Servant leadership, three-year-old style!

Elaine was feeling shy at the park today until the cutest little prince came along (the son of a friend of mine) and asked her to play. He even offered to put her shoes on for her and was so sweet and gentle.

And they played happily ever after.

Traditional names

The eight of us have taken a picture together at various times and places for the past 25 years. It's nice to have friends who go back that far. Today we spent a good part of the afternoon in the company of many such dear friends.

(I'll give you one guess why I'm not terribly strict about my children wearing shoes at all times... =) )

In which I meet Mary Roach

My brother is a mechanical engineer at the world's largest wind tunnel. Back when he was an intern while in college, he worked for NASA on LADEE, a satelite mission to the moon which is scheduled for launch in May of 2012.

He informed me that Mary Roach would be giving a talk in conjuction with someone who is knowledgable about Mars and I couldn't wait to go. MARY ROACH, people! If you haven't read her books, you need to. All of them. Go now. I'll wait.

No? Ok well at least put it on your to-do list.

The talk was interesting, though in my opinion Mary should have talked more. Turns out the other attendees were really interested in Mars or something. There was audience participation. I just wanted to listen to Mary. Not audience members who cared about Mars exploration. Bah.

Mary's book "Packing for Mars" talks about the unique challanges humans face as they study and try to get to and exist on or around Mars.

Quotes from the evening.

On the topic of establishing a colony on Mars for people to stay and live: "We send people to antartica but we ONLY bring them back due to necessity." This was from some guy who worked on a Mars rover. His point being that getting enough supplies for people to live for quite some time to Mars isn't the difficulty.

An audience member suggested that one approach to overcoming difficulties to getting to and living on Mars would be to "Keep throwing enough people at [Mars] until they stick." He said other things too, but this imagry made me laugh. His point was that people have risked more for less, and that there probably are enough people who would sign up to go and never come back.

"The earth is just a freakin' nice place to be."
- Mary Roach.

I'm inclined to agree.

See the full gallery on Posterous

 

Quickly

First of all, an update on Elaine: she's doing exactly the same as she had been doing, which is great. Her surgery follow-up appointment is on Wednesday and her last day of antibiotics is on Thursday. Hoping and praying that the MRSA will be gone, never to return. All signs point to that being the case, but I won't breathe a sigh of relief until that little finger and arm are back to doing the cute toddler things they should be doing.

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We went to camp for two nights and a day and a half. Initially I canceled because, dude, there was so much going on and I felt like I just couldn't catch my breath. Superman got in an accident the morning after the MRSA stuff went down. Everyone's fine; he was at fault - it's what unfortunately comes of being awake all day worrying about your daughter, working all night, and then trying to make it home in one piece, which he did, but the van didn't. Hopefully we'll just get a new radiator and be good as new. Or good as a 1993 Dodge Caravan gets. We'd LIKE a new van. Perhaps I should talk my sister into cursing this one. She has a pretty good track record thus far...

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I would have lots of pictures of camp but I forgot my camera so had to rely on Superman's phone and my parents camera.

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Also, the hard drive on my laptop is completely full. I can barely turn around without running into this or that error/warning message saying the drive is full. Can't install any updates. Can't download anything new in iTunes. Obviously can't unload my full camera card.

Any external hard drive recommendations? Just want it for storage. Backup is taken care of with Carbonite.

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Also, I need to put my computer under lock and key. I'm addicted. It's keeping me from doing what I should be doing. I'm out of excuses.

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Making priorities is hard. Why do I have to do it? Can't someone else do it for me? Wah. I tend to want to sit around and dwell in my lovely, big-picture panoramas for the future and while I'm doing that all the daily, mundane, repetitive chores get ignored. How can I find joy in the details, especially the BORING details? Suggestions? Thoughts?

Game on

Everyone just left our house after the game night we hosted. I guess I can go get all the dirty dishes I hid in the garage sink now.

It was so fun! We did play games, too, so success all around. The kids played a fun game called Zingo and then later the adults played girls-against-boys Pictionary and the boys won. It was... loud. I think we'll have to modify the rules (perhaps no all plays?) if we do it again because it was pretty tough to hear at times! Their best win was "dumbbell" guessed in six seconds and ours was "orchestra" guessed in ten seconds. (I drew the orchestra, which consisted of a stand-up bass, cello, and half a flute before someone guessed it and I'm completely blanking on who - take credit in the comments please!)

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Earlier Val and I went on our first clothes shopping trip EVER together and found a lovely flower girl dress and shoes for the wedding next month. (Mista & Mrs Blades? I never know what to call you.) Val also got to pick out a pair of flip flops that are made entirely of plastic (die, environment, die!) and light up each time she takes a step. Also, pink! Purple! Ladybugs! Butterflies! Sparkly!

I need to be careful how much I complain about over-the-top girly girl things such as this because I do want Val to know that what matters to her is very important to me, I just do not at all share the same interests. =)

 

Breakthrough

Today Superman and I went to counseling. I don't even know how stuff came to light (it seemed like such a little thing I mentioned in passing; never thought twice about it before) but there was an unbelievable breakthrough regarding why I am the way I am, or at least a HUGE contributing factor. So much makes SO MUCH MORE sense now. The underlying current of anxiety that has been nagging at me for the past 2-3 weeks is gone. I hope it stays gone. I was getting tired of it anyhow. =)

I'm so glad Superman was there because there is no way I'd be able to explain the enormity of what occurred.

Obviously I won't go into detail here but it was such a momentous occurrence I wanted to make note of it for myself.

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So we arrive home and I find out that my very own dear mother gave my very own dear daughter a SEE'S CANDIES BORDEAUX just for using the bathroom. My mother. Gave. My daughter. A. BORDEAUX. Do you people know my mother? (You should.) My mother, the one who is adamant about the dangers/evils of processed foods and insistent regarding the consumption of vegetables. That one.

And now she's dropping Bordeauxs right and left? Where was this lady when *I* was successfully using the potty?!?

Good grief. They say that becoming a grandparent changes everything - I guess SO!

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Elaine is back on the amoxicillin. She developed a rash, which did not respond to Benadryl, so I got the doctor's OK to continue on with the antibiotic and hopefully the rash will disappear in a few days. It's never seemed to bother her, so that's good. Apparently it's just a viral response to the amoxicillin. Very glad it wasn't serious.

 

Motherhood: more than clean bottoms, although those are nice too.

It was the night before I was to host a baby shower for my sister-in-law.

Superman had scheduled our tax appointment for that evening. Half an hour before he was supposed to leave he realized that he had misplaced the W2. We tore up the office and file cabinet looking for it. No luck. He called the tax guy and found we could still get our taxes done using the year's worth of pay stubs we had, but couldn't get the money until he had a W2 in his hands. (By the way, did you know it costs $8.50 to get a duplicate W2.)

Anyhow. Superman had just left and I began to change Elaine's diaper. I took it off and then realized the wipes were on the bathroom counter. I dashed to the bathroom, hoping I wouldn't regret leaving a naked baby on the floor. Upon entering the bathroom I saw Val standing on the counter, saying urgently, "Moooom. I pooooooped." Hoping that she meant "I need to poop" instead of "I have already pooped" I swooped her off the counter and landed her in front of the toilet. Too late. She had pooped. Then, as we tried to remove her underwear in the least-messy way possible, the poop fell out and got on her new white sandals.

Cue the bare-bottomed baby, who by this point had probably assumed I had forgotten about her need for a diaper. Elaine toddled in to join us and "help" with the poop situation. Of course this was such an exciting prospect that she peed, which collected in a puddle at her feet, and who doesn't like stomping around in a good puddle? So that's what she did.

So, to recap. My life at approximately 6:50 pm on March 26:

Val (3 years) - squirming on the toilet with poop on her bottom and legs, smearing poop on the seat each time she moved, trying to "help" with vast wads of toilet paper, highly concerned over the unfortunate state of her once-white sandals.

Elaine (1 year) - naked from the waist down, dancing in a puddle of her own pee, delighted to help her big sister with the Putting of Things into the toilet bowl, not particularly concerned about getting poop on her or anywhere else, for that matter.

Me (27 years) - seriously wishing I could take a snapshot of the entire situation and wrap it up with a cute little pink bow and give it to the mother-to-be at tomorrow's baby shower.

Because THAT right THERE is what no one tells you about motherhood. That is, until you experience it yourself and then moms everywhere come out of the woodwork to chuckle and pat you on the back while saying, "Oh me too, honey. Me TOO."

Wieners!

Guess what folks? My brother's a WIENER! (OK, fine. Winner.) TAB and the team went home with the Organizer's Choice award which means they were generally all-around AWESOME and I think they even scored $500. In nickels, of course. And a rusty old trophy made from car parts.

Despite having a giant wiener flopping around (ok, it was actually pretty hard [you can only imagine how stimulating it was to talk about the car all weekend]) on the roof, the car placed 56th out of 147. Not bad at all! They got only two black flags (MUCH improved over the last race, which was everyone's first time) and sang their way (Oh I wish I were a Nascar Mayer Wiener....) out of one penalty.

Press coverage (kinda) of the team and their Wienermobile!

REAL press coverage!

Perhaps most notable of all is that they raise money for non-profit organizations each time they race. This time they raced for Anastasis Ballet.

Go, Bandits, GO!

(To all Lent police, I realize I linked to two Facebook pages. I thought an exception could be made in this case.)

 

Sears Pointless

My little brother TAB will be racing at Sears Point this weekend in the 24 Hours of LeMons event. He'll be cranking out record-breaking laps behind the wheel of... this...

WHAT is that, you say? I'm so glad you asked. THAT is a Nascar Mayer Wienermobile (finished touches to be added at the racetrack.) Go Bandits, go!

Kindred

This past Saturday I was fortunate enough to be able to hang out with some of my very favorite people from my old job. None of us work there any more. All of us are happy about that.

Shannon was my faithful book supplier. It would seem every time we talked she'd thrust more books into my happily outstretched arms. I think it took her a while to comprehend that no, I did not consider it annoying!

Satch reminds me of TAB in more ways than I can count, which is perhaps one reason we seemed to hit it off so well. I loved answering and discussing his out-of-the-blue deep, philosophical or theological questions as we worked together.

I finally had the time to learn how to make a picture slide show complete with captions and music, so I'll share it with you here. We talked about grace much of the time, plus it was raining when we got there, hence the music. Also, some of the captions probably won't make sense.

Four

Four generations of blue-eyed girls standing in a walnut orchard.

I am one blessed woman.

Warm

These pictures won't mean much to a lot of people.

But to some people, these pictures mean a WHOLE lot.

In many ways, I want to be just like these marvelous people if I reach their stage in life.

Celebrating 60 years of marriage! Happy Anniversary, Uncle Wesley and Aunt Helen!

 

(Photos by Tim Clark, except the wedding photo!)

 

Brightly shining

I like this picture. Do you want to know why I like this picture? I'm in it.

Also, my favorite brother named TAB is in it. Also, we're singing O Holy Night.

Also? I love Christmas.

 

Giving thanks

It's been a year of enormous challenges and blessings.

Last year at this time I was seven months pregnant with the most hilariously expressive princess I've ever met. I'm so glad I am able to enjoy her.

My oldest daughter continues to amaze and humble me; I'm so grateful for her heart and I hope I never lose sight of it.

My Superman really is my perfect match. His love for me and loyalty to me is truly amazing. He keeps no record whatsoever of my wrongs and for that I am ever so thankful.

He had to work and today was just another normal Thursday for our family but that didn't stop me from looking around and blinking back tears of gratitude for all I've been blessed with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Incidentally, Val currently believes 'Happy Halloween!' to be something you say in parting, along with 'bye!' 'love you!' and 'drive safely!' I discovered this while eavesdropping on conversations with and between her dolls. I'm hoping Thanksgiving and Christmas will have a similar effect.)

Addendum

It's all you people who know me in real life that make me quiet on here. Avert your eyes. Maybe I'll be more comfortable. I've been going through a lot of spiritual stuff lately. Mostly good. But it's kind of personal to talk about on here. I haven't really used this blog as a platform for that, and I don't really want to mix it in with my usual blog material. Maybe I should open up another part of the page for that type of stuff. There's an idea!

Today I took lots of pictures of my engaged brother and his fiance (what shall your blog name be, fiance of my engaged brother? Are we still doing Tuesday?) I've seen four of the photos and they look pretty good. If anything, today was a perfect reminder that I have NOT done what I've wanted to do since I've been in college - learn how to take pictures! It's kind of like music. I can "hear" in my head what I want the music I play to sound like and get frustrated when it doesn't match. I can also "see" in my head what I want a particular picture to look like but am largely unable to manipulate all the required settings (or my body, or both) to get the result I want. I hate settling for less than my goal but I realize that's an invaluable part of the process sometimes. Sure beats wallowing around down here kicking myself for not practicing (music or photography) more often.

It's really HOT for October. Got up to eighty-six degrees today.

My dogs are highly irritating. Especially the one that's stepped on my supremely swollen toe. Twice. The other one barks at nothing (well he always barks at SOMEthing) but he and I disagree on what constitutes a barkable scenario.

All the picture taking has motivated me to clean up my laptop in preparation to offload a veritable TON of photos onto the external hard drive so I can upload a veritable TON and a HALF of photos from waiting memory cards.

Here's a question - what system works best for you for photo organization and editing? How long do you keep your pictures accessible before banishing them to the external drive?

 

Food for thought

We got a pretty rad double jogging stroller off Craigslist. The only (minor) downside is that the front wheel doesn't swivel which means in order to fully appreciate it I need to become a hard core jogger.

The past few nights Superman and I have gone for walks/runs around the neighborhood. I must say our new location is prime for runners and bikers. Lots of trails and wide residential streets.

I must also say that HOLY SMOKING COW I AM OUT OF SHAPE. I thought exercise was suppose to feel good? I was waiting for my flood of endorphins... and I'm still waiting. Instead all I got was the feeling of my absolutely-devoid-of-all-muscle butt bouncing around. So not cool.

I keep saying I'm going to plan a weekly food menu and then I never do because frozen pizza and Top Ramen takes way less thought. However, this is about to change, really, I mean it this time, and here's why: Superman is going to help. He's always the one who remembers to ask about food. Most of the time when he asks (at a perfectly reasonable time to expect an answer), "What's for dinner?" I generally reply by way of blank stare. I'm actually frantically trying to recall what we have in the house that is edible in order to throw together some sort of answer because clearly he expects to eat something for dinner. And until the words came out of his mouth I hadn't given it even half a thought. Besides, he's way better at coming up with appealing meals. I'm more than happy to prepare something I already know is going to be a big hit and therefore more worth while.

When it comes to food preparation I am firmly in my mother's school of thought: you spend hours (ok or half an hour) slaving away over something and then it's gone in 20 minutes and all you get is a pile of dirty dishes. Notice the martyr-like attitude? Slaving? Pile of dirty dishes? Woe is me, because I'd rather be doing 97 (or 14) other things! My mom is still a much more healthy cook than I am and nothing compares to her homemade bread or cinnamon rolls. I'm just saying we are more likely to enjoy serving in other ways.

It would behoove me to follow the example of my super mother-in-law, who adores being able to prepare food for the people she loves. It is her true privilege and joy and it goes right along with her nurturing personality. It is impossible to visit her home without feeling loved, accepted and fed emotionally and physically. Her reward is the words of praise and appreciation for her cooking, the conversation during the meal with those she loves - that's what motivates her to wash dirty dishes. My friend once described a visit to my mother-in-law's home by asking in amazement, "did she just hug my soul?"

So yes. Food plan. Weekly menu. I'll sit down with Superman and together we can put together a healthy and delicious menu. Then we'll go shopping. Then we'll follow the menu and live happily ever after and no food will ever be wasted or thrown out. Amen.

Down.

Well.

The problem with writing about personal struggles on a public blog is just that. I could write about depression in my hand-written journal. Or my public blog. Or both, and maybe that's the best answer. I don't want to become "that" person though, the person that just dumps raw emotions onto a page and then skips away (maybe) feeling better... leaving her shell-shocked family and friends to try and make sense of what just happened. Because they do have to interact with me in real life, you know.

On the other hand, I want to be somewhat honest/transparent/sincere on an appropriate level. Remember? I purposely am writing about this particular struggle because I'm sure it will help me and I hope it will help others. So what's an appropriate level of transparency? I have no idea. And I know it's up to me to decide; you people are just along for the ride. (And if you don't like it, I hope you'll give me feedback and/or simply exit the ride. Thank you, have a nice day, please come again when I'm more cheerful.)

I want to be careful to protect my relationship with Superman. Clearly whatever effects me also effects him and this can cause some - alright fine, I'm being transparent - LOTS of tension at times. We are completely committed to each other and he has been fantastic (I'm biased though, also, I would never marry someone I didn't consider to be fantastic. Don't you ever scratch your head and wonder sometimes when husbands gripe about their wives and vice versa? It's like, DUDE. You're the one that chose to marry her! So if she really is as horrible as you say, what does that say about you? Same thing goes for wives whining about their husbands. ANYhow. Pet peeve of mine.) Of course there are times when I see nothing but the two (or twenty-seven) ways he is NOT fantastic but we're both human and therefore not perfect. (I'm still working on coming to terms with that. Yeah, I know. Not very bright, am I?)

Hmm. I was saying something when I started this... oh yeah. Blogging about depression. Having a public blog makes it tricky. Ready? Begin.

I've been feeling down lately. I've noticed myself start to do some of the things that I now can identify as precursors to my last depressive episode. I believe this is mostly due to the fact that I've moved and haven't yet established a network of friends who are close-by. I'm feeling isolated and alone. Having Facebook friends, or contacts in my cell phone is wonderful, but lacking. This is an odd thing for me because normally I'm been perfectly happy to be the loner. Give me a good book or ten and I'm fine! For days! In the past I've relished, even looked forward to time spent alone. Obviously things have changed a bit, at least for this period of time, and I don't know what to do to with myself. Go out and find friends, I suppose. The prospect doesn't put me off as it did before. I welcome it! Can't do it soon enough! In fact, I've already initiated connection in at least three different ways! Odd, don't you think? Just when I think I know myself...

Connection to and contact with real, live people is essential. It's so good to know and experience NOT being "the only one." Even just one "I know how you feel" can make all the difference. So I reached out to someone today (via phone) and heard that somone else knew how I felt, and now I'm feeling much better.

Hopefully next time I'll remember to do that sooner instead of wrestling with myself and trying to grit my teeth and force myself to feel better all alone.

And now for something completely different. (Next post coming just as soon as I can download some very giant RAW photos.)

See ya later, Grandpa.

He taught me to go to the beach; things are always better there.

He taught me that people are more important than things.

He taught me there's always time for one more song.

A million years from now, I'll be singing with him again.

Grounded

To be known is a lovely thing. Some friends know you in some ways but not others. Other friends know you in most ways but not a few. Your spouse knows you in almost all ways but there are still quite a few things to be known and discovered as you change and grow together. There is nothing about me that God does not know or is surprised by.

This afternoon my fabulous Jenny came to see me instead of going to Chinatown in the city. (I beat out Chinatown - awesome!) I don't know what it would be like to be anything other than long-distance friends but I love how no matter how much time has passed since we last talked or have seen each other... we just pick right up and dive in to the matters of our hearts. And I always come away refreshed and thankful.

It's nice to be known and loved anyway. Thanks Jenny. =)

Studly

Superman and I have been living at my parents house for the past two weeks. Uh, and so have our girls. Obviously.

Tonight at dinner we all were discussing the placement of an under-floor vent (to the exterior) in my parents' house. Superman pointed out that it was placed in a location that didn't make sense, structurally. TAB wandered by and happened to catch the last part of the conversation which involved windows and trimmers and king studs. And, because he's a property claims adjuster, he wanted to know more.

TAB (curiously): Is there something wrong with our king stud?

My father (characteristically): No, I'm doing just fine, thanks.