Remember me?



Hi there!  It's been a VERY long time since I've had a chance to write.  Our Bummer Summer came to an end shortly after my last post, and with it came extreme changes all around.  The biggest change occured four days before school was to start, when I got a facebook message from our school district superintendent saying something about a job at my kids' school.  Later that day, our school principal telephoned with a proposition:  Due to lots and lots of newly enrolled kids at our school, they had an immediate opening for a 5th grade teacher and they were offering the job to me.  In fact, they wanted me over anyone else. 

After a long, agonizing day full of prayer and angst-ridden thought, I met the principal at school and agreed to take the position.  He led me to a classroom full of dusty books and old furniture.  My task in the next four days was to clear it all out, get everything set up, and be prepared to teach 38 students. 

The next three months of my life were a high-pressured, stressful blur.  I lost track of the amount of times I wanted to chuck my teacher's editions into a puddle and go home. 

Since then, things have eased up a bit, but I'm still in a constant state of unrest.  There's never enough time to get things done on the homefront, and I hate coming back after a full day of work to a house that's got laundry piled up, a dining room table sprinkled with crumbs, and floors that desperately need vacuuming.  I'm feeling uneasy about the way the kids' behavior has changed (not for the better...), and feeling overall that I'm sacrificing my home and family life for the good of my students.  Don't get me wrong, I love my students and I cheer (inwardly AND outwardly) when they succeed, but it feels more than a little hypocritical to focus so much on other people's kids while leaving so little for my own.

The plan for next year is still up in the air.  Due to budget stuff, I fully expect to get a pink slip (layoff notice) and the end of the year.  Part time work would be ideal, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  I feel very strongly that God placed me in this position for a reason, but if He wants me to stay on, He hasn't shown me just yet. 

And, of course, life goes on in the meantime.  Apart from the joys and frustrations of the new job, there are dysfunctional relatives popping out of the woodwork, frenemies and girl drama to contend with, family issues, dance classes, local theater practices several times a week, and who knows WHAT else waiting in the wings. 

Summer Bummer

It has been one bummer of a summer.

Things looked promising at the beginning.  Once the hectic schedule of the school year was over, we all enjoyed sleeping in, going for hikes, grilling dinner, making s'mores at the fire pit in the back yard, and lots of other things we only really get to do in the summertime.  There were even a few nice, warm days (that's above 70 degrees here in Del Norte) that allowed the kids to wear the creases out of the new shorts I'd got them and allowed me to bare my ghost-white calves with a pair of capri pants.

Then the bummers started to happen. And they started to snowball.

We got a call saying my husband's grandpa, who had terminal cancer, was nearing the end.  Husband left for a good chunk of time to be able to talk to Grandpa and say his goodbyes.  Shortly after coming back, Husband got another call saying Grandpa had passed away.  He left for another chunk of time to attend the memorial service (and give the eulogy) and help organize some of Grandpa's possessions.  It was a very sad time, compounded by the fact that Husband was away so much and I was on my own with three children who had become very bored with summer and who didn't know how to express their grief over their great-grandfather's passing in ways other than arguments and outbursts.

That was the worst part of summer.  After that, it was a plethora of little things.  Hit Girl came down with a cold, prompting her to wake up several times a night and come into our room to wake us.  I managed to shut the garage door on the hood of our new minivan and scratch it terribly.  Did I mention the garage door was bent so badly it wouldn't work and the motor in the opener caught fire?  Just this last week, Pollyana's constant summer buddy, who was here visiting family in our neighborhood, left her with head lice as a parting gift.  Two hours after discovering this, the washing machine's motor ground to a halt.

So yeah, at this point I'm hoping for a vacation from our vacation.  Our family schedule during school is completely crazy, but its predictability looks pretty nice right about now.

Temper, temper!

I have a terrible temper.

Most people don't believe this about me.  Generally I'm a pretty sunshiny, Pollyanna type of person who skips around surrounded by chirping birds, crowned by rainbows in a sky where the only clouds have sequined outlines of silver.  My little world is a happy place and I stay there as much as possible.  But I don't always stay there. Oh, no.  Sometimes unpleasantness creeps in, embedding itself under my skin, irritating more and more with every breath until it becomes so difficult to ignore that my happy little world dissolves into a cacophony of dissonance, thunderbolts and lightning storms that leaves me gritting my teeth and digging my fingernails into my palms. 

Now don't think I'm easily angered.  I do my best to let things roll off my back and focus on the big picture, asking myself "In the grand scheme of things, will this really matter?"  So when the steam starts coming out of my ears, be assured it's been building for quite a while, which might explain the level of reaction when it finally comes. 

So I find myself wondering...is this healthy?  Is it normal?  I never really had a positive example of how to handle anger when I was a kid and, more than anything, I want to avoid the constant violent outbursts that punctuated life in those days.  Then I come across this:

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
—Colossians 3:8
 
and things start to fall into place.  While I have a bit of pride over the fact that I am fairly slow to anger, the reality is, that's not good enough.   Temper, anger, whatever you want to call it - it's not from God.  It's a very real example of how easy it is to slip into the "me" mentality when my goal is to always be looking up.  If I give in to the foot-stomping and muttering, I'm grasping tools that, instead of helping me out of the pit of temper I'm in, will tear and bite into the ground to create a chasm of misery.  Looking at things that way, the answer to my question is obviously no, this is not healthy and this is not good.
 
It's never easy for me to admit I'm wrong, especially when I know I'm right.  My angry thoughts may well be justified.  Let's face it, people in general are not kind, they are not altruistic and they often hurt others in order to benefit themselves.  Anger is a natural reaction.  But it takes something more, something otherworldly, to refuse to let that take hold, to push it aside in favor of humility and obedience and maybe even forgiveness.  A work in progress, I'm nowhere near mastering any of that.  But I can do pretty much anything with God's help, so I'm going to keep trying.

The 4th in the 'Norte



Fireworks over
Battery Point Lighthouse



The 4th of July in Crescent City is a big deal.  Summertime is the only time of year when we're not completely inundated with rain, so this holiday is the perfect one to highlight the beauty and unique features of our area while celebrating the birth of our country.  There are myriad trails that twist through lush redwood trees growing so tall you can only see a hint of blue sky peeking out from above the canopy of branches.  The ground below, pillowed with dried leaves and pieces of bark, springs up with each footstep.  Fallen tree trunks provide hiding places for all manner of forest creatures and excellent climbing challenges for kids of all ages.  Much as the rain during the other 3/4 of the year depresses me and makes me long for a different climate, summertime reminds me why I could never leave this place completely. 



July 4th, 1915 on Front Street



The amount of activities going on the 4th is astounding for such a small town.  The entire schedule is printed in the local paper, and it's possible to be involved in something from before breakfast until the wee hours of the night.  The one thing I never miss is the parade, which seems to be getting longer each year.  It begins at 10 am and goes until noon this year.  All but one member of my family are part of it and numerous friends and their children are also participating, so the enthusiasm that brings should hopefully overshadow the length.  Two hours is a looooong time.

After tomorrow, Crescent City will return to the sleepy little town it usually is, minus the rather colorful populous that makes the newspaper and the news of record on a regular basis.  Enjoy your 4th and be safe!

The girl is crafty like ice is cold!



Four. Feet.

 I just got back from a wonderful afternoon crafting with three of my favorite people.  While I worked on the neverending crochet shrug (FOUR FEET of the same stitch over and over and over), Rainbow Bekah and Easily Amused Jamie made flowers and hair bands and all manner of cute creations I couldn't make from scratch if my life depended on it (The lovely Miss Mandy spent her time holding the cutest. baby. ever.). 



Yay!



After my hand went numb from single crocheting an hour of my life away, Bekah took pity on my flowerlessness and showed me how to make a fabric flower clip of my very own.  Not too shabby for a beginner, eh?  Now I'm desperate to go through my fabric scraps and see what flowers I can create.  My girls are eager to help, and I'm sure this will end up being a project for the three of us.

Currently holding a pocketbook, comb, brush, receipts,
hand lotion, sanitizer and one small blue racecar.



The sewing machine is intimidating me less and less, and I have two projects to show for my determination to show it who's boss.  The first is the Amy Butler Birdie Sling.  Since making this one, I've ditched my teensy handbag and embraced the gigantic shopping tote-sized purse I made from the pattern.  Sure, it's huge.  Maybe a little ostentatious.  But boy, can I fit a lot of stuff in it!

The second is a dress I lovingly refer to as Pollyanna's First Mumu (for blogging purposes, I've renamed my children The Professor, Pollyanna and Hit Girl. More on that in another post).  The pattern is for your basic pillowcase dress, of which you can find any variation on the web.  Just google. 



Not to be confused with the
sound a cow makes.

Because she's 7 and taller than the toddlers pillowcase dresses are designed to fit, I let Pollyanna pick out any fabric she wanted off the clearance rack so we could make the dress as long as we wanted. True to form, she chose a very loud flowery rayon type material that resulted in a flowy, parachutey look that she loves.  I'm still forming an opinion on whether I like how it turned out, but being enamored with anything Mama makes, Pollyanna is thrilled and has vowed to wear it as often as I'll let her. 



Obviously, I'm still a fledgling crafter, but each time I make something I feel that much better about my skills.  Maybe someday I'll create my own tutorial or be featured on one of those fantastic craft lists all the creative bloggers make!

Father's Day

Father's Day is one of those holidays I've never seen a point in celebrating.  My earliest memory of Father's Day is in second grade, when I presented my mother, a struggling single parent, with a card that said "Happy Father's Day to the best dad I know" - a wry twist of humor that sends a pang to my stomach even now.  At that point, my biological father had been absent for a little over three years. He'd abandoned his children in favor of a life and another child with someone he'd been seeing at the same time as my mother.  A couple years after that, he ended up in prison for a violent crime, and that's where he was when I gave that homemade card to my mother.  The following years saw him re-enter prison shortly after he was released, and saw me with a new stepfather who didn't do much to earn the title of father, apart from being a male presence in our home. 

Growing up without a strong male role model was tough.  I had grandfathers I loved dearly, but didn't really feel particularly close to them.  Male teachers were few and far between, but those I did have, I had a great respect for and did my best to impress them with my academics.  Kind as those teachers were, the space left by the absence of a decent father never has been filled. 

Thankfully, I had the good sense to marry a kind, family-oriented man who is extremely involved in our childrens' lives.  The knowledge that my children are growing up with a fantastic role model who obviously loves and cares for them gives me a bit of peace about my own fragmented upbringing.  I can deal with the aftermath of failed fathers knowing they'll never have to.  And that, my friends, is a happy ending.

Take Me to the River...

Way back in the spring of my senior year of high school, I was baptised.  Growing up in the Southern Baptist church, there was no infant baptism.  Parents were encouraged to dedicate their children to God, which had the family standing in front of the church as the pastor prayed for them all, and specifically that the child being dedicated would grow to lead a life pleasing to God.  But there was no water involved, apart from the tears of emotionally overwhelmed grandparents.  I don't think my siblings and I were ever dedicated, but I saw many other kids in our church dedicated over the years.

As a child, I was a non-swimmer.  Even now, at thirty-four years old, I can only manage to swim a few feet before panic sets in and I need to touch bottom with my feet in order to calm down.  One really bad experience with the water left me afraid to ever submerge my face, which meant baptism was out of the question, no matter how much I felt I wanted to do it.  Discussions with my pastor about the possibility of performing a baptism that kept my face out of the water were fruitless.  Unless I went completely under, he said, it wasn't an actual baptism.  I still fail to see the logic in this (did he suspect the symbolic washing away of sin would leave my face vulnerable to bad, bad things?), but that's the way it was.  Finally, my senior year of high school I decided it was time to suck it up and get baptised.  I'd been doing daily bible study and was interested in truly living the type of life Jesus outlined in the New Testament, and in order to be obedient, this was the next step. 

My timing could have been a little better.  The baptism took place in March, after our sanctuary had burned down as a result of arson (still unsolved, by the way).  Because we didn't have access to a baptismal and this was before the days of portable hot tubs, we waited until the rain stopped for a few days and trooped to the banks of the Mad River.  Looking back, this was downright crazy. The water was freezing and the river was swift and high.  I'm not sure whose idea this was, but they probably weren't firing on all cylinders.  Anyway, my turn came and I waded out, breathless because of the coldness of the water.  I still remember the sensation of icy wetness over my face before being hauled back above the surface, gasping for air and plunking my way to shore to scattered applause.

I'd like to say I took things seriously enough to have a solid Christian experience from that point on, but as most young adults tend to do, I became self-involved and relied heavily upon my own logic to get through daily situations.  That particular issue has been a cyclical struggle ever since.  But I managed to get it together partway into my college years and do my best to be mindful of the way I'm supposed to be living and who I'm supposed to be relying on for even the little things (hint: not myself).  I figure if I counted on Him to get me through the two seconds underwater that felt like much, much more, I can certainly count on Him to get me through the harder stuff that doesn't terrify me half as much.