the date on every calendar that is printed in the country.  My family doesn't thank me because they feel honestly compelled to do so.  They do it because a date on the calendar makes them feel obligated.

This is why I hated attending church as a kid.  I did it because I had to, not because I wanted to.  Which is a lot like motherhood.  I do it because I signed up for this, even though I didn't know what I was getting into, and now I have to do it.

Celebrating Mother's Day is like saying, "Thank you mom for falling into the same trap everyone does which is thinking motherhood will be different for them.  Thank you for not walking out on me when I was a complete pain in the butt.  Thank you for not murdering me in my sleep and screaming at me any more than you did.  Thank you for not allowing your resentment of how I stifled your life in various ways to boil over and completely eff me up as a person."

Do you see why I hate a day honoring this?  For me, it brings up all kinds of weird feelings about how society thinks I should feel about motherhood and how I actually often feel about motherhood and how, in spite of all those feelings, I can't imagine my life without being a mother to these kids.

A strangely busy, but not typically busy, October

It seems like in years past we have done weeks and weeks of fall/Halloween activities in the month of October, but this year felt different.

The first weekend of the month we were busy with M's 5th birthday and a visit to Columbus, IN when the kids were out of school.

We did fit in one Halloween event that weekend at a local nature preserve where the kids got candy, and D and I got to meander with them through a nature trail (which is my kind of meandering).  It was a little chilly and there wasn't much to do after the trail, but that was ok since we were squeezing it into an already full weekend of birthday and road trip.

The following weekend I took the boys to see a children's play, and the next day N and I saw an American Girl fashion show, which is all the evidence I need that we have more income than what is necessary.

Last weekend we visited a pumpkin patch on Sunday with almost every other family within a 50-mile radius of the patch.  It was crowded and.....well, just really crowded.  We have been going there since N was 18 months so apparently the word has gotten out how great a place it is.  Unfortunately for me and D, crowds typically make a place not so great anymore so I don't know what next year will mean for our pumpkin foray.

This weekend we did nothing festive.  I finished up some home improvement projects.  G had his first ever sleepover with his best friend and, in a move that shocked me to my core, did not call during the night demanding to come home.  Apparently the invisible umbilical cord that keeps him waking me every single night at age 7 is severed when he leaves the confines of our abode.

The busier my life gets during the week the more I am happy to stay at home and do a whole lot of nothing or just piddly stuff on weekends.

And my kids get so much candy at their class parties and during neighborhood trick-or-treating that I don't mind not going to a zillion different events in which they get bogged down with treats.

Yet, the slow slackening of our Halloween festivities makes me a bit sad.  They, and we, are branching into other interests, finding ourselves asked to other activities that we'd rather do more than a Halloween event.  

The year we didn't

This year, D and I agreed to not even get each other a card.  Honestly, neither one of us cares to have to make a special trip to the store to root through a bunch of too-sentimental Valentine cards.  Between the psychological assessment and OT sessions, that money on flowers and candy could be spent elsewhere.

I recently read The Fault in Our Stars, and while I don't usually like contemporary novels much or see a terrible amount of depth in them, I did like this book.  Maybe the fact that it mentions Shakespeare influenced me?

I think, though, what really resonated with me is these lines:

Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them, I said.
Right, of course.  But you keep the promise anyway.  That's what love is.  Love is keeping the promise anyway.

Life is full of seasons, and lately my life has felt like an eternal winter, a season of wanting to do lots of other things besides keep my promises.  To my husband.  To my kids.

But there is heroism in buckling down, keeping your promises, understanding that, as John Green also notes in his book, "The world is not a wish-granting factory."

Life doesn't always give you what you want when you want it.
(I need to remember this on every.single.snow.day.)

Crazy stuff a momma thinks when winter break is ALMOST over but weather dudes are forecasting ample snow the day BEFORE school resumes

It is Saturday.  My children have been out of school since December 21, which makes 15 days of togetherness.

Fifteen days of togetherness....
When it is bitterly cold and there was no snow in which to play until yesterday (and there was only a dusting).
When everyone else is off work and school and are, therefore, clogging up the malls and cinemas and fun joints.
When I've just spent a buttload of money on Christmas presents and windows so the idea of spending any more money makes me feel queasy.

I have been trying to keep my calm.  Not get annoyed.
But I have reached critical mass.
 
I am to the point where I am getting fed the fuck up with my daughter's American Girl doll that Santa brought her because that bitch is high-maintenance.  She has been going everywhere with us and showing up in our family photos and losing her clothes and jewelry when she visits the grandparents.

Last night I was so in need of some momma decompression out-the-house-time that I went to Target (which is on my shit-list for jacking up my Red card with all their less-than-stellar fraud protection).  And I have absolutely no desire to buy ANYTHING.  It was just the only place I could think of to wander aimlessly and not get arrested.

As much as I cringe at the prospect of summer break because of its length, it is a trillion times better than this stuck-in-the-house-ness.  There are parks and splashpads and pools and the frickin' hose outside that I can spray them with if I feel desperate.

And now the weather people are talking about frigid temps and snowfall for tomorrow, the day BEFORE school resumes.  The day BEFORE my first day of routine and normalcy and "3 hours of bliss 2 days a week" that I have missed.  In this neck of the woods, the public school system has been known to call snow days because it was gonna snow at 2:30 pm.  It has been known to cancel school because of frigid temperatures.

The kids had 2 snow days in December, and the only good thing about those was that it means that I WON'T have a week off with them in February, which is even worse than winter break because they don't have new toys with which to play.

I need my children to go back to school for many reasons.

I need to throw away these stale Christmas cookies and broken candy-canes, and they need the distraction of school to forget that these items are in the pantry.
I need to throw away the various boxes and wrappings and, let's be honest, garbage that my children think is valuable stuff.
I need a little bit of time in which my children aren't in the house so I can get 1-2 things done without having to stop every 28 seconds to give someone a snack.

I'm trying to stay calm.  I'm trying to let this dust over my like flakes of snow.
But in my efforts to think positive, the only thing that comes to mind is that ample snow will give me a place to temporarily hide the bodies.  

If I made a Christmas list

I am the worst gift giver.  Whether I'm buying for myself or someone else, I always ask, "Do I (or they) really need this?"  Although this question is good for keeping one a minimalist, it makes for some really dull gifts.

Like socks.

(I am, however, a very awesome old person gift giver.  I get my husband's grandfather, who is 89, postage stamps, peanut butter and honey for Christmas.)

I generally think I'm an easy person for whom to buy gifts because virtually everything is a treat to me.  One of my students gave me Bath & Body Works hand soap.  Something that smells pepperminty and looks festive is a treat, especially since I reuse the same off-brand soap dispenser with whatever cheap antibacterial soap I can find.

If I were going to make a Christmas list this year, this is what I'd write on it:

1. House slippers that encase my foot.  I have some house slippers that N got for me for my 36th birthday (and in preparation of having M at the hospital and needing some slippers).  They do not have backs, and though I took dance lessons for like 8 years, I cannot manage to walk up and down steps in them.  I am forever tripping over these shoes.

2. Small tissue packets.  You know the kind you put in your purse?  I cannot seem to remember to buy these for myself when I am out.

3. Soap crayons.  There is something about the shower that makes me remember all sorts of stuff I need to do.  But as soon as the water is turned off and I pass through the shower doors, everything that was clear becomes a fog once again.  I keep a notepad at my desk, one on my bedside table, and one in my car, but I think I also need to be able to jot down ideas on the shower walls.  But this is sorta like small tissue packets---I either don't remember to purchase them (because I forgot after I walked out of the shower) or I feel like I shouldn't get them because they are kind of a luxury.

4. Long socks for winter.  The kind that I can pull up to my knees.  I now wear them to bed because my feet get so cold.

5. Any of the books on my goodreads list, but especially these two (preferably used)
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

If a person isn't unconscious after reading this, I think a sleep study is in order.

More paint puttering and creativity

We play a gift-exchange game at my mom's side of the family's Christmas party, and I always, always have a terrible time coming up with something to buy.  I'm so darn practical....I get things like flashlights (since we have a $10 or so price cap---or at least I think this is still in place).

I dislike shopping even when I know exactly what the other person wants, so shopping for the purpose of a "game" and not knowing who will choose my gift is somewhat like torture.

This year, I decided to milk this spurt of creativity and give homemade, handmade gifts.  I have always liked receiving gifts that people have made with their hands. I have drawings and paintings my deceased uncle made in my house, as well as a handwoven basket my cousin made.  I have a wooden toilet paper duck stand that D's grandpa made, as well as a whirly-gig bird he made in the yard.  I treasure these things and will not part with them (although I may paint them or modify them a bit when they look worn or to make them "jive" with my color scheme).

Anyway, I don't necessarily expect whomever got these gifts to treasure them.  They are middling, at best.

But I'd rather someone share the act of creativity with me than have any more stuff I really don't need, so that is what I wanted to give someone else.

This is the painting I gave as a gift (below). 

I also included some candy so it wasn't a total wash for the receiver. 

I gave this bowl with candy in it. 

Things for which I'm thankful

Yeah, I know November is over, but this morning I feel particularly thankful.  I don't know why, but I'm gonna hop on board and ride this wave.

These are in no particular order.

1. I'm thankful for my next-door neighbors, H and T.  Yesterday D and I dug a french tile trench on the side of our house nearest them.  It looks terrible and will until spring when 1. the tile does its job and keeps the ground from being a soggy mess and 2. we can till it and plant grass seed.  H and T's kitchen table looks out on this, but they are cool with it.  They understand the drudgery that is homeownership.

2. I'm thankful for the 2 years we had with our beloved piano teacher, I.  She will be moving across the country in the next month and having her first baby a short time after that.  N and I adore her, and though we are sad to see her go, I suspect that for both her and us, this is probably one of those "door closing, window opening" situations.

3. I'm thankful for my best friend's baby, C.  With my own nieces and nephews, they are all so close in age to my own children, I didn't really get to enjoy their babyhoods because I was too involved in my own children's babyhoods.  With Baby C, I get to snuggle and love on her and then leave.

4. I'm thankful for my new windows, which will be installed sometime this month.  As much as I hate the paying for them, I look forward to the chill being reduced, clear, non-foggy glass and no mildew/mold in the sill drains.

5. I'm thankful that this has been a mostly pleasant Thanksgiving break, and my children and husband haven't aggravated the shit out of me.

6. I'm thankful the weird nagging feeling of "you are ignoring your children" has left the premises.  For the longest time (and by this I mean years) I felt anxiety whenever I just left my kids to their own devices.  If I wasn't interacting with them like every second, I felt pinches of guilt.  It was unbearable.  At some point, when I wasn't even paying attention, I stopped feeling that sensation.

7. I'm thankful for daydreaming about vacation.  Usually I start the daydreaming in January, but this year it began in November.  With my part-time teaching job, we should be able to start going on vacation every year, and for that I'm thankful as well.  Our vacation this past summer to Edisto Island was magical. I think my family is hitting that sweet spot where vacations don't feel quite as cumbersome as they did when the kids were more babyish.

8. I'm thankful I've started going to church on an unscheduled, half-assed basis.  It has helped negate that vague longing to just sit in a church community which I carried with me for many years when I stopped attending the Catholic mass.  Although I am attending a Christian church and still have serious issues with Catholic dogma, I'm also thankful for the new Catholic pope, who is radical and kick-ass in a definitely more Jesus-like way.

9. I'm thankful to be teaching again, and I'm thankful that it is part-time.  It has rekindled my love of literature and my enthusiasm for instruction.

10. I'm thankful for consignment stores, which allow me to buy things for myself that are pretty darn nice without feeling guilty spending a small fortune on clothes.  I was able to snag some Cabi jeans for $20 last week.  For a frugal freak like me, that is like theft.

11. I'm thankful M likes to sing.  It brings me a tremendous amount of joy hearing him sing songs from preschool in his squeaky voice.  I savor ever song he sings that he has learned from his LeapFrog Scout dog.  It won't be but a couple years before that voice has matured, and those songs are a thing of the past.

12. I'm thankful N is such a sensitive soul.  She feels things deeply and loves hard.

13. I'm thankful G is so darn funny.  It helps minimize the urge to strangle him.  The other night in the car he was talking (sorta to himself because I'm not sure M was listening to him) about building houses.  He was talking about the bricks, and D and I heard him say "you put butter on the bricks with scrapers."

14. I'm thankful D and I can appreciate each other's humor.  Like with G, it helps reduce the likelihood that we will kill each other.

Of course, there are many other things I could say I'm thankful for, but I've always enjoyed trying to think of things outside the obvious box.  

Attitude with Gratitude

I complain about stuff.  A lot.  Loudly.
I am the poster child for "White People Problems" or "First World Problems."
Some of it is just my shtick.
Some of it is actual anxiety taking the form of humorous venting.
Some of it is the impoverishment of my soul because I have never known the daily struggle of survival that so many others of this world have.
But I keep things in perspective (as much as a white middle-class person with first world problems can) by listening to the BBC radio every morning.

One of the recent broadcasts I listened to was about used pacemakers in India.  The interviewer asked a recipient of one of these pacemakers whether he thought there were ethical issues about using a pacemaker when someone in the US or Europe would use a brand-new one.  His reply was simple:  "I cannot afford a new one, and a used one saved my life so I am happy to have the used one."

I try mightily to live a similar ethos to this man although for me it is 99.9% choosing to live simply as opposed to not having the option to live otherwise.

This time of year, with the "happy" story of pilgrims and indians being only a snippet of the disease and mayhem associated with the colonization of America and the continued trampling of Thanksgiving (with all its flaws) in favor of the shopping ecstasy of Christmas, I have a difficult time reconciling myself to the "way of the world."  To the haves and the have nots.  To the fact that I am one of the haves.  To the fact that I so much love the security of saving money that I am terrible about making charitable donations.

Jesus and Freud would both have a field day with me.

I struggle, to say the least.

If there is anything about which I am thankful regarding my OCD it is how that repetitive wheel of thought can be a good thing, especially when it is an internal wheel of gratitude.  Though I do vent, there seems to be a relatively quick link between the moment a venting/griping/bitchy word crosses my mind and the immediate moment after when a sentiment of gratitude follows.

No one needs to remind me of the things for which I should be thankful.  From the instant a thought enters my mind, I've had the gratitude loop follow it. I just feel better venting my frustration.

Still, even though I acknowledge my luckiness, I think it is nearly impossible to really and truly, within the depths of my heart, feel gratitude because that requires loss.  I can say I am thankful (which I am).  I can think that I am so deeply lucky and blessed (which I am).  But those deeper levels, the existential understanding of gratitude, the kind that suffers loss of the Jean ValJean variety as so many people in the world suffer today, right now, this instant.  That I do not know.

Thankfully.  

Finding the balance in bitching

I am ALL FOR a good venting.  It's at least 75% of the reason I continue to write this blog (since my medication generally keeps me from being an at-complete-loose-ends mood-disordered mama).

But sometimes, even though I am pro-vent, I just tire of public venting.  My own included.  Even this, what I'm typing, is a vent.

A sad, tired vent.

What I have on my mind today is not the rainy forecast for Halloween which is setting people off like I cannot believe.  Those who are FOR switching trick-or-treating day.  Those who are AGAINST it.  I'm reading Team of Rivals about the arguments for and against abolishing slavery in 1854, so anything that is not this intense seems pretty darn childish and fairly surreal.

What I have on my mind is breast cancer, another topic that has gotten all sorts of "debate."  People who lambast all the pink colors of October and "Save the Ta-Tas" talk.

I'm certainly no huge fan of pink October since it brings to mind my nervous breakdown of 2004 when I thought nipple eczema from nursing (and complicated by undiagnosed anxiety) was inflammatory breast cancer that ended up with me seeing a surgeon and having a breast ultrasound.

Pink October also brings to mind my own mother's bout with breast cancer and what a scary time that was for my family.

And today, when all I'm hearing and reading is a near-constant bitch-fest over trick-or-treating, a sweet friend of mine attended the funeral for a sweet friend of hers who died this past weekend from metastatic breast cancer.

I hate people who try to give me rational perspective when I'm disgruntled about something.  Who try to talk me down from whatever it is I'm going off about.  Because sometimes I just need to vent.  We all do.

But today, and possibly tomorrow, I'm not going to bitch about much of anything because I bet the kids of the mom who passed this weekend would love nothing more than to trick-or-treat with her in a thunderstorm.  I'm not going to bitch about the nerve pain in my shoulder caused by sleeping in a twin bed with my 6-year-old because it pales in comparison to the pain of chemo and radiation and stem cell transplants.

I'm going to be the voice of my own rational perspective.  For at least another day.

Things for which I am thankful

I like doing the Facebook "Every day of November thankful" list, but I try not to write the obvious....like I am thankful for my family.  If I'm going to mention my family, it is to write of things they do or say that reminds me why I love them.  The funny or the silly or the just plain weird.

And I especially like to think of things that most of the time I really never even consider because I'm too focused on the big picture.  

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving and to rid my blog of the oh-so-serious posts I have been writing, I shall list some obscure things for which I am thankful.

I am thankful for----

1. Fingernail clippers (because chronic nail pickers like me need to be able to snip those picked at nails).

2. Bread machines (because it makes me feel all Suzie Homemaker without actually kneading bread myself).

3. Kinnect (because I am getting a moment's peace while my children improve their manual dexterity).

4. Hand-me-down clothes from my brother's kids.

5. The knowledge that this is my last rodeo enduring the tantrums of a 3-year-old.  

6. Yoga pants

7. Sensitive skin products

8. Good neighbors

9. Being able to look back at pictures of adventures I've had in my life.

10. The smooth surface of a newly opened peanut butter jar.

11. Cooking a recipe that my husband really likes instead of just tolerates.

12. Children's vitamins (and the anxieties they alleviate).

13. The fact that there are no actual penalties for not following through with New Year's resolutions.

14. My ability to write and have a sense of humor (sometimes).

15. Being a boyly-girl instead of a girly-girl. (Because who needs all that makeup and frou-frou clothing and purses and jewelry).  

16. M's belly laughs when I pull the wagon over the curb and he falls from his seat into the middle on his butt.  

17. The fact that G takes after his dad by getting so tickled remembering something funny that he just laughs his head off and talks unintelligibly when he tries to explain what he is remembering.  

18. N's good nature and general kindness.  

19. Short hairstyles

20. Watching my children shake their groove things.  

Month of thankfulness

Things I was thankful for via Facebook, November 2011

(My goal was to be thankful for and mindful of the little things....not just the big obvious ones like my husband and kids.)

Nov 1-3

Here's 3 things I'm thankful for (since I missed days 1 and 2 of daily thanks):
*Flavored creamer in my coffee
*English muffins with cream cheese and strawberry preserves
*The free public library's online book reserve system

Nov 4

I am thankful that, for the moment, G is waking me up during the night to pee in the potty instead of for his usual random needs, which are known only to him.

Nov 5

I am thankful that one day I will go through menopause.

Nov 6

I am REALLY thankful for Lexapro and my psychiatrist.

Nov 7

Is thankful for another round (#4) of refinancing the house. Shaving off lots of interest.

Nov 8

Is thankful my parents get back this week from their 14-day European cruise. I miss 'em.

Nov 9

Is thankful for antihistamines, decongestants, allergy shots, guaifenesin, hydrocortisone and all the other allergy-related things I use to keep my head and body from exploding, dripping and itching.

Nov 10

Is thankful all of my children were born healthy, without severe physical and mental disabilities. Sometimes I forgot what a blessing this is in the midst of aggravating "normal" child antics.

Nov 11

Is thankful for the peace that comes with knowing my family is complete and that I won't have to gestate, deliver, nurse or raise any more children than the 3 I have.

Nov 12

Is thankful for the ability to read and write.

Nov 13

Is thankful for the cuteness that is 2-year-olds in footed pajamas.

Nov 14

Is thankful for 6 hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep.

Nov 15

Is thankful for my bi-weekly fitness class and the good health to be able to participate in it.

Nov 16

Is very thankful I will be volunteering in N's classroom this morning because my a**hole sons have driven me crazy, and it's only 8:08 a.m. Must get away from them so as not to kill them.

Nov 17

Is thankful for indoor plumbing.  

Nov 18

Is thankful for G's speech therapist, Ms. Melissa. In addition to being a super nice lady, she has helped make huge improvements in G's communication skills.

Nov 19

Is thankful for Tony W, a stylist who "gets" my hair and makes it look great every time. 

Nov 20

Is thankful for having friends in the right places (like Bill T). Networks are a good thing.

Nov 21

I am thankful for public education.

Nov 22

Is thankful for Thanksgiving stories composed by 7-year-olds about a turkey and beans that jump out of the refrigerator and leave the family without a feast.

Nov 23

(no post due to stomach bug)

Nov 24

Is thankful the stomach bug I had was mild and short-lived so I was able to share a Thanksgiving meal with my family.

Nov 25

Is thankful I have neither the desire nor the energy to engage in Black Friday shopping of any kind.

Nov 26

Is thankful for the Zoo and Free Public Library for keeping our family entertained over the long weekend without getting anywhere near a shopping mall.

Nov 27

Is thankful that my husband does the clean-up.

Nov 28

Is thankful to be seeing a good friend this evening.

Nov 29

Is thankful for my husband who, even, though sick with a stomach bug, manned up and watched the kids so I could do Sips 'N' Strokes with my BFF.