Resolutions

I love New Year's Eve. Of course I like to get drunk and kiss, but what I really love is the opportunity to start a new calendar, a new notebook, and a new goal.

I used to make grand resolutions on New Year's Eve, things like "This year I will lose 30 pounds" or "This year I will write a book." Like most people, though, I never followed through on these resolutions. By the middle of the year I would feel like a failure because I hadn't yet met the exceedingly high expectations I set for myself in January.

Last year I tried a different approach to my New Year's goal setting: instead of being super-specific, I chose a wide area of my life that I wanted to improve. My goal for 2007 was to "make our house a home." I kept a long list of things I could do to meet that goal, and I frequently added new things or crossed off tasks throughout the year as they became irrelevant or completed. I never approached the list or the goal as something I had to finish, but instead used it as a tool to give me focus.

My goal for 2008 is to become smarter with our money. I want to establish a sustainable system to track where our money goes. I want to add to our savings. I want to know when I am getting a good deal and when I am getting ripped off. I want to add to our household income. My list will grow and change with me throughout the year, and I think that's why it works for me. It's fluid, it's low pressure, and it's focused.

Do you make resolutions?

Chantix Whore

Ten days ago I started taking Chantix, the newest rage in anti-smoking aids. I have to admit that it works pretty well. There are times that I still want cigarettes, but even when I break down and smoke one the immense satisfaction I once felt is just not there. I have not had a puff for six days or something like that, and I intend to be cigarette-free for the rest of my life.

I have been substantially smoke-free only one other time in the past 12 years, and that was when I was pregnant with Ella. Quitting smoking then was easier for me because there was a concrete reason to quit: the baby growing in my belly. My reason for quitting this time around is more nebulous: my health. That may seem crazy to some people, but caring about my health is such a new thing for me. (I mean, I used to be a raver. I cannot think of anything more detrimental to one's health than raving.)

The hardest time for me to not smoke is the morning. As a smoker, I would stumble out from the bedroom, pour a cup of coffee, and immediately go to the front porch where I would smoke my first (and most satisfying) cigarette of the day in the peace and quiet of the woods. It was a nice way to start my day, alone and quiet and caffeinated. Now I forgo the coffee until later (to quell that nicotine urge) and eat breakfast instead. Somehow it is just not as satisfying.

Maybe I need to work on my perspective. Smoking cigarettes was a way for me to get pockets of alone time and quiet in my day, since I smoked outside. Now I need to teach myself how to relax amidst the chaos, something I rarely had to do before.

Anthropomorphic

With the seasonally appropriate colder temperatures finally moving in, we have had to confront our mouse issues. I wasn't all that bothered by the mice at first - they keep to themselves and stay out of the house. After all, even mice need a warm place to sleep during a cold night. But their boldness and growing numbers are getting bothersome, so I'm trying to find a natural way to deter them instead of killing them. (And by growing numbers, I mean maybe ten little field mice. We're not talking nasty city rats or total mouse infestation here, just to be clear. Still not that white trash, thank god.)

The other day I opened the empty garbage can out back to toss in a bag of garbage. When I lifted the lid I saw three little mice sitting in there, staring up at me with big, scared eyes and furry, shivering bodies. I couldn't imagine how they got in there. Surely mice cannot jump the four vertical feet required to catapult themselves into an empty 50-gallon can? But I couldn't see any other way. Apparently mice can jump four feet in the air, and that kind of freaks me out.

As I looked at the mice, I had anthropomorphic visions of Disney-fied mice dancing in my head, of three little mice stuck in a garbage can discussing how to get themselves out of their predicament, of Mama mouse wearing a kerchief and waiting nervously at home for her three lost children. I almost tipped the can over to let them free before I came to my senses. They are, after all, rodents and I suppose I shouldn't encourage them any more than I already have. Instead I shut the lid and went inside to call Chad.

Chad decided to leave the mice in the empty garbage can overnight (or maybe it wasn't such a conscious decision, maybe he just forgot about them). They froze to death, which is a rather humane way to kill a mouse, if you're going to kill one. At least we did not poison them or snap their necks in a trap. When I worked in a sign shop with a motley lot of working guys, they once trapped a mouse in a garbage can and shot at it with a nail gun. I was mortified. It was terrible and still makes me cringe when I remember it.

Mother Lion

This morning an annoying person called our house and said annoying things, things that he has already said in previous annoying phone calls. I am not a person who snaps, usually. I typically keep my cool, maybe almost to a fault. But this morning something broke inside of me and I let the annoying asshole have a big, loud piece of my mind. It felt so good, especially because I actually said the things I wanted to say, which is so rare in heated moments. I normally don't think of the good comebacks or eloquent insults until much later.

Hear me roar?

Starving

For those of you who actually visit this mundane blog, I apologize for my absence of late. I just cannot get myself to write. The words are collecting in my fingertips but my fingers will not hammer them out. There is a disconnect somewhere. And so it is with my whole life. A mysterious disconnect.

One morning your predictable conscious self surprises you. The alarm rings. She shuts it off and rolls over. Doesn't get out of bed. Shows no intention of getting dressed. She's on strike. Grievances have been ignored for years, maybe a lifetime. Working conditions are intolerable.

Annie Dillard tells us what happens next: '[Y]our worker - your one and only, your prized, coddled, and driven worker - is not going out on that job. Will not budge, not even for you, boss. Has been at it long enough to know when the air smells wrong; can sense a tremor through boot soles. Nonsense, you say; it is perfectly safe. But the worker will not go. Will not even look at the site. Just developed heart trouble. Would rather starve.'
Sarah Ban Breathnach, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, "October 5"

I'm not one for starving myself. I'll be back soon.

Truly Mundane

Every once in a while the routine of my life wears me down. I wake up to a new day only to walk numbly through a repeat of yesterday: wake, feed, clean, blog, feed, clean, entertain, feed, clean, bathe, clean, and back to sleep. When I start to feel like this - numb and bored and constrained by routine - I throw it all aside and I don't do anything. I let everything fall to pieces around me and I only deal with things that urgently need my attention. I feed Ella when she is clawing at the refrigerator door, I feed myself when the hunger threatens to knock me down, I clean when the gunk makes me gag or when the stink draws Chad's attention.

Last week was one of these times. I didn't blog, I didn't cook, I didn't clean. I stumbled through the week taking care of a sick Ella, only to get sick myself this weekend. And so now here I am, a chest cold making me weak and sluggish and depressed, another week staring me in the face while the rubble of last week still remains. I wonder how I will make it through another five days. I wonder when Ella will shake her cold. I wonder when the fog will lift.

Canning

Yesterday I canned five jars of pickled beets. This delights me to no end, that I "put up" some fresh food. I gave one jar to my brother and opened a second one because I just wanted to taste them, had to taste them. But I still have three perfect ruby jars of canned beets sitting on the kitchen table for me to admire.

I have always wanted to learn how to can food, but the rules and warnings regarding safe canning methods intimidated me. Boiling and sterilizing and sealing and boiling again - it can all sound very risky when you realize an error could create an odorless and tasteless bacteria that is extremely deadly when ingested.

Rachel, a new, delightful, and once misjudged friend, arranged a day for her mother to walk me through each step involved in canning. We arrived at her mother's house around 10:30 am, and we didn't leave until 4 in the afternoon. Ella was well-behaved and respectful of the new and tempting things to open and touch and bang on. While the morning was spent in the kitchen canning beets, the afternoon was filled with splashing around an enormous jacuzzi tub full of bubbles and seashells. Ella was beside herself with the wonder of it all, and Rachel and I talked the whole time. Satisfying, meaty conversation. We had such a great day.

So yes, canning. I am no longer intimidated by canning, and learned that it's simply a matter of keeping things clean and ensuring a solid seal on the lid to prevent bacterial growth. It is a long, labor intensive process that requires much patience, but not as scary as I once thought.

My passion for canning, just now realized in this first tiny batch of pickled beets, is as much a matter of taking up my place in a long line of women through history, as much as it is a matter of feeding my family food that I canned myself, as an active participant in our food chain and local food economy. Canning methods are like oral histories, passed down from generation to generation, caretaker to caretaker, tweaked each round. As nostalgic as it may sound, now I have my place in this history, and in time will develop my own methods and tweaks before passing my secrets on to someone else. And how satisfying to eat food that is free of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup, that didn't travel a thousand miles in a truck to get to our table, that wasn't purchased at some ridiculously marked up price in some organic foods section of the market!

(And also, how ironic that I should leran canning from the mother of a girl I so completely misjudged.)

Now, to plan a garden that I will actually plant next year.

Gossip

I was at a baby shower this weekend for one of my younger friends - she is maybe 21 years old. All of her friends were there, this gaggle of young, perfectly coiffed mothers with beautiful basketball-round pregnant bellies or children already in tow. They fascinated me, these young mothers. My cousin (also hot and young, but not pregnant, and never will be for fear of ruining her hot, perfect body) was also in attendance, and so I I tried to pump her for any information about the gaggle of mothers. But my cousin, she isn't one for gossip, so my curiosity was left unsatiated.

I love gossip. It doesn't even have to be juicy gossip. Any plain old gossip suits me fine. I try not to gossip to judge, to tsk-tsk a decision someone has made or to cast judgment on their life. Instead, I try to gossip simply to know, in the most benign way possible. (But I make no claims to absolute success in this department - I am human, after all.) I just like to know about people - what they do, how they live, what kind of choices they make. Everyone I encounter becomes a character in my head, and I add all the little bits I gather here and there until I have fleshed out the person, or character, in my mind.

In my favorite book on writing ever, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes: "If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days - listening, observing, storing things way, making your isolation pay off. You take home all you've taken in, all that you've overheard, and you turn it into gold. (Or at least you try.)"

I remember hearing somewhere (The Hours DVD special features, perhaps?) that Virginia Woolf would incessantly quiz people about their day, about the particular, routine details of their life. She might ask things like what had roused the person from sleep that morning? And if it was the sun, what was the quality of that sunlight - crisp, golden, cold, foggy, what? And what did they eat for breakfast? In knowing these mundane details, she could come to know the person, or maybe gain some insight into a character she was working on.

I think this is truly why I love to blog, and why I love to read other people's blogs. It fills the need in me to simply know how other people lead their lives.

Creativity

I try not to leave holes in this narrative more than three days long, but this post comes after a five day hole. I apologize. I've just been so wrapped up in getting my dreams out of my head and into the real world. The enormous effort required to take action on these dreams has eaten into my blogging time.

You see, I used to make things. I used to make cards and invitations and fun paper things. I used to be crafty. I even used to do graphic design. But, as I've said before, it gets very difficult to keep the creative side of yourself alive when a child enters your world. It's simply a matter of time, and in my case, space. Our home has absolutely no space for me to set up a creative nest.

Lately, this daily lack of creativity in my life has become a nagging problem, a dull headache that won't go away. And I have dreams of using my creativity to generate income, but if I don't address the lack of time and space for creativity in my life, those precious plans can never come to fruition.

I have spent the last few days feverishly clearing out a storage room at my dad's, in hopes of soon having a space for myself to experiment and create, a space to turn my ideas into little things to sell. It is arduous work, clearing out and sorting through years of accumulated stuff. Until I get this work done, please bear with my occasional absence. (Please don't leave me! Please!) I promise it will all be worth it in the end. I'll share some pictures of the final space.

Working Mom

I got a job offer recently. For months I've been sending out resumes and meticulously crafting cover letters, and here, finally, a job offer has fallen into my lap from a former employer. Technically, it is what I've been wanting for months. But now that I've gotten the offer, I'm starting to freak out over what I think life as a working mom will be like.

I've been obsessing over how I will be able to manage it all - working a stressful job, commuting, taking care of Ella, living a life on a clock-in/clock-out schedule. After all, I haven't worked outside our home in 14 months. To calm my mind I wrote down what our new daily schedule would be like. (Yes, sometimes I am crazy.) We only have one car at the moment, so if Chad and I were both working this would be a very realistic picture of our day:

5:30 am: Wake, shower, eat, feed Ella
6:15 am: Leave house
6:30 am: Drop Ella off at daycare and Chad off at work
6:45 am: Commute to work
7:30 am: Start working a 9 1/2 hour shift
5:00 pm: Leave work, commute home
5:45 pm: Pick up Ella from daycare and Chad from work
6:00 pm: Arrive home, make and eat dinner
7:30pm: Get Ella ready for bed
8:00 pm: Put Ella to bed
9:30 pm: Go to bed


According to my estimation, I would have maybe 3 hours a day with Ella - 1 hour in the morning while we get ready to leave, and 2 hours at night when we eat dinner and clean up and do the bedtime bath routine. I would spend 2 1/2 hours a day in my car - 1 1/2 hours in the morning, and 1 hour at night. My only real time with Chad would be the 1 1/2 hours after Ella goes to bed. We would, of course, have the weekends, but in addition to getting some quality family time, there would be chores leftover from the week.

Not only does the massive schedule change freak me out, but to begin working I must also find a daycare for Ella. For me personally, this is an especially sensitive issue. Nobody can love and care for my baby like Chad and I can, but we will have to find, trust, and pay someone else to do it for 11 hours a day. This kills me. Not only that, but thinking about daycare has stirred up some strange emotions about my own childhood.

I spent so much of my childhood wanting and waiting for my own mother to get home from work. After she and my Dad divorced when I was six, she worked very hard to get her nursing degree, then she worked very hard to be a good nurse and make enough money to support us and her own dreams. But her long absences tormented me - I developed ulcers when I was in grade school, and I would devise crazy, elaborate rituals to fill the lonely night time hours before she returned from her 3 to 11 shift at the hospital. I would scream and beg to stay home from school just so I could see her and spend time with her, clinging to the dark wood railing as she tried to pull me out the door.

I don't blame my mother for anything at all - she was and is a supportive, caring mom who worked very hard to put her life together just how she wants it. But I don't want my own daughter to feel like she is always waiting for me. She is significantly younger than I was when my mom worked - Ella is just one and I was six when my mom started working - so I suppose maybe it might be easier on her. But maybe not.

I can obsess over it all as much as I want, but the bottom line is that we need the money right now. So I am trying to approach the impending new schedule like a puzzle, a game of organization and time management, rather than this big awful thing that I dread. And as for finding a daycare, I suppose I should start making some calls today.

Reflections

Tomorrow, May 12, I turn 28. That is two years away from 30, and yet I still feel like a teenager playing house, pretending I am a real adult. Will I ever feel like a real adult?

***

Last year for my birthday, Chad wanted to take me out to dinner. I was hugely pregnant and the only thing I wanted was McDonald's. So, like the white trash that we really are, we went to McDonald's and I celebrated my 27th birthday by eating three cheeseburgers and a large container of fries.

I only ordered two cheeseburgers and when I asked Chad to go get me the third, he hesitated. My hugely pregnant and wildly hormonal self thought his hesitation was because he thought I was fat enough already and did not need the third cheeseburger. I pitched a little fit and insisted that he go right now and get me the third, which he did. When he returned to the table I asked him if he thought I was fat, and he said no, he thought I was pregnant. Smart one, that boy.


***

Today, May 11, is the day that Ella was supposed to make her arrival last year. But she didn't want to meet us yet, and she stayed in my fat belly until May 23. We had to bribe her to get her out of there: I was induced three times before she actually came out.

When I was pushing her big head out of my crotch, the doctor kept telling me I was doing good, keep pushing, there is her head! I didn't like the doctor and I didn't believe a word that came out of his mouth, so I asked Chad if he could really see her head. He was holding my foot and he had tears running down his face and he said yes, she's here. I will never, ever forget that moment.


***

This year, instead of planning for Ella's arrival, I am planning her first birthday party. I already forget so many things about our first year togther. How old was she when she started crawling? What was her first food? How long did it take my boob milk to dry up? When did she start sleeping all night? I feel like I need to take more pictures, write more down, document her life in more detail, or else I will forget everything. She's growing so fast, even though her hair isn't.

An Unexpected Environmentalist

There was a time in college when I would encourage passengers of my car to throw all their trash out the window. I would affectionately call my passengers "my little litter-bugs."

The person that I am now would beat that person up. I have become some sort of environmentalist. I hate to use that label because I hate being pigeon-holed into any one perspective. I mean, I do still shop at Wal-Mart and smoke cigarettes. That's why I say some sort of environmentalist. I am my own special breed.

I don't know why the change has come about. Maybe because I live a simple country life now. Maybe because I am a mother and now feel some sort of responsibility to preserve the earth for my daughter to enjoy. Maybe a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, I find myself concerned about things that never used to worry me, like landfills and coal mines. I worry about how much trash I throw away and how long it will take to decompose. I plan on building an energy-efficient home with solar power and tank-less hot water heaters someday. I am contemplating switching to cloth diapers because I worry about the chemicals used in disposable diapers. Honestly, who knew I could be this person?

The biggest concern for me at the moment is our food. With the recent outbreaks of food poisoning in our national food distribution chain, it's hard not to be concerned about what we are eating. Add to those concerns the amount of fossil fuels burned to move our food around the country, and the amount of toxins released by the trucks, and the amount of preservatives we consume unknowingly - well, suddenly it all concerns me.

But my concern about our food is something I can actually do something about right now, which is refreshing and encouraging. For produce, meat ,and eggs, I hope to produce much of what we need ourselves or buy fresh from local farmers. We will be planting a manageable garden this year - our first year we planted way too much and it got out of control and we had a lot of waste. And, hopefully, we will finally be able to get some chickens this summer. Large scale chicken farming is creepy business, and chickens raised properly produce much healthier eggs and meat for us to eat.

Producing our own food is kind of a passion for me right now, the chicken thing especially. I have read Living with Chickens by Jay Rossier cover to cover a few times. At one point, I was excited to go to bed just so I could read it, like it was a gripping novel with a surprising plot line.

A Good Mom

Rebecca at Girl's Gone Child and Straight From the Bottle has written an heartening post about admitting your victories as a parent instead of focusing on the bad days. She recognizes that we all like to read the stories about the bad days because they make us feel like we are not alone in this minefield of parenthood. And honestly, they are usually funnier than the good stories. But an environment is being created where well-adjusted, confident parenting is painted in a negative light, and "Claiming to be bad parents is the new 'I’m fat' for even the thinnest of women."

I am a good mom. I am a good mom because I trust my gut and let Ella guide me through this maze. Because I let her explore the world on her own terms, but I am always just a step behind if she gets freaked out by it all. I am a good mom because I am a good person, with strong morals and a kind, forgiving heart. I am a good mom because even on days when I am a bad mom and can barely keep us fed and dressed in clean clothes, I still play music at lunchtime.

It is really difficult to lay claim to the good in yourself, to admit that, for the most part, you feel like you are doing a good job in whatever you are doing. Sometimes I even feel bad about liking this motherhood gig so much. I feel like wanting to be a mom is not enough and that I am expected to have aspirations for something more. But honestly, I feel like being a mother is what I am supposed to be. There, I've said it.

Heart Strings

The soundtrack to Little Miss Sunshine has been the soundtrack to my life since returning from California. DeVotchKa's music speaks to my heart at this specific point in my life in that intense way that Radiohead did when I was in college. I am eternally grateful to my hip friends for introducing me to this music.

Listening to the soundtrack also has the lovely side effect of taking me back to two particular spaces in my California time.

Space One: Kate is driving us to see the tide pools, and it is the first time I have ever heard DeVotchKa. Looking over at her in the sun, driving the crazy way she does, I am overwhelmed by this incredible love - love for the sun, for the music, for the ocean, for the friends in the backseat. I say "I love you Kate," even though that is so grossly inadequate for what I am really feeling, for everything I am really loving, for what I am wishing I could say. Leah squeezes my shoulders from the backseat because she understands, that wanting to say so much but not having enough words.

Space Two: We are driving to the airport for our departing flight, and the car is mostly quiet except for DeVotchKa. I am crying as I look out the window at the passing world. I don't know why I'm crying. The music just pulls at my heart's strings in a certain way at that moment.

The soundtrack has been playing in non-stop in our house for the past three days and no one has complained. Ella likes it when I moan out the words and do little twirly dance steps across the floor, tilting my head this way and that. And the music blends nicely with the sound of the birds outside, doing bird things.

You can visit the "official" DeVotchKa page here, or their MySpace page here, if you feel so inclined.

Home Again

And so I am home from sunny, hyper-real California, having parted ways with the most wonderful friends a girl could have. Each time we get together, I feel rejuvenated, inspired, refreshed. I feel beautiful and funny and creative. Gone are the insecurities about looking frumpy, the hesitation before I speak lest I say something totally wrong. We girls radiate off each other, making each other shine like the gems that we are.




It is always so hard for me to hold onto that inspiration and glow once I return to Real Life where the girls don't live, to dishes and diapers and clothes to be washed. To overflowing coffee filters and dog hair everywhere and not enough space or time for me to spread my wings and create.

This tension between being creative and being a responsible mother and being a loving girlfriend is sometimes difficult for me to navigate. But I think I may have come home from this trip with a clearer map for finding my way. At least I hope I have.

***

Regarding Chad and Ella, as it turns out the house does not entirely fall apart in my absence. Sure, the coffeepot overflowed and the dishwasher needs run and the clothes need washed. But I hear that she was fed and bathed and dressed in clean clothes most of the time. And apparently they had a good time together. Which I can now illustrate for you with a photograph, because Blogger has ceased being a fucker. (edited 4/20/07).

The Whine

Disclaimer: This is a post wherein I whine about my life. If you do not want to hear me whine, please come back another day. That being said, if i can't whine on my own blog, then when can I whine?



For a while there, I was able to cope with life much better than I used to. I used to be a real flake, rolling over belly-up at the first sign of stress in my life. Which is all the time, because you know how stressful adult life is. But after those first three bewildering months of new motherhood, I had a moment of Zen-like acceptance of my life and my coping skills improved dramatically. No money? No problem, things can't get much more destitute than they are so improvement must be on the horizon. No social life? It doesn't matter because now I've got my own self-contained family unit of fun. Complete rejection on the job hunt? Brush it off, I'm a brilliant mind and those bitch-ass potential employers don't know what they're missing. It wasn't all roses and teddy bears, but at least I was on a level emotional ground, and I could roll with the punches.

Now, though? Now, my coping skills have completely fallen away. Life's punches have left me laying on the ground gasping for air. The past ten days, I have been a complete wreck. The worry, the stress, the low self-esteem. I smoke cigarettes like I'm sixteen - which is to say, non-stop. I can't sleep, which makes me even grumpier than I already am. I am completely enveloped in my own stress and too absent-minded to notice the world around me. This morning I shut Ella's fingers in her dresser drawer because I simply did not notice they were there.

And the worst part? All I can do is sit around and think about how shitty it all is. I can't move beyond the thinking into the action required to make things better.

But, on the upside, I'm still showering every day. So there's still that.

The Frump

As a stay at home mother for the past year, living in a tiny town that is hardly the epicenter of style, I have begun to slide down the slippery slope into Frumpiness. I go to the grocery store in a dirty, over sized hoodie. I wear plain black, XL men's Hanes tee shirts 90% of the time. My hair knows nothing but a ponytail, and it rarely sees even a comb, let alone a blow dryer. Somehow I have managed to maintain my anti-pyjama-pants-in-public stance, but I fear that is my last holdout in the Battle Against the Frump.

I resist buying new clothes because I am still holding onto 40 pounds of baby fat, and I refuse to admit that the fat may be hanging around for a longer time than expected. I had fantasies of giving birth and being back down to my normal size 10 by the time Ella was six months old, at which point my whole wardrobe would be available to me again. But here we are at nine-almost-ten months post-pregnancy, and fitting into my old wardrobe is still just a dream.

I also resist buying new clothes because it seems like a frivolous way to spend precious money. There are more pressing needs than clothes for me, like clothes for the child and diapers and carpet for the bedrooms and trips to Sandy Eggo.

But at least I still shower everyday. There's that.