Happiness or Blessing?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be blessed. It seems like the word "blessing" is everywhere I turn: a chapter in Amelia's children's Bible is called "God's Blessings Grow"; an earlier CNN headline reads, "Flood Survivors Count Their Blessings"; a friend of a friend's blog post today is entitled "Deliriously Blessed." I ask God to bless my home, my family, and my loved ones, but do I really understand what I am asking for?

What I think I am asking for is for a happy home, for a healthy family, for safety and peace for my loved ones. However, I wonder often about how my definition of blessing might be applied to the faith of those who live in a constant state of violence, misery and poverty. Are they not blessed? Do they live outside of God's favor? If I adhere to my definition, the answer is yes. If I adhere to my definition, blessing is equated to my own personal and selfish happiness. If I adhere to my definition, then I also must believe that I am more deserving of God's favor. I do believe that my God is just; therefore, my definition of blessing must change.

Thoughts?

But I get turned around
I mistake some happiness for blessing
But I`m blessed as the poor
Still I judge success by how I`m dressing
-Caedmon's Call

Redemption in the Deep South

Today as I was driving to the grocery store, alone with my thoughts for the first time in about a week, I had an epiphany about happiness. I realized that I was, that I AM happy. This happiness of which I speak is not a giddy euphoria, but more of a steady, deep current of contentedness. I think I have felt this way for a while, but on this solo trip to the store, I realized that I am no longer waiting for that other shoe to drop. I trust this happiness. I know it won't go away.

Moving from California has been cathartic for me. I needed a new canvas. Growing up, and well into my twenties, I became accustomed to what I now call "crisis living," going from one personal or family crisis to another. I couldn't slow down and enjoy life; I was constantly anxious about turning a corner and running headlong, unprepared, in to my next tragedy. So I stayed on my guard, rejecting before I could be rejected, struggling to keep my head above the tide of anger and bitterness. This way of life was so ingrained in my mental topography, I honestly didn't know, until recently, that there was another way to live.

Early in our marriage, my husband helped me to recognize that the unhealthy consequences of living with this constant fear, but I had no idea how to change. Physical distance has been the only way for me to repair my faulty wiring; Alabama has been my soul's rehabilitation. We did not move here as a means of escape, and I did not foresee that this new found peace would be the result. But it was, and it has been, and I am thankful.

I am thankful because, though redemption has always been a part of the story, it is now a part of my story. I understand what it means now, and because I understand it, I can pass it on. I am no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop, or waiting in fear for the next crisis to arise; but when it does, I have a deep well from which to draw.

A Short Story by Amelia Burgess

When Ajee (Dave's mom) came to visit last April, she began an album of short stories dictated by Amelia. Remember, I record it as I hear it. No editing is involved. Here is her latest work:

Jack Anderson's Best Cousin's House
by Amelia Burgess

Once upon a time there was a baby butterfly. She was going over to her friend Jack Anderson's cousin's house. She saw her friend's house was on fire, so she jumped on top of the roof and she got some water from the water fountain and she got where the fire was and there was a hole. Then she didn't know what to do, so lots of friends came over and they had a birthday party.

The End.

We must work on denoument and resolution...

The Summer of Brokenness

Here's my list:

• Our lawnmower is broken and the grass is a foot high
• The top oven no longer heats, while the bottom oven runs about 200 degrees too hot
  
• We discovered wood rot and pulled a handful off of an outdoor window casing the other day
• There is a leak in our roof that has already been fixed twice...and is still leaking
• The face of our dishwasher fell off; it gives my kitchen an unintentional, industrial look
• The toilet in the girls' bathroom in unusable; Dave tried to fix it a few weeks ago, but now it sprays water from the top of the toilet instead of the bottom when you flush
• Via CT scan yesterday, I learned that I have sinus polyps (the cause of my chronic sinus infections this spring), which will have to be surgically removed a week before school starts; recovery time is a week...

But here's the other list:

• A fellow congregant offered us a free riding lawn mower that he no longer uses
• We have a microwave...and now, an oven thermometer
• The wood rot is localized to a very small area
• The big leaks are taken care of; at least it's not running down the wall anymore
• Our urban chic dishwasher is a great ice breaker when we have people over for dinner
• The toilet is most likely an easy fix, just not by my husband
• My silly little polyps are not life threatening, just a bit uncomfortable
  

Enjoy the View

Today, while Amelia was playing some computer games and Sadie was napping, I went to the bookshelf where we keep old journals and selected one at random. Dave and I used to be avid journal writers, but life creeps in and slowly, and inevitably, the busy-ness of everyday chips away at time for solitude and self-reflection.

The journal I grabbed off the shelf today belonged to Dave. I felt at liberty to read it because he had read it to me before, when we were first dating. Page after page of this journal was filled with poetry, beautiful poetry, and before I knew it, an hour had passed; Amelia was still playing computer games and Sadie was up from her nap. Life crept back in and snapped me out of my reverie.

Dave reminds me every day why I married him. He makes me laugh out loud on a regular basis; he loves our girls in a way that I didn't know fathers could love their daughters; he takes care of our family in little ways that I don't always immediately recognize. But life creeps in. After six years of marriage, two kids, two full-time jobs and more laundry and yard work than we could have ever hoped for, we have both lost some of the serendipity of our youth. It did my heart well to revisit the passion, idealism and sensitivity of the man I fell in love with. It reminded me that he is still that man and I'm still that woman. We just have to work a little harder to find that part of ourselves these days.

Contrast

Here are my girls' legs, side by side, after the same amount of sun exposure. I swear they have the same father...

Leaps and Bounds

With her favorite book, Dora Loves Boots

Amelia, lending moral support

Little girl, big room

Sweet dreams...

Between my girls, Sadie is without question the more easy going of the two; however, when she sets her mind to something, it is nearly impossible to dissuade her from that path. When she was two weeks old, Sadie decided that she would never take a feeding from anything but her mother's breast. And she never did. Not once. I tried every bottle on the market, even the kind that are made to resemble a real breast that you find advertised in the back of parenting magazines. When I went back to work, her babysitters had to feed her with a little medicine dropper because she refused everything else. At two weeks old, she made a decision about the way she wanted to be fed...and there was no going back.

So it was with sleeping in a crib. Saturday night, I put her to bed and within ten minutes heard sobbing in her room: deep, racking sobs as if she were scared. She never does this, so I went to check on her and as I walked in, she screamed between sobs, "I want sleep Pooh bed. I want to sleep Pooh bed!" It took several more minutes before it became clear what she was trying to communicate in her broken toddler English. "Pooh bed" is the toddler bed with Winnie-the-Pooh sheets we still had set up from our friends' visit back in April. Fine, I thought. I'll just put the sheets on her crib mattress. As I changed her sheets and began to put the mattress back in the crib, Sadie began waving her hands wildly and sobbing again, "I want sleep Pooh bed! I want to sleep Pooh bed!" So once more, I took the mattress out of the crib and this time put it on the floor. As soon as it touched the carpet, Sadie dove for the mattress and requested her favorite doll and blanket to snuggle with. I stayed with her for a minute, kissed her and closed the door. We heard not a sound from her room for the rest of the night. That's all it took for her to make that leap from a baby to a toddler.

Last night, we set up the toddler bed and removed her crib for good. Here are the obligatory "first night in a big girl bed" pictures. Sweet dreams, little gir! You are growing up too fast...

Where I've Been

Snow in Alabama!

Daddy with his matching girls

Sadie and Amelia, hamming it up for the camera

Messy playroom

I love how close they're sitting in this picture:)

Sadie and our new swing set= thanks Ajee and Bapa!

T-ball- Go Royals!

Elton John, backstage before the performance

Easter Sunday

Hunting eggs at church

The Nygren's visit- sweet times with sweet friends

Sadie and Molly Grace

Sadie's 2nd birthday!
Perfecting the art of time out
Ajee's visit in April

Tired, but happy

February through May has been filled with illness, visits from friends (hurray!), visits from relatives (so thankful), decisions about schools (for both children), job applications (for the fourth year in a row), a trip to the Dominican Republic (Dave's, not mine), more illness, two T-ball games a week, and now finally, the end a very long, exhausting, but fulfilling school year. I feel like I am at the end of a marathon for which I did not properly train; I am weary in both body and spirit. I look forward to spending quality time my sweet little girls, replanting my flower boxes, wasting time with a diet coke in our inflatable backyard pool, reading some good books, and getting organized again. Posted above are some pictures from the last four months; more blogging to come!

The Sunday School Tree

About 18 miles outside of Eufaula is the tiny community of Comer, Alabama. There's not much to it: a few old, overgrown buildings, a couple of little churches and a smattering of country houses. Dave had been out there a few times on visitations and had shared with me about the little town that time forgot. So, today I packed the kids in the car, put Peter Pan on the DVR and headed north on Highway 82. I really just wanted to look around, maybe take a few pictures and be back within an hour.

As I pulled off the highway and into the little hamlet of Comer, I noticed a pick-up truck heading towards me, then pulling over to let me pass. When I drove by, I noticed that the lady in the truck was Martha Grant, a sweet member of our church. She rolled down her window and jokingly asked if I was lost, because really, if you don't live there, there is no good reason to be all the way out in Comer. Embarrassed, I told her that I had always wanted to see what it was like. She laughed at me, but then she asked if I wanted to come out to the family property and bring her husband Frank his morning coffee. I agreed. So, she hopped in alongside me in the mini-van and away we went. The Grant's cow pasture

On the way, Miss Martha told me what Mr. Frank was doing in the cow pasture; he was erecting a monument on the site of The Sunday School Tree. The Sunday School Tree, Miss Martha explained, was an enormous Red Oak tree that sat on the property of the old Russell plantation before "The War Between the States." When the weather was nice, Mrs. Russell, Mr. Frank's great-grandmother, would teach Sunday school under the old Oak tree to all the little boys and girls, both black and white together, that lived on the plantation. After the "War Between the Sates," the Russell plantation house burned, a forest grew up over the cotton fields, the old "Sunday School Tree" died and the stump was eventually removed. Miss Martha laughed about how ridiculous it must sound to be erecting a monument to a tree that no longer exists, in the middle of a pasture, surrounded by cow patties. But, really, I thought it was beautiful.

The site of the old Russell family plantation

Working on the monument for "The Sunday School Tree"

The old vault in the Bank of Comer

One of the little churches in Comer

Amelia, Sadie and Miss Martha on the Grant property

Duh...

For as long as I can remember, I have suffered from a serious (and apparently incurable) case of what I like to call "Duh Syndrome." I mean, I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person, but I have moments (more than I would like to admit) that my brain completely shuts down and I do something so stupid that my husband is often left wondering how he wound up with such a "special" wife. As I write this, my poor, long-suffering spouse is driving up and down highway 431, in search of my wallet that I most likely left on top of the car at the grocery store this morning. Yes, I had bags of groceries and a sick child to worry about. And yes, I was also engaged in a conversation with Callie Peak about their three cases of RSV and two bouts of pneumonia this winter. But really, that's no excuse. Duh.

And then there's a month ago when I was checking my cell phone messages in the driveway at Sadie's babysitter's house and backed right over their mailbox, knocking it completely out of the ground and denting the back of our brand new mini-van. Yep, say it with me...Duh.

Our poor Camry, which has been my car for the past three years, has a dent in the front fender from an unknown source (my fault, most likely), a dent and some chipped paint on the rear fender from when I backed into a tree last year, and a missing hubcap from when I pulled up a little too close to the curb. Duh...to the third power.

Essentially, I'm a scatterbrain. I leave things places (luckily, I've never left my children anywhere), I forget stuff that is important, I run into and break things that aren't mine. Though this post is written with tongue in cheek, I don't think it's funny. I spend a fair amount of time beating myself up over this glaring shortcoming in my life. I know we all have them, shortcomings, that is. I just wish this shortcoming was less destructive. What I hate the most is that my "duh" moments create a hassle for others. I hate that my husband had to take time away from work to look for my wallet and though we payed for it, I hate that Sadie's babysitter had to spend time on a Saturday afternoon to replace their broken mailbox. I really hate all the money we have to spend fixing my mistakes. So, if you're reading this and you've been a victim of my "Duh Syndrome," I'm sorry and I'm working on it. In the meantime, i wouldn't recommend loaning me your car.

Love Your Neighbors

Amelia and Bailey

Growing up on Barkley Ave., I lived in the same house for nineteen years and honestly, I would not be able to tell you the name of the man that lived next door. I played with the neighborhood kids from time to time, but they were mostly boys and I often found myself cleaning their room before I would allow myself to play in it. Boys are messy, you know. We were friendly with everyone, but we weren't about to close off the street for any 4th of July block party or anything, either. We did our own thing. We didn't exchange Christmas gifts. Or bring over a plate of cookies for new neighbors. Or watch out for one another. There was just a general lack of community. And it always made me a little bit sad.

I knew plenty of people in California who had block parties and great neighbors, so this is not a slam on any particular region. I, personally, just had to move to a small town in Alabama to find the kind of neighborhood I always dreamed about. The kind of neighborhood where the kids across the street spend hours at our house on a Saturday and then invite us for dinner that night. The kind of neighborhood where Meemaw and Granddaddy Ang take Amelia for rides in the wheelbarrow and bring us handmade deer sausage every Christmas. The kind of neighborhood where we take vacations to Disneyworld together in the summer and pick up eachother's kids from school because the baby is still napping. The kind of neighborhood where we take care of eachother's pets when we're away and can stop by to say "hello" without calling first.

Our neighborhood, in so many ways, has been a salve to that broken piece of me. Here, I have found the community I always longed for. I think that is why, despite the laundry list of Southern idiosynchrasies we could do without, for now, we love living in Eufaula. It is home.

Ninety-Nine

I wasn't tagged, but thought this looked like fun!

So, here's what you do...

Things you've already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven't done and don't want to - leave in plain font

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars- haven't done that for a long time...
3. played in a band
4. visited Hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to Disneyland/World

8. climbed a mountain- I haven't done this, but couldn't unbold it for some reason

9. held a Praying Mantis- um, I don't think so...
10. sang a solo -a few...
11. bungee jumped- no way, no how!
12. visited Paris

13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning- a horrible night at a B&B in Williamsburg, VA
17. walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. grown your own vegetables
19. seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. slept on an overnight train...and been accosted by dirty Italian men!
21. had a pillow fight
22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill- yesterday, but Sadie was sick, so...
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping- don't tell...
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in Venice
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset

31. hit a home run - I'm not the type...
32. been on a cruise
33. seen Niagara Falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. seen an Amish community- I've seen the Amish at a Missouri Costco...does that count?
36. taught yourself a new language- Beszelek egy kicsit magyarul:)
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing - Joshua Tree in 5th grade

40. seen Michelangelo's David in person- same trip I was accosted by dirty Italians on a night train from Rome to Vienna
41. sung karaoke - fun!
42. seen Old Faithful Geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance
47. had your portrait painted - does a caricature count?
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the Sistene Chapel in person- once again, dirty Italian trip...
50. been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. gone scuba diving or snorkeling- snorkeling in Catalina and Hawaii
52. kissed in the rain- probably, though I can't remember off hand
53. played in the mud

54. gone to a drive-in theater- those were the days...
55. been in a movie - split second overhead shot in "Sister Act II"
56. visited the Great Wall of China
57. started a business

58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited Russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold Girl Scout Cookies- and eaten LOTS of them, too!
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood
65. gone sky diving- nope...
66. visited a Nazi concentration camp- Aushwitz in Poland. A very powerful experience
67. bounced a check
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt- started to, but never finished:(

73. stood in Times Square
74. toured the Everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the changing of the guard in London
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. published a book
81. visited the Vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire Bible
86. visited the White House
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating- No! But my neighbor does and makes us deer sausage every Christmas...
88. had chickenpox- still have the scars to prove it!
89. saved someone’s life- hope I never have to do that...
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous -Drake, of "Drake and Josh" was in my 10th grade English class...ha, ha!
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby- TWO!

95. seen the Alamo in person.
96. swum in the Great Salt Lake- yuck!
97. been involved in a law suit- I rear-ended a crazy lady once. It's a long story...
98. owned a cell phone
99. been stung by a bee- only once in my whole life!

Dog Days

On her first birthday, Amelia received doggy. That's what she calls him. Doggy. Back in the day, doggy was plump with stuffing and so soft you could use him as a pillow. Amelia took to him right away, but it wasn't until our move to Alabama that he became an irreplaceable fixture in our lives. Two years later, doggy's fur is coarse and matted, his glass eyes are chipped from several trips to the washer and dryer, and bits of stuffing escape from a hole at the tip of his leather nose. He has been doused by just about every bodily fluid (and solid) imaginable (our recent trip to Arkansas left him covered in vomit twice). No matter how much we wash him, doggy is a disgusting, well-loved mess.

So, on the aforementioned vomit trip to Arkansas, I decided that maybe it was time to upgrade doggy for a newer, less contaminated option. The day after Thanksgiving, I took Amelia on her very first trip to Build-A-Bear. I talked to her about it before hand, explaining that we would always keep doggy, but maybe she could have something new to sleep with. Amelia seemed amenable to this plan, so off we went. And we had fun. We chose a bear, watched as it was stuffed before our eyes, picked out clothes and named her Emily.

The excitement of it all lasted until we got to the cash register. All of the sudden, Amelia's brown eyes welled up with tears and when I asked her what was wrong, she replied, "I don't want to sleep with my new bear. I want to sleep with doggy. I love him even though he's yucky." It occurred to me at that moment that doggy is Amelia's Velveteen Rabbit. All of the chipped glass and matted fur and vomit chunks are the things that make him real; the things that make him safe and familiar and loved.

So doggy remains. Emily, the replacement bear, is long forgotten. Doggy, who is loved even though he is yucky, is safe tonight in Amelia's arms and all is right with the world.

Growing Pains

As Amelia grows up, she is more and more like me. Her red hair, brown eyes, lanky figure and dimple on her right cheek are just the beginning of our similarities. At four, her personality has begun to emerge. She is an observer, more comfortable to stand on the outside of the action until she gets a feel for it; she isn't one to jump right in to the fray. Though she sings and dances and laughs and makes jokes at home, she rarely does so in public. Her preschool enrichment teacher says that she rarely talks; it takes a long time for someone to work their way in to Amelia's circle of trust. She is incredibly sensitive and emotional. If she is defying me in some way, all I have to do is say that I am sad and she will almost always comply. She is also able to express the way she is feeling at a depth that is unusual for a child of her age.

It is a bittersweet thing to see myself reflected in Amelia. When I watch her draw for hours, making up stories about her characters, I celebrate her imagination. When the question, "why" follows every little thing I say, I celebrate her curiosity. When her brown eyes sparkle with laughter over a "joke" she made up, I celebrate her sense of humor. I love these things about her because she gets them from me. Then, there are other times. There are times when she lingers behind my legs, too shy to engage with other kids at a birthday party. I admit that I cringe a little bit when she refuses to go down the inflatable slide or jump in the bounce house because she is scared. And sometimes when her emotions swing dramatically hot and cold, I wish that she had inherited her father's temperament. I struggle with these things because she gets them from me, and throughout my life, these qualities were painful.

Amelia's bright little life will not be hindered by my emotional baggage. I made that decision a long time ago. However, I have dreams for Amelia. As parents, our dreams never involve our children experiencing pain, but I know that if I want her to excel in her gifts, I also must relinquish her to her flaws. I know that some of my flaws became scars in the wake of a very difficult adolescence; some of them, admittedly, by my own consequence. What this has taught me is that pain is inevitable; I can not and will not eliminate this reality for her. I also realize that what I may see as flaws in myself, depending on how they manifest themselves in her, may become a part of Amelia's beauty. That's why, I stand back, hold my tongue and focus on her gifts: her bountiful imagination, her curiosity about the world, her off-beat sense of humor. I will teach her to lead with these gifts and let the rest fall away.

Taxidermy and Collard Greens

A sample of what one might hear on a day in a rural Alabama middle school:

Chris: Mrs. Burgess, I can't ever do my homework.

Mrs. Burgess: Why can't you do homework, Chris?

Chris: Because I have a garden: 136 collard greens. No time for homework!

##

Mrs. Burgess: Tyler, why aren't you doing your work?

Tyler: I'm going to juvi tomorrow and I ain't coming back, so why should I work?

Mrs. Burgess: juvi?

Tyler: I'm up for two felonies...

Mrs. Burgess: What did you do?

Tyler: Attempted murder and killing a cat. But Mrs. Burgess, I swear I didn't kill that cat!

Mrs. Burgess: Um, ok.

##

*Cody (yelling from across the room): Mrs. Burgess!! When I get my deer head back from the taxidermist, can I bring it in to show you?

Mrs. Burgess: How about you bring a picture...

*Cody is also the student who, on the Monday after we read The Raven, brought me a REAL (and freshly dismembered) crow's foot. He says I'm his favorite teacher. Sweet, but can't I just get an apple?

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

I've been teaching for almost ten years. In those ten years, I've worked at many different schools, with a diverse cross-section of students. I've taught students who are filthy rich and dirt poor; students who have spent time in rehab, or had a parent pass away, or are themselves in remission from cancer. I've seen students come to terms with being gay and or their parents' divorce. And seven years ago, a bunch of ninth graders and I muddled our way through a tough day in September. Though my teacher shoes are fairly worn in, I find myself this week in the midst of another first: the death of a student.

Ryan had long hair that hung in front of his blue eyes- the kind of hairstyle popular with teenage boys in the South. He didn't talk much, though he had developed a deft note passing technique. I never wrote him up, never had to call his parents, and never really got to know him. He got a "B" on his poetry quiz on Friday. On Saturday morning, he got on a four wheeler with his cousin, drove it through a stop sign and into a speeding pick-up truck. On Sunday afternoon, he died.

I knew Monday would be emotionally exhausting. Dealing with death is something that most adults are unable to gracefully navigate. Thirteen-year-olds can't navigate their way to the restroom, let alone deal with the death of a classmate. I thought long and hard about the best way to go forward. In the end, I decided to acknowledge to my students that it was a hard day, but that we needed to proceed normally. We learned how to diagram the rhyme scheme of a Robert Frost poem, and they quietly and obediently took it in. They didn't argue. They didn't yell at each other from across the room. Some kids put their heads on the desk, and I didn't bother them. Throughout the day, several girls broke in to sobs, and I sent them to the counselors who had gathered in the library. One student (even as Ryan's empty desk sat across the room from him), made a perverse comment about what the scene of the accident might have looked like. He laughed about it as his classmates around him cried. I sent him to the principal's office. He was the only one.

Overall, we fought our grief by walking through our day as we usually do. I think that my students found comfort in routine; I know I did. Beyond that, I was proud of the way that they handled themselves, and the way they treated each other. For whatever reason (this is a whole other post), I have struggled immensely with this particular group of students. But I have hope. Ryan's death forced us to be human. It forced me to stop focussing (for a moment) on whether or not they're able to make their subjects and verbs agree, and it forced them to stop focussing on themselves.

Tag

So, I was tagged by Jen a while back and forgot. Now, I have insomnia and I'm doing something about it. Without further ado:

1. I have insomnia BAD. A few times a month (like tonight, most likely), I'm up close to all night long. I've had this problem since high school. I have memories of baking cookies and cleaning my room in the middle of the night, and then going straight to school without having slept at all. During my most recent bouts of insomnia, the only thing I have the energy to do is surf the net and watch backlogged episodes of House Hunters on DVR.

2. I love rhubarb. I'll buy it pretty much any time I see it at the grocery store, and go straight home and make a pie out of it...and then pretty much eat it all myself since my husband is too disciplined to eat pie. If you've never seen rhubarb, it looks like red celery:)

3. When I'm nervous or deep in thought, I rub my eyebrows. I just love the way they feel.

4. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I put my foot in my mouth a lot. I have little tolerance for social norms and hierarchies. I am not a fan of status quo. As a pastor's wife, this sometimes works for me, and is sometimes to my detriment. But I think there is little chance that I am going to change any time soon, so I work on not insulting people, and then I just roll with the rest...

5. I love completely useless television. I am currently a fan of "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team, Season 3" on CMT. I LOVE it. I really don't know why. I also enjoy "The Hills," and "The Real Housewives of Orange County." Please don't judge me.

6. I hate small talk and I'm terrible at it. I recently left a party in tears because Dave was absorbed by the masses, and I was left alone to make chit-chat with people I hardly knew. It felt like a junior high school dance all over again. For this same reason, I also despise talking on the telephone.

7. I try to keep a bag of tootsie rolls in my freezer at all times. They're better frozen because they take longer to eat...though I usually can't stop with just one handful:)

According to the rules, I am supposed to "tag" seven other people. Quite honestly, I don't even know seven other people who blog. I don't even know if seven people read THIS blog. Sorry, no tags tonight.

Flower Power

For the past several months, I have found an outlet of sorts with a group of girls in Eufaula. All of us have three year olds and way too much laundry, so we can relate. Last week, the four of us took a floral arranging class where we made these amazing cornucopia centerpieces. Times when I get to be creative make me realize how much of my time is spent maintaining: putting things away, cleaning up, organizing, making meals, washing little faces, brushing teeth and wiping bottoms. I really don't mind doing these things. In fact, I love taking care of my family, but I get so wrapped up in day-to-day stuff that I can easily forget how much more there is to life. Every once in a while, spending an hour playing with flowers is heaven.

Why I Can't Sleep at Night

I haven't been blogging much lately. It's been a hard year so far, and I don't have a lot of time or energy to write. Also, the subtitle of my blog is "musings of motherhood and the mundane." However, lately, the things on my heart are not mundane, but profound. These days, I'm more in the mood to rant than to muse. When (or if) I ever have the energy, here is a list of potential blog posts mulling around in my head:

-The presidential election. Since Sarah Palin's arrival on the scene, my intelligence has been insulted by the indirect suggestion that because I am a woman, and/or middle class, that Sarah Palin in any way speaks for me.

-Political Correctness and the South- When I moved to Alabama two years ago, it made my skin crawl to listen to people discuss things in terms of black and white. To a certain extent, it still does. Growing up in the very politically correct Southern California, I was taught not to see, or at least not to acknowledge color. I was raised to celebrate diversity. Don't get me wrong; this is a very good and important principle. The difference is, in the deep South, there really isn't diversity, there is black and there is white. It is still very racially divided. So, how then do we live? Do we acknowledge this split, or do we pretend that we are the same? Is it easier to be politically correct when you don't have to apply its principles?

The Identity of a Pastor's Wife- I've not yet come to terms with this role. Honestly, I don't think about myself very often as a "pastor's wife." I think of myself as a mom, or as a teacher, or a wife and daughter; my identity is definitely not tied up in what Dave does for a living. There are several issues, though, specific to his vocation that I struggle with, or question.

The Reality of Poverty- The school that I work at is a very poor, rural county school. It is in the middle of nowhere. The students are bussed in from all over a very large county that has no industry to speak of, and no real cities. The kids at my school are unlike any I have ever taught. The disrespect towards me and each other is astounding. The fighting, both physical and verbal is unbelievable and daily. The apathy breaks my heart. The manipulation of the system, by both parents and students makes my stomach turn. Never in my almost ten years of teaching have I been afraid of being sued by a student. This year, I joined the union SOLELY for the liability insurance. Though I understand the antecedent to this behavior, it doesn't make it easier to deal with every day. I have always, always believed in taking care of the poor and in giving without asking questions. How, when you live in the midst of this, do you continue to claim this ideal and not become hardened?

Ode to Little Girls

They fight over breakfast

...and make-up among messes

Life is hot dogs and Kool Aid Slides, swings and dirty faces...and more joy than we could have ever imagined.