The English Geek

the ISD

I only stopped by the craft store for a couple of sheets of yellow cardstock. (I was hoping to find that shade of greyish yellow that is so popular right now...so popular, in fact, that apparently no one's made cardstock out of it yet.) 

Just yellow cardstock, but I did wander over to the sale section which is where, right in front of a Glitz Design clearance rack, I was accosted. By the very woman whose face I've never seen and whose voice is only in my imagination, but it was her all right, my ISD in the flesh: svelte in a tasteful red business suit, elegantly coiffed (blonde of course), expert high-heel wearer. And completely superior to my craft of choice.

“Oh, my,” she started up the conversation, “are you actually one of those scrapbookers?”

Is it that obvious? Was it the five sheets of yellow cardstock (none of them the shade I am searching for), one package of letter stickers, and two acrylic stamps I was holding that gave me away? Or was it my scrapbooking horns (the ones that grow secretly out of a scrapbooker's bunions)? I should never wear flip flops! Clamping off my natural sarcasm (which spurts out at the sound of condescending mockery), I simply nodded my head.

“I just don't get all this stuff,” she said, mockery still spraying. “I mean, who buys it all?”

Certainly not me, or at least that's what I tell my husband.

“I'm only looking for a picture frame but the scrapbooking supplies have taken over the whole damn store. And look at it all. It's just so cute. It makes me want to gag.”

I finally managed to speak around my own stomach acid. “I guess you either get scrapbooking, or you don't.”

“I know!” she agreed. (I think she thought we were having a friendly, let's-bash-the-scrapbookers two-way conversation.) “It's like it's a lifestyle or something. Like it's a religion. It's weird. Scrapbookers are weird, don't you think?”

I cannot believe my restraint. I pointed her toward the frames without expressing any sort of snarkiness.

I'm not really sure that damming my natural snarky responses was the right choice for this conversation. I could have given just as harsh as I was getting. Except for the part of me that's embarrassed to be a scrapbooker. Because every word my in-the-flesh internal scrapbooking demon (ISD) said has also previously entered my own thoughts. (Especially the bit about the cuteness. I like to think I tend more toward the elegant, rather than the twee, side of things.)

So I stood there, clutching my purchases but no longer debating with myself over whether I should buy the acrylic stamps. Instead I was trying to think of a real response to give this woman. One I could also give my ISD to get her to just shut up already. I'm tired of my internal battle over whether or not scrapbooking is a silly waste of time. I want not to feel guilty and embarrassed about it.

Of course, there are the pat answers. Scrapbooking is good (read non-weird, non-cult-like, non-silly behavior) because it matches up photos with the stories behind them. But I could do that in a far simpler manner than my current one: some photo pages, some journaling to go with. Much as I love my story-centric, word-laden pages, there is more to it than only the words + photos thing. Which brings us to the other pat answer: it's a creative outlet. This is true, of course. One of my friends once told me that I'm the sort of person who always has to have something creative she's working on—a statement I took as a compliment. I do like to be creative. It does make a person feel rejuvenated to play with such lovely papers et al. But it is also this playing that makes me deeply anxious—makes me feel that what I am doing is a weird, or a childlike, or a silly way to use my time. And even my truest, simplest answer belies my doubts. Simply, I scrapbook because I love it and because it makes me happy on several different levels. But since it also makes me a little anxious, embarrassed, and ashamed of myself, it isn't, obviously, just about the happy-making.

Despite all that, however, I simply cannot, cannot imagine life without scrapbooking. Does that mean I've been converted to the scrapbooking religion? I don't know. The thought of all the pictures in the world just sitting there on people's computers, unused and incomplete, makes me sad. Making a record of my life and my children's while we are living them continues to feel just as important as it did when I first discovered scrapbooking. I don't scrapbook every day. Life is, of course, more important. But it is always there—the supplies are waiting, the stories and photos are waiting.

That, my friends, is what happens when you head to the craft store looking for just that shade of yellow cardstock. You sometimes find yourself evolving into an existential scrapbooking crisis, right there in the sale aisle. Which makes it even harder to get that ISD's voice out of my head. Still, since life is unimaginable without it, I'm going to continue scrapbooking, even if it is weird.

But if any of you can tell me where to find that shade of yellow cardstock (just tinged with grey), that'd be wonderful. I'm kind of afraid to go to the craft store again.

Good Day

Today, after far too many cold ones to count, was a real spring day. No sleet, wind, rain, clouds, snow, or hail. Blue skies and actual sunshine and almost warmth. I want to celebrate today's good things:

• Nathan is fully recuperated from his Monday bout of stomach flu. How I know: he wanted tacquitos in his lunch instead of peanut butter on white bread. (I only buy white bread when someone's post-puking.)
• Kaleb put on my sunglasses this morning, then looked out the back window and said, "Mom! These glasses make the whole world look like Thanksgiving!" (they have a yellowish tint.)
• a morning run. I started my run from the library so I could take a route I've not done before. I took a wrong turn and added a half mile onto my distance, but I still felt strong at the end.
• stretching in the park after running.
• driving home with the window rolled down and Violent Femmes on the radio.
• lunch with Haley and her friend Nikki, and a good conversation with them both about teenage pregnancy and popularity.
• two new layouts.
• standing in the sun with my friend Jamie, talking together while waiting for our kids to do their track events.
• our back gate, which was broken last fall in a wind microburst, is now repaired and hung back up. Thanks hon!
• This moment:

 

           (Which is when Jake cleared the 4' 10" high jump and won the Alpine
            Days meet!)

Did you have a good day too? I hope so!

16

Like those old pear-shaped Russian dolls that open at the middle to reveal another and another, down to the pea sized, irreducible minimum, we carry our mothers forth in our bellies.    ~Maxine Kumin

On Thursday, Haley turned 16. She kept calling me all day saying "Mom! What are we doing tonight?" and I'd be vague. "I don't know. We'll see. Maybe Steve might visit. Dad wants chicken and rice for dinner." When she got home, I said "You know, your dad didn't give me a gift for my birthday. Let's go to the mall so I can shop for something to give myself."

I think she was fairly frustrated. Whose parents, save Samantha Baker's, don't celebrate your 16th birthday?

Of course, this was just to build up the surprise I had planned. We didn't really go to the mall; we drove to In 'n Out, where a bunch of her friends were waiting to surprise her. She caught on before I could get her inside (mainly because I never choose to go to In 'n Out), but it was still a good party.

But uncomfortable for me, honestly. I didn't want to be the only adult hanging out with this bunch of teenagers, but they needed a ride home. Also, I had the cake. So I sat to the side and tried to watch without being weird about it. I thought about my own 16th birthday, and the way I was a teenager. To contrast that image of myself—painfully shy, desperately love-addicted, thoroughly awkward with boys, completely clueless still to all the wrong ways I must have come across—with the one of her before me—laughing with her friends, beautiful and at ease with it, oblivious to the way boys look at her—is laughable. It is nearly unimaginable to me that I could create such a person. She is strong in all the ways I am weak and weak only in the face of a Slurpee.

But I did make her. Sixteen years ago she sprang from me and began creating herself. What Maxine Kumin means, I think, refers to an aspect of biology: before we are born, girls already carry the irreducibly minuscule egg that might one day become a daughter. That ugly-swan, 16-year-old self of mine, awkward and self-doubting and angry, carried the future self of my daughter and so, also, the future self I am right now.

I watched her laugh and I thought backward, to when my mom was trying to cope with me at sixteen and wondered how she bore my innumerable prickles. I thought forward to some future day when Haley has her own sixteen-year-old daughter and is feeling some of what I feel now. Now, right now—I thought about that, too. How I have succeeded, how I have failed. How I can do better. All of us cupped in the bowl of my thoughts.

honest

One thing I have learned about medical issues: they reveal things you might not otherwise see. Let's be honest here:

• I'm really, really tired. Tired especially of hospitals and of the post-op experience. Tired of not being able to shake the constant feeling of impending doom.
• I feel guilty for feeling tired. It wasn't me who suffered a day of excruciating pain, followed by 60-ish hours without food. I'm just the person fetching water refills and taking care of scars and offering encouraging words.
• There is a reason I didn't become a nurse: I am not a nurse. I feel sorry for Kendell and I love him and I wish he felt better. I try my hardest to be nurturing and kind and gentle, to fluff pillows and hover concernedly and care about his large intestine like I should. But somehow I lack the natural ability to nurture without also feeling a little bit resentful. Mostly this is because I would like to be nurtured back.
• I feel guilty for this nurturing failure of mine. It makes me feel like a bad wife and an all-around horrible person.
• When I'm in a certain mood—that I can't take this anymore desperation—I would really prefer you not be nice to me. I know that's odd. But if it hits me at just the right spot, a kind word will totally knock me over. I'll start crying and not stop. So if we're talking and I keep changing the topic back to you, it's because I'm desperately afraid of your kindness. yes. that is weird.
• I don't want to see this, but it keeps tapping my heart: some of the people I thought had my back kind of, well, don't. I thought we were closer than we really are. Maybe that's not a fair assessment to make. But I am left with a feeling that I'm on my own that, like the impending-doom feeling, I cannot shake.
• I'm just a little bit slightly envious. OK, another weird thing to say. But part of me thinks it would be nice to have a recuperation period: ten to 14 days of mostly just lying around. Think of all the reading I could get done!
• I also feel guilty for feeling my tiny bit of envy.
• I have a wart on my forehead.

I know. That last one doesn't really fit. Except for I finally figured out what the bump was (after falling asleep in the chair beside Kendell's hospital bed and having a dream that it was a lump full of bugs) in the hospital. I don't care if it means yet another copay: I'm totally making an appointment with my dermatologist to have it taken off.

And I think I'll need a 10-14 day recuperation period afterward.

perhaps I should make a new category?

Back when Kendell had his hips replaced  I had no idea that surgery was just the beginning. Our next medical adventure together was his aortic valve replacement 15 months later. Even then: aside from a still, small voice warning me that wasn't to be the end of our surgical experiences, I didn't think it would only take a mere 18 months before he'd be back in the O.R. again.

You know what they say about assumptions.

Still, when he woke up writhing in agony early Sunday morning (at 3:28 a.m., to be exact) I had a feeling. It took me another very long 11 hours (and the voices of two nurses, one friend, and one doctor added to my own) to convince him that yes, this was more than just a stomach bug. We made it to the E.R. with seconds to spare before he hyperventilated, terrifying me into my own irregular heart rhythm, and then was eventually diagnosed: he needed his gallbladder removed.

Now he's recuperating. Not nicely—he still can't eat anything because tomorrow they have to do a ERCP to remove the rest of the gallstones, which are stuck in his bile duct, so he's starving and thirsty. I keep telling him it's just extreme dieting but that doesn't make him feel any better.

Two friends have told me that they're certain I'll blog something clever about this surgery, but tonight I'm too exhausted for clever. What I do know is this: after his visitors left this evening, we sat in the dark and I held his hand and tried to ignore the ache in my back. He was peaceful and not in too much pain, so we talked and laughed a little and I tried to explain the grisly photos the doctor gave us only he kept falling in and out of sleep. I filled up, for a second, with something unexpected: happiness. Isn't that odd—right there in the hospital, a joy, quiet and gentle but joy nevertheless. We are old pros now at  post-op misery, but it still surprises me how all of that can work together to make a tender moment I will hold on to like a shard of light whenever it gets dark.

Book Note: Let's Take the Long Way Home

On the surface, Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell shouldn't be a book I would like. Two of its main topics are dogs (we all know that I am not a dog person!) and alcoholics, and honestly: I have no patience for alcoholics. But it is also about death, and friendship; there are bits of poems, too, and writing that made me wish I had bought my own copy so I could annotate instead of politely sticking bits of paper by the spots I wanted to remember.

This book insists it is "a memoir of friendship," and, in a way, it is. "It's an old, old story," the book begins, "I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too." Before she gets too involved in the friendship, however, Gail has to work through another topic: her alcoholism.

I said before that I have no patience for alcoholics. Perhaps by saying that I am tempting fate to turn me into one, but I don't think so. This is because I did my stint. I ran the personal course of my own addiction (and it wasn't drinking, although I tried that) as a teenager, but what I finally discovered is that all your addiction exists for is to make it so you don't have to feel whatever bad thing it is you don't want to feel. It doesn't make the bad thing go away. It doesn't solve the bad thing, or make you face it so you can move past it. It just numbs you to the feeling. And once the numbness goes away—it always does—you are left with two choices: more numbness or dealing with the bad thing.

And that's why alcoholics frustrate me: they choose not to deal. They think they get to be immune. Their magic bullet speeds them away from whatever aches. And I know: things ache. Bad things happen. Life, to borrow a Princess Bride quote, is pain. But you cannot always be a turtle, head tucked into the drunken blankness of your shell.You have to feel your bad things, hard as they are. That alcoholics (or other addicts, no matter the poison) decide to never feel it makes me think less of them. Eventually you have to deal, or ruin your life with not dealing, and if you choose the not-dealing choice, you cannot expect the rest of us—the ones walking around dealing, the ones moving forward despite—to have pity for you.

I don't know if I should be ashamed and embarrassed by this lack of empathy I have for addicts. I do think, however, that the author (to go back to the book!) might agree with me. "What I couldn't have known in my drinking years, was that alcohol was my shortcut to the stars, and that there are no shortcuts. . . The drink had salved, not solved the problems." She comes, through a long process, out from the shell, and what is waiting for her, in addition to the bad things she must deal with, is a new friend.

Caroline Knapp, also a writer, is this friend. They meet through a mutual acquaintance while training their new dogs. Their friendship is instant, based on the dogs and the writing and the past addictions and the need to be physically active. Carolyn teaches Gail to row; Gail teaches Caroline to swim. This is one of those instant friendships; tentative at first but only out of the need for self-protection. Once they feel safe they are fastened to each other. Their friendship makes them stronger in unexpected ways. "After all this," Gail realizes, "I don't think that any man could ever treat me badly again."

But it cannot make them psychically immune, and Caroline's smoking catches up to her. You know, because the book opens by telling you, that she will die. We cannot experience this through Caroline's point of view, only Gail's. But, as writers do, she tells this devastating part of the story with a rich, detailed accuracy. Not details like weight loss and hair loss and loss of brain function. But the losses the heart suffers. It is beautiful writing about death, which is a startling contradiction. Some annotations: "Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation," and "Her arms became her eloquence" and "She couldn't talk anymore and so I didn't either; our narrative became a choreography of silence." "Suffering witnessed is a cloudy and impotent world," Gail writes. She is witnessing Caroline's suffering but we, as readers, witness hers. So we know this is also true: suffering is "the only thing large enough to bully you into holding the door for death."

Ultimately, while the book is about friendship and dogs and dying and drinking and writing, what it really does is make a statement about change. Or about dealing with change. That is another thing an addict has to learn: things will change. This pain won't be your only one. There will be others, harder than you can imagine, or smaller yet still excruciating. You don't only have to deal with your current bad thing, but with knowing that there are myriad bad things change will foist into your life. Drinking—escaping—cannot be the way to deal. Sometimes it is story that helps you deal: "Grief and memory create their own narrative . . . we tell the story to get them back, to capture the traces of footfalls through the snow." Or it is letting time work on healing your amputation, no matter how its phantoms taunt. It is also discovering knowledge, like the necessity to "embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your life."

The only way to deal is by dealing.

And Gail manages. Caroline's death is not her only sorrow. But she manages to deal with the changes. "We never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures." The pain the alcoholic avoids is the same thing that, experienced, deepens and gives meaning to our lives. That is, of course, a platitude and a cliché. It is also the truth, one this book explores with a lyric, unflinching approach.

Songs I Love Right Now

Yesterday morning while we were waiting for his carpool to pick him up, Nathan and I turned the radio on. A song came on I vaguely remember hearing before, but not really paying attention to. That morning though, I paid attention to it. We danced along, laughing together, and I fell in love with the experience and with the song. So as soon as he left, I raced to my computer so I could download it. (I buy my songs from Amazon, as iTunes is sacriligious in our home!) Before I completed my purchase, though, Amazon warned me that I had already bought it. Sweet! I got it back in January when I had some free download codes but no songs I was dying to have, so Haley used the codes. Awesome song, already purchased? (And not even purchased, but downloaded for free?) Color me happy!

So, without further ado, a few of my current favorite songs, just because they make me happy and I want to remember happiness too:

01 - Dog Days Are Over

(The song Nathan and I danced to)

07 - Little Lion Man

(I didn't realize I like folk music, but that is how this is catalogued at the library. I'm waiting to get to the top of the hold list so I can hear the rest of the CD but I couldn't wait for this song. I love it.)

My Only Offer

(My friend Apryl introduced me to Mates of State and now I am slightly obsessed but this is my favorite so far.)

09 bulletproof

(I heard this at spin class and now I love the entire CD)

12 relator

(Kendell HATES this song, and while I can kind of see his point—Scarlett Johansen does sound a little stupid—my affection for it remains unfettered by his opinion.

What songs are you in love with right now? What band am I totally missing out on?

March in Review

(Thanks for your encouraging comments yesterday! Still overwhelmed, but less so.)

for our family, March held...

Haley
Haley's big focus in March (and February as well, really) was working on getting read for cheerleading tryouts. She was going to open gym and working on back handsprings. (Yes, it made this very old gymnast's heart  happy to have back handspring discussions with my daughter, which begs the question "why didn't I ever put her in gymnastics?", a question I'd have to write LONG about, not parenthetically.) After much soul searching and lots of sore wrists, she decided to keep working on her tumbling and try out next year. What made me proud about this process is that she worked hard, discovered some things about herself, and, most of all, thought critically about her options. She worked through the decision-making process and made a choice she felt good and peaceful about. THAT is a good experience to have at 15! She also:

• continued counting down the days until she turns 16.
• studied for her learner's permit exam.
• met with her councilor at school (and me!) to fine tune her schedule.
• finished reading The Bonesetter's Daughter for English and made an awesome poster for her final project.
• spent tons of time at her friend Nikki's house. Nikki is a great best friend!
• planned and executed a photo shoot for her Nordstrom fashion board application.
• went out to lunch with me at In 'n Out, where we talked, laughed, and held off the advances of a (cute) tattooed boy who admired her blue hair.
• went to the Young Women's broadcast in Salt Lake. This year, unlike last year and 2008, we had great seats—we were just 8 rows from the pulpit!

Jake
Jake started running track in March. This, in my opinion, adds to his general awesomeness! He is doing the long and the high jumps and running the 800. He came in second for both meets on the high jump event...hasn't quite conquered the 4'8" mark yet. The track program & coaches at our junior high are one of the few things I love about the school. They do a good job getting the kids motivated and out there. Plus, Jake is so much happier with the daily exercise. He's more tired, but also much more pleasant. (Not that he's normally unpleasant, but he IS a teenage boy!) Other March highlights:

• he went on a Scout camp out at Diamond Fork. It was COLD and snowing all day on Friday, before they left, and he was notexcited about going. It did stop, though, and he managed to survive. (I get all sorts of anxious about the boys when they are off on their scouting adventures. I imagine all sorts of calamities. My parting words when he leaves for a scouting camp out are always "I love you, don't do anything stupid." I now say this to all of the boys he goes camping with, too.)
• he was called to be the deacon's quorum president. Given my family's spotty church history, every time Jake achieves church milestones I am filled with gratitude, joy, pride, and this other feeling I don't have a word for—like it's not just me who is feeling those feelings.
• He's grown another inch or so. It is crazy how much he's growing right now! It puts him in that awkward stage of pants: too tall for the kids' section but not quite thick enough for the men's. He has to wear a belt and is always hitching up his jeans.
• We joke with him about the girls who text him. When he gets a text, half the time Kendell will say "You making friends there?" This annoys Haley but makes me giggle.
• His phone was lost for about a week. Kendell finally found it in the chair downstairs. The chair I had looked in already. I don't know how I missed it! I AM glad, though, that we found it and didn't have to buy a new one!
• He helped convince the people in charge that a 5k race would be a good scout fundraiser. More details to follow certainly!

Nathan
I have to share this story that my friend Jamie also blogged about. Nathan was at her house, playing with his best friend Jacob (Jamie's son). They were cutting up sticks (to use as walnut wackers, of course), and he said

"To most people, it's a pile of wood. To us, it's a pile of fun."

HA! That is such a Nathan way of being in the world. Rough and tumble, absolutely. Spending a spring afternoon cutting up sticks just for the sheer joy of cutting stuff = pure boyish exhilaration, but he also has his softer, thinking, wise side. He was born that way and I hope the world doesn't take away the softer part. More Nathan recap:

• He decided he wants a new pair of school shoes. He doesn't NEED a new pair, just wants one. In a complete Mother Fail, I have yet to take him shoe shopping. Shopping for shoes is one of my least-favorite activities and I just haven't mustered up the energy for it yet. This is annoying him.
• He gets anxious because he hasn't hit his growing spurt yet. He's afraid he'll always be the short brother. I remind him that his feet are enormous and that one day he'll grow into them! (This has been our long-running joke since he was born and his feet were already too big to fit any of the newborn-size socks I'd already bought, unpackaged, and washed.) This usually helps him to laugh his way out of his anxiety. I think we forget how tough childhood is.
• He got to have a sleep over at his cousin Thomas's house. He LOVES visiting there and doesn't get to do it often enough. (Just because of busy-ness and the extra bit of a drive between our houses.)
• Haley needed a boy model for her photo shoot, and Nathan happily obliged. So cute!
• The Ranger's Apprentice series made its way onto his reading radar. He loves it, although he put it on hold to read Summerland  (the Michael Chabon book) before it's due back at the library.
• Nathan loves babies—loves them! So when his aunt Melissa showed up at our house one night with her new baby Lydia, he was in heaven. He held her and kissed her and admired her tininess. He was reluctant about handing her over to me. After awhile though, I insisted. I love babies too!
• Friday night baby-sitting for a friend, followed (almost always) by Friday night Carl's Jr.

Kaleb
The most exciting thing about Kaleb this month is this: he's started reading! This makes all the homework anxiety worth it. (Well, at least the spelling/handwriting/phonogram practice.) The first book he read was one we bought at his PTC (the tradition here is to have a book sale along with parent teacher conferences...does that happen everywhere?) called Too Many Cats. I love that his first book is about one of his true affections in life! I brought home a bunch of the early-reader-style books from the library (the kind with 10-20 new words in them) and he reads one to me each night. This, to me, is one of life's most magical times. I mean....holy cow, he's reading!!! He's already talking about the books he wants to read when he can read on his own, The Chronicles of Narnia being first on the list. ;) More Kaleb stuff:

• We have new across-the-street neighbors who have a three-year-old boy. Kaleb couldn't be happier to have a new friend to play with. In fact, I worry that he bugs them, he's asking to play so much. (If you're wondering, I couldn't be happier with our new neighbors either! It's been a long time since that house, which is a rental, had someone....well, I'll just say, someone I can relate to...living there.)
• He is sad the snow is gone because now he can't wear his snow boots anymore. Just to be sure, he asks me every day if he can wear them just one more time.
• He's been going out to Kendell's mom's house to help her clean her basement out (in preparation for moving closer to us). I don't know how much "help" he is, but he always has fun playing with her old toys.
• One of his school friends, Joe, got to come to our house last week before school because his mom had to be somewhere in the morning. Kaleb was so excited! He loves having friends.
• He had his Kindergarten performance, where he wore a red bow tie and sang all the songs he's learned so far. SO cute!

Kendell
In further medical news, Kendell visited our new doctor this month, just for a check up. (It's amazing how that whole I-have-an-undiagnosed-heart-condition thing changed his willingness to see a doctor. What's up with men and doctors' offices?) It was a nice change to leave the office with just a prescription for Flonase and no life-changing pronouncements! He was also very busy helping his mom. They have been selling stuff right and left (most of it horse-related) and making huge progress on getting her basement and shed cleaned out. It makes me happy that he is so willing to help her. Every widow needs one good son to take care of her. Plus it gives my kids the opportunity to see what service really looks like.

Amy
Almost all of the first two weeks of March were spent working on my Write Now class. I made a TON of layouts and had much fun revisiting my work. Then there was my blog-hosting week at Write. Click. Scrapbook. and I have to say: I loved how it turned out. I don't know if I changed any lives by mine with that series (about using your scrapbook stuff) but it solidified my goals for using more of my stuff and caring less about what someone might think of me, using a rub-on from 2003 or so. I read three books: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, A Month of Summer, and Let's Take the Long Way Home (sure to appear in a Book Note soon.) My daffodils bloomed, I survived my back ache, and I found a physical therapist I love. My two favorite March days:

• Going to the YW broadcast with Haley. I will say that I liked last year's talks better, but I still loved being there. The whole experience was good, but the best part came when we were walking through the temple grounds to get to the conference center. There were several brides, and the light was that cloudy-bright color, and she wanted to take pictures. So I handed over my camera (I took my little one so I could skip the big-camera strip search) and let her have at it. She was so happy and she took some great shots. I think Salt Lake only barely qualifies as a "city," but I do like its city feel. Also, some of my good friends went so I got to spend time with them, too. It was a perfect night—well worth the cost of the big blister I got from walking around in heels!
• My niece Kayci came to visit with her three girls. We took all the kids to Carls' Jr (the only fast food restaurant here that has a play place, so it's sort of our traditional take-all-the-cousins spot). Becky and my mom also came. We didn't do much other than sit together eating cheeseburgers and onion rings while the kids played, but it was so restorative to my heart. I especially loved watching my sister Suzette (Kayci's mom) give a birthday present to Gracie (Kayci's oldest daughter...their birthdays are almost the same day). She got two tickets for Disney on Ice, one for her and one for Gracie. It seriously made me tear up watching them. I can't wait to be a grandma! After lunch we went to visit Dad, which was also nice. My niece Jacqui came with her husband, who hadn't met Dad yet. We stood in a circle talking to him and he looked at each one of us. I thought about how being with everyone made me feel and I think, I think, in his way, he could feel it, too.

How was YOUR March?

undone by Kindergarten homework

I had a morning. Jake had an orthodontist appointment, Kaleb hadn't finished his homework yet, Kendell was going to work with someone else so I needed to take Haley to school. I left explicit, direct instructions: while I'm taking Haley to school, I asked Jake to unload the dishwasher and Nathan to please please please help Kaleb with his homework.

When I got home, Nathan was downstairs looking for his favorite socks, Kaleb was trying to turn the TV on (even though he knows the no-tv-before-10:00-in-the-morning rule very, very well), and Jake was eating a bagel. And I might have lost it just a little bit. Even as I lost it, though, I was blaming myself: if I were a capable mother, Nathan's favorite socks would be folded neatly in his drawer, Kaleb would have done his homework last night, and I would have cleaned the kitchen before I went to bed.

Sock and bagels and dishwashers aside, though, what really pushed me over the edge was Kaleb's homework. Doing it under the deadline of the 8:15 deadline was excruciating. Feeling the overwhelming anxiety and guilt as I helped him struggle through all the ways you can add to ten, and reminded him that he does, really, know how to count by 2's, and taught him for the 2,873rd time to double the number and then add 1—it was almost more than I could deal with without turning into a raving, screaming lunatic.

All the while, I'm fighting this internal battle in my head. I know  he is intelligent. I know that the school's curriculum is asking too much of kindergarteners. But I also know I don't have another alternative; I think the public school my kids should be going to is dismal.*  I live in Utah, where only lip service is paid to education, so I don't have many choices. I can't find a happy medium. My sister-in-law's son, who is also in Kaleb's class, doesn't struggle like Kaleb does. I hate that I'm comparing them anyway because I know it is wrong and doesn't help anything and doesn't matter anyway. It feels like the most precipitous thing in the world that he can't remember that 3+7=10, even though we've done that same problem 1,000s of times. It also feels like the most ridiculous thing to worry about with a five-year-old.

We managed to finish without me turning into that complete and raving lunatic. But I'm still feeling overwhelmed with my life. I think it started on Saturday, when one of my co-workers confronted me over something she thought I did that I don't think I did, and it left me feeling like my one refuge—the place I went where no one criticized me, where I wasn't always failing—was destroyed. Then I came home and had an argument with Kendell, and we went to bed mad. You know why you shouldn't go to bed mad? It's not for any of those marriage-improvement reasons. It's because you toss and turn all night and have anxiety dreams instead of actually getting any rest.

Then there was Haley's fashion board application to finish, and her student-council posters to worry over (even though her "other mom"—her best friend's mom—who is way more accomplished and functional than I am, did most of the worrying), and conference to watch. There was laundry to be done. I still haven't got Nathan signed up for baseball yet. There's a pile of clean clothes to fold and put away, and I need to clean the van out as its a disaster of hidden Easter-basket presents, a bag of stuff I need to return to Target, fingerprints and dried mud and bleary windows, not to mention the 16 library books tossed into the mix. I don't know what to make for dinner tonight, my crafty table is a complete disaster, the upstairs needs to be vacuumed. I need to go to the post office, write a letter again to my credit-card company, and find the picture book I swear I already returned.

"I think you need a vacation," my inner self says. A vacation! Come on. Do you know how stressful vacations are?

"OK, where else is relaxing? What about...church!" my brilliant inner self proclaims. Oh, yes, church. That's always a peaceful experience. Once I've managed the 27 "I don't want to go to church" arguments I'm completely annoyed by the time I get there, and then everyone complains,whines, and wiggles through sacrament meeting. (Aren't they all old enough to just sit there quietly?) Then I teach my class, which sometimes, ok, makes me feel better but usually leaves me feeling inadequate beyond measure, and then there's Relief Society which I want to love, and I do love, but reminds me, mostly, of how I am failing at religious matters as well.

Now my inner self is out of suggestions, it's time to dash off to the orthodontist, Kaleb can't remember where he put his backpack (the one I just put his homework and snack in three minutes ago), and Jake is just moseying. Not hurrying at all.

I need a good run.

Oh, yes, running! Exercising! Eating a healthy diet! All of those things I should be doing. But I don't want to eat healthily right now. I want to scarf down extra-dark Lindt truffle balls and drink cherry Coke. I haven't figured out how to work running into my schedule, without getting up at six on the mornings I don't get up at five to go to spin. And the only reason I make it to the early spin class is because my friend Jamie helps me. There's no one waiting for me to go running, so when the alarm goes off I ignore it and go back to sleep for another hour.

Sleep: that's it. That's the only place the overwhelmed feeling goes away. (Except for when I'm too anxious to sleep well, and then it doesn't.) Maybe that is why I feel tired all day: because I want to go back to the place where everything just stops. Seriously: the first thing i think, when I get out of bed, is "can I work a nap into my day?" and, quite often, horrid and failure-choked and guilty as it makes me feel, sometimes I do work a nap into my day. It doesn't really help, though, because I'm still constantly thinking about how tired I am.

And even, even as I'm writing this, the internal debate goes on. "You're just feeling sorry for yourself. You chose this life. Why are you complaining?" Because, internal self, I need to complain. because even though I am blessed and I have enough and I love my children and only want them to be happy, right now I'm over the edge. I've jumped off the bridge (to borrow Kendell's phrase). I'm on the crazy side of my pendulum. And my inner self is just kooky enough that it can't give me what i really, really need, not sleep or exercise or more time or better organization or less complacent laziness, but just a voice. Just some voice telling me I am doing OK and that everything will work out in the end. That I'm not ruining everything.

Only, that voice doesn't speak up. And that is why, today, I am undone by Kindergarten homework.

*Please note that if you are one of my friends whose children happen to go to this school, my unhappiness with it is not a judgement over you not being unhappy with it. I just couldn't deal with it anymore, and so have undergone the complicated carpool schedule and neighborhood ostracization that comes along with not sending my kids to that school. It is, in fact, a testament to what you can deal with and I cannot. You, dear friend, are a better mother than I am.

2/3rds of a YUM

One of my culinary preferences is soup. I can hardly think of one I don't like, except for borscht which I only had once and thought was icky. At least twice a week for lunch I have a can of Campbell's chicken tortilla soup, with some avocado and a little cheese. One of my favorite childhood memories is my mom's chicken stew, with homemade noodles, served over a bed of mashed potatoes. When we're eating out, I almost always choose soup instead of salad.  I make a decent pasta fagioli, my taco soup is excellent, and my potato soup? Well, I can't even be modest. It is delicious.

The only problem?

No one else really likes soup. Kendell, especially, is anti-soup. He thinks it isn't dude food. Only chicks eat soup! So I don't make it as often as I like.

Tonight, though, I made soup for dinner. I quited the voice in my head that was shouting "no one but you will like this!" and I made it anyway, just because I was pretty sure I would love it.

When I ladled up the soup, Jake was all "I don't think I will like this," and Nathan said "I hate tortellini even if it's not in soup!" and Haley was certain she wouldn't like it. Kaleb flatly refused. (I didn't expect anything other than these reactions.) BUT! They surprised me. They surprised themselves.

They liked the soup.

Well. Haley, Jake, and I liked it. I caught Kendell eating seconds. Kaleb didn't try it, and Nathan only ate around the tortellini. But hearing two out of four kids say "this is good! It's better than I thought it would be!" Well, that makes me happy. It reminds me that they can't try new things if my "this sounds good" instinct is outshouted by my "no one will like this" voice. We all need to try harder.

Here it is, the soup recipe that 2/3rds of my family loved. Yes, even the biggest dude! I found this on my friend Wendy's blog and modified it just a bit.

Tomato Tortellini Soup with Spinach

2 tsp. olive oil
4 garlic cloves
1/2 onion, finely diced
1-1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp dried basil
1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes
2 cans chicken broth
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 13-oz bags frozen cheese tortellini
6 oz. prewashed baby spinach*
salt and pepper

Press garlic and finely dice the onion. Saute in olive oil over medium-high heat until soft. Dump into blender with a little bit of chicken broth and process until smooth. (You can skip this step if you don't have Pickies.) Return to pan, then add the rest of the broth, the tomatoes (Jamie you could totally make this with sauce instead of crushed!), the spices and sugar. Let this simmer for about 1/2 hour. Add the baking soda—it will boil up big, watch out!—and the salt and pepper. Return to a boil. Add the tortellini and cook until just al dente, about 8-9 minutes. (Tortellinis float when they are done cooking!) Tear the spinach into small pieces; add for the last minute or so of cooking. Serve with parmesan cheese.

Let me know if you try it!

*Please note: I have no real idea of how much spinach I used. Three handfuls from the great big Costco spinach container.