i was lying in bed reading clara mondschein's melancholia when my two year old lucy tottered in, rosy cheeked, freshly awoken from her afternoon nap. she crawled in with me and after inspecting her freshly splinter-freed, elmo bandaged big toe turned to me and said "mom, i really love you a lot."

i almost don't want to blog this stuff, it's so wrenching...but i guess i just want to prepare you so far kidless folks who read these entries, or remind you parents of now fellow grown ups here just how easily one can be moved to tears with absolutely no notice by a mini person that did not even exist three short years ago, that takes up about the same amount of space as a half a stack of encyclopedias, that bears your name and sometimes even parts of your personality, your face. it's amazing...just amazing.

last night we realized that we are missing kansas' birth certificate...the notarized one, the one that's supposed to be in our - his parents' - safekeeping...needless to say, this was greatly disturbing to me...as well as inconvienient - we need it to send a copy with his application for a state online charter school this week. after searching through every place i could think of (besides the one place where i knew it was last) i checked out the federal government's website for information on replacing it, if it should come to that. here's a direct quote from there..."USAIS (United States of America Immigration Services) has made it simple to obtain your Vital Record Certificate from the comfort of your home. Using our Web based System you will be able to obtain your Birth, Death, or Marriage Certificate efficiently, saving you both time and money."

good to know, in case i ever lose my death certificate, that i will be able to obtain a copy of it from the comfort of my own home...

Yikes!!!

reading the lauren hill interview in the latest mars hill review has got me thinking - about the wide world of christian marketing's need for seperation of church and all that's not church, the real and needed place for material written for the believer's encouragement, what's in a conversion from one religion to another under the umbrella of the same God, the (highly relatable for me) preference for memior vs. apologetics for growth in understanding what this walk is all about anyway...and on and on. i encourage you to pick one up and read it, if this sort of thing interests you. i'll be here, chewing.

i love those times when in my frailty i can, like a proud beaming child, point to my God and say "MY daddy can do ANYTHING!"

about a year and a half ago we were having great philisophical discussions around here about bob dylan's singing voice...why, when he had obvious talent to sing well, did he choose to grind every other word of his well penned songs out of his nose, and hard...? why did he choose to adopt a voice that grated on many people's nerves and caused him to be even more oddly thought of as he was to begin with? arrogance, perhaps, or even anger fueled this strange choice. oh, we had a heyday of speculation, to be sure...chad even wrote a paper on the subject for a class. but yesterday i thought of something new. while listening to some of his very early recordings mixed with later hits on a compilation, it occured to me that maybe his choice to sing that way was an extension of his fierce privacy and reluctance to speak with reporters and biographers...we, the outside world, were not going to get his story, his comments, or even his real voice. like so many shy people i knew who could play loud, abrasive, or ridiculous characters in the theatre, his real self remained hidden behind a charicature on stage - and the transition between real and affected was too emotionally difficult for him to cross over and back at will. a defense mechanism. as figel of 321 penguins says, "it's a theory, anyway."

you cannot have resurrection life without first dying...

i just noticed that my last three posts were made on a tuesday, and here i am doing it again. i wonder why tuesday has become blogging day for me...?

so...we are having a time finding a sitter so we can go see waterdeep this saturday - one of the downfalls of the show being on easter weekend. it's been downright hot here the last few days - the mercury rose to 90 yesterday. hot and windy - weather i want to stick my head in the sand to avoid. and it's hard to drive in. there are major issues in my life - cleaning out and fixing my basement, taxes, childrearing, etc - that i am currently struggling with. worrying, nursing discontent, even anger at these loose ends that should have been tied up already, or that flail in the breeze making it hard for me to grab on to. but i'm remembering more these days to take them to God, to try to leave them there, and to set my hope in Him...balancing this world temporary and that life eternal has always eluded me though, it's difficult.

in the last four days, we've been home only to sleep two nights. today i'm looking around at my trashed house, no floor space to be seen from the bags, backpacks, and general chaos - i'm a bit overwhelmed. i need time to process the events of friday...the death of chad's grandmother, kindergarten roundup for jesse (me standing there in my p.j's that morning at 9:00 am after the whirlwhind of getting chad and kansas off for the day with the realization dawning on me that i was supposed to be at school right at that moment for the parent's meeting without lucy in tow...not happening. we were late and she squirmed on my lap...) where was i? the great marriage conference we left for on friday afternoon after learning the news of grandma barker...we were glad we had seen her just the evening before, but it was impossible to process the thought of her being gone while heading out of town as the rest of the family was flying or driving in...the time away and the lessons learned at the conference are going to be priceless when we get around to following up with it. the funeral yesterday, the deep, hard to answer questions from my kids...the afternoon and evening spent with family and friends...the distracting basketball game. chad has nursed a debilitating toothache through this all. my kids are having a terrible time giving me these moments to write even now...i've been looking forward to their naptime today since last thursday...

i'll try to get to my little blog more often, when i have some time to :).

our water damaged basement, chad's crashed hard drive, and now his grandma is in the hospital again, and they don't think she'll make it two more weeks. they say these things come in threes, but do they have to come like a series of joe louis knockouts?

can you miss something that you never knew?

ug...the main drain's plugged. our basement, it did flood. for days we've worked and shrugged...shop vacs and dehumidifiers we've lugged. we pulled the carpet up, the pad - when you walked on it went "schlup". can't take much more of this uncertain struggle- about time to call the plumber up.

(this complaint brought to you by the phonetic short 'u' sound)

jesse, lucy, and i went and had lunch at school with kansas today...when a parent comes like that, their child is allowed to choose two friends to sit with along with mom or dad at a special table. kansas chose a very cute and talkative little brown-eyed girl (who gave me the initial impression that she had influential older sisters, and as it turned out, she does :) - and he also chose the class troublemaker - remember the kid who set his desk on fire? he looks like one of the little rascals (think alfalfa with red hair and freckles), but is very easy to talk to and was eager to share with me all the rotten things he's done this year...'true confessions at auburn elementary...'

it really took me back...one hollered room-encompassing scolding from the large marge-esque lunch lady, and i was in second grade all over again, but this time with a more refined sense of humor and a little more height. i watched my kansas go through the hot lunch line, raise his hand to ask for more ketchup, talk with his friends about recess and other kids, and race when he finished out to the playground swings. i swear, it really doesn't seem like so long ago that i was right there...different town, different life - same general idea. we hung around for the ten minute recess before heading back to the office to return our visitors pass. it's still a bit strange to have all this formality attached to seeing my kid during a normal day, but i guess that's part of letting him grow up.

...and today it's sunny and 62 degrees. i'm listening to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant [18:31] via streaming online radio...fun stuff.
I was having revelations yesterday morning on the treadmill at the Y - revelations and trepidations, visions and fears. sometimes i see not just the whole picture, but the entire collection of picture possibilities and let me tell you - once you have children of your own, this can be an unwelcomingly blinding situation. I walked faster and faster as thoughts poured through my brain...thoughts of my kids out in this big bad world without a solid anchor, thoughts of inadequacy at motherhood because of my own mother jumping ship when i was two - my daughter's age now - thoughts of pictures i wanted to paint and music i wanted to make, thoughts of never standing on the northern california cliffs overlooking the pacific ever again, thoughts of claustrophobia in my yoga pants, thoughts of hungry children in third world countries, bombings, vacant eyed poverty, my own restlessness and my sometimes seemingly frozen options at this place in my life, thoughts of black and red and flourescent oranges and yellows that hurt my inner eyes...thoughts of something shapeless unraveling and a loss of control over it, thoughts of not understanding God, and being mostly confused at the way people have tried to explain Him, thoughts of armageddon and fire and endless cold unrelenting pouring rain like something out of a ray bradbury story. thoughts i wanted to write down and couldn't and that i knew would have escaped me when i did get to paper and a pen...all this while watching construction progress on the row of townhouses below me out the wide long windows i was facing, and four wall mounted t.v.'s blinking out seperate broadcasts above me. and the woman on the next treadmill over walking just a little bit faster than me the whole time. and coldplay loud in my ears, the wire from my cd player swinging in time to my stride. the track under my feet slowed for cool down, and i remembered to breathe. what gets me through these mental panic attacks? i think having learned that this too shall pass, i guess. that all i really have to hold is the moment i'm in. and that as little as i get what God's up to, I believe He's a good Father.

by the time i picked jesse and lucy up from their play i was satisfied to run our errands and go home for a nap. the sun was shining, the ice and dirty slush had evaporated into thin air, and while it wasn't costal, it wasn't a bad place to be either.

it's raining ice.

my mateys (resplendant in their pirate getup, wooden shoes, and cowboy hat...dontcha think?)

last minute wishes...i just discovered this gem. anne lamott and over the rhine at the same conference. in san diego. in three days. *SIGH*...

"Grief and tears water the ground at our feet; they are part of restoration." - a.l.

been sick in bed pretty much since last saturday, when i started feeling like i might be coming down with something. it's a particularly nasty cold, settled in my chest, plugging up my ears and giving me huge, painful sneezes at odd intervals. my advice for any fellow sickies out there in bloggerland...if all you have left in your medicine cabinet for this sort of thing is theraflu (the kind you mix with hot water, not the tablets) and you have to at least try for some relief...mix in a GENEROUS amount of honey after you've stirred in the powder. the stuff is most unsavory.

things i collect - part two.

memories
photographs
dust on just about every surface of my house...it's something i have a hard time getting around to.
kitchen gadgets - antique ones to add to my kitchen border; new ones to play with
cookbooks
cd's, mainly of friends, independent artists, and classic got-to-own goodies
pens
bags, leaning towards the hippy variety
board games
art supplies for me + my kids
catalogs - cbd, ll bean, pottery barn. when i've collected too many we make collages.
empty water bottles - but i don't mean to. i really should throw them away...
notebooks - we are rife with them. all of us here do a tremendous amount of drawing, writing, and general doodling.
educational placemats - nothing like discussing the nervous system, planetary order, or elmo's favorite colors while enjoying a meal.
credit card applications, which i now rip up and return to the sender at their expense, a tip i learned from the happily determined mary hunt.
chocolate
peace
hope
love
fisher price toys from the seventies - for old times sake.


i'm sure there's more, but you get the idea...