Small Favors

It was a tough weekend. Right about bedtime Saturday night, I was hanging up a blouse that is actually a costume piece from Bobbi's last show - and in true Stephanie style, I managed to discover a small sharp staple in the label of the blouse. This was accomplished by skewering my pinky finger with said staple in such a way that it scraped up the side of the finger, sank into the flesh (not just skin) and unsuccessfully tried to poke its way out the pad in the center of the finger.

The staple was positioned perfectly to keep me from maneuvering my hand enough to actually see how it was lodged in there, which resulted in further imbedding it in the flesh as I twisted and turned my arm, trying to see what the devil was impaling my pinky, while the weight of the blouse (and the hanger) drove it ever deeper into my finger. When the bleeding started to get in the way, I bellowed for Julio (it panicked me when I tried to pull it out and it wouldn't give). He managed to get hold of the little corner sticking out from the blech and gave it a hearty yank, successfully dislodging the staple and calming his wife. Talk about the splinter from hell.

So I spent the next hour or so soaking my finger in hydrogen peroxide, an old trick I learned many years ago when I was accidentally bitten by Wally the dolphin (I know it was an accident, because if he had intended to bite me, I wouldn't have had a finger left, and the H2O2 trick wouldn't have been much help). Now I get to add "tetanus shot" to my to-do list. I suppose I'd better get to the doctor soon before God's "hints" get even less subtle!

But I digress. None of that was the reason for our rough weekend. (If it made the weekend rough every time I did something stupid, we'd never have a good one.)

The following morning when Mom and Dad met us at church, they delivered the heartbreaking news that Mom's cousin Tom had passed away 4 hours earlier that day.

Tom had been in an uphill struggle to recover his quality of life after a series of health setbacks, and the last few weeks made it clear that the battle was not to be won this time, but it is never easy to accept the loss of such a dear man. He has a wonderful wife, and two awesome children who have the best spouses one could wish for. The loss was made doubly tragic in that one of those spouses lost her brother only days earlier, so they have to coordinate two funerals in two distant states, within days of one another. Two funerals that came much too early in the timelines of the lives cut short.

What words of comfort or condolence can you offer at times like this? There is solace in the fact that he is no longer hurting, no longer frustrated at his physical limitations when he was always an active and outgoing person; but that's not the thing to say to a grieving daughter, son, or wife. Besides which, they are the first to acknowledge those small favors themselves. Tom's family is very strong in their faith, and you don't need to talk with any of them for long to realize that they will persevere. It's just so humbling to bear witness to this journey, knowing that it is theirs to travel and we can only be there with our love and support. Somehow that seems so inadequate.

I think about how frustrated I've been with all my minor little "wellness issue" irritations, which seem to add up faster than I can fit a doctor or dentist appointment into my schedule, and I find them even more aggravating when I put them into perspective like this. It is hard to pay such things the attention they require, when they seem so trivial by comparison.

But I guess as I juggle my schedule, get my shots, get my false teeth, and soak my digits in peroxide, I'll look at these moments as opportunities to recognize my blessings and realize how fortunate I am to have good health right at my fingertips... at least for nine of my fingers.

And more than that, I will remember to cherish every moment I am able to share with my loved ones. There can never be enough of them.

staking his claim

We've finally gotten started (restarted) on Harrison's room - now our entire house looks like a war zone. We are so blessed with belongings that we have to shift things from one crowded space into another crowded space to make room for the next things to crowd the space - like one of those puzzles with 8 tiles that slide back and forth within 9 spaces, and you try to rearrange them to complete a picture. Except if our home were one of those puzzles, there would be 9 tiles - which makes the sliding around process a little more...challenging.

We did manage to maneuver the TV from the office to his room, and got the cable reconnected (along with a huge "fruit basket upset" of beds) - but the minute cable was up & running, Harrison moved in, oblivious to the fact that he's surrounded by mounds of bedding, random toy pieces, and other detrious from our not-nearly-completed project.

We took a break for some "pasta hut" chicken alfredo, which is actually quite tasty, and now we've got to pull ourselves away from Terminator 2 so we can get things straightened out enough to get some decent sleep.

...perchance to dream

Recently I've compromised my immune system through poor choices in diet, lack of exercise, and a sleep-deprivation process whereby I stay awake until the rest of the house is silent (except for the muted roar of snoring from the male members of our clan) at which point my brain begins an immediate, detailed inventory of every possible stressor I have or will someday encounter in this life, former lives, and future lives.

The result has been to turn the left side of my head into a fertile breeding ground for bacteria and other ooze-inducing organisms. My eye decided to redden and swell, in an apparent attempt to relive the pus-filled-fish-eye look that so captivated my groom the day we met. Meanwhile, the gaping hole where there once was tooth was not to be ignored. It chose to go with the slowly-increasing-dull-ache approach, blending in with the sore throat that was trying to fly just under radar, so as not to trigger bombardment by Chloraseptic.

These symptoms were uncomfortable, yes, but not really enough to draw my attention away from everything I was trying to get done, particularly since my mind has reached a point of exhaustion which limits its capacity to focus on more than one thing at a time.

It wasn't until bedtime, as I prepared for another sleep-deprivation cycle, that Mr. Infection brought out the big guns. "Oh, that still didn't get you, huh?" he seemed to say, "ok then, just try to ignore this!" and he hit me full force with an ear infection that seemed to strike as suddenly as if the Lord himself had decided to smite me for something.

I've never actually been stabbed in the ear, but I'm pretty sure last night gave me a good simulation of the experience. I didn't look in a mirror, because that would have required turning on a light - and I had determined for absolutely no apparent reason that a cool, dark room was the best environment for me at that point. But if I had seen my reflection, I'm pretty sure the face looking back at me would be some hybrid of the kid from Mask meets the elephant man, with a little phantom-of-the-opera tossed in for good measure.

Apparently concerned about being married to the elephant man, Julio suggested that I get to a medical clinic ASAP. Pish Tosh! (That's sleep-deprivation talk for "are you kidding me?") Instead, I chose to self-medicate with a little eardrop of hydrogen peroxide, and a "cocktail" of 2 Nyquil, 1 Dayquil and 3 Aleve taken orally. I fell asleep (passed out?) with a kleenex sticking out of my ear (drainage, you know) and woke up (came to?) this morning, with the symptoms pretty well alleviated (no pun intended).

Sure, I'll get around to replacing that tooth and probably get the ear looked at sometime or another. But first, I think I'll take a nap.

Shut up, Lisa. You too, Rory!

I was taking a break between the last daycare kid going home for the night, and getting started on dinner, and decided to watch some of the Simpsons. Too tired to retain the plot, but what stuck with me was that Lisa had cheated on a test, and had a flashforward of the consequences of her mistake, which included having to attend Brown instead of Harvard, and thus, being cursed to a life of mediocrity.

As a former Gilmore Girls addict, this immediately brought to mind the angst of Rory Gilmore and her single-minded pursuit of academic elitism and over-exagerated fear of not being superior to all of her peers.

Then I thought back to the days when I walked that line, if briefly, and the horribly debilitating blow to my self-esteem when life turned out to work differently than TV shows.

It took me a long time to realize what my actual dreams even are (something I'm just now beginning to discover), because I spent my formative years trying to dream what others expected me to be dreaming. I did well academically, so I tried to dream of going Ivy League, but I couldn't have told you why...and that obviously didn't pan out. I had some skill dancing and singing, and had some success acting, so I tried to dream of becoming a professional performer...but it only took one private-life encounter with a fan of the semi-pro comedy troupe I used to be in, and one stalker during my days singing at a theme park, to make it very clear to me that I would loathe a life of celebrity.

Lisa Simpson got me thinking about this. As I look at my first couple of blog entries, and see how exceptionally average my days are, I think how the younger me would have shuddered with despair at not being unique, special, or in any way outstanding. I am, for all intents and purposes, an amateur artist (drama and speech at a small-town high school, but I count it as art) and a stay-at-home mom who does daycare out of her home. It doesn't get much more pedantic.

But somehow, I am more at peace with my life as it is now than I ever was during the more adventuresome chapters of my someday biography. I enjoy what I do for money, in spite of the fact that my income is probably the smallest it has ever been. I love our home, I love our neighborhood and our neighbors. I have somehow managed to find the one man on the planet who loves me in my entirety, and not "in spite" of anything. We have a wonderful child who has just enough slip-ups to remind us he is human and not some stepford mutant. We have the most remarkable church home that feels like our extended family - something I didn't think I would be able to find again after moving away and having to leave Zion.

I never did attend an Ivy League college. I never became famous (or even notorious). My epitaph will not reveal me to have made any of the huge impacts on the universe that I had planned in my youth.

You know something? That doesn't scare me anymore.

And the beat goes on...

Well, as usual I'm letting stress build rather than making it go away like a grown up!

I've got to get our wedding thank-you's finished and mailed (so instead I'm blogging). We decided not to put away the gifts until the thank you has been written for each one, so our house is an even bigger mess than usual.

We're going to be clearing out a lot of our excess furniture and donating it to a single mother who lost all of her possessions along with her house during the recent flooding in the midwest. However, her house was condemned and she won't be allowed to rebuild, so she currently is homeless and has no place to put anything we would donate to her. She's living in the basement of her employer's house with her young son. So, we're stockpiling donations for her, making it even deeper here (not that we're complaining - we are so grateful that we have more than we need!)

I've made it a goal for this weekend to get Harrison's room as functional as possible (and as finished as possible) so he can take more responsibility for his clothes and toys...wanted to work on it during the week, but that hasn't been possible for one reason and another.

I've also got to get started on pre-production for the fall musical, which I think is going to be Anything Goes (but don't quote me on that!)

I broke a tooth yesterday. I think this is God's way of forcing me to finally find a dentist (after living here several years now - sheesh does time fly!) I'm not sure when I can squeeze a dental appointment in, since I've got a houseful of kids from 7:30am until 5:30pm every weekday...but I'm sure it will all work itself out somehow (not to be too "Scarlett O'Hara" or anything).

Harrison got into a sibling-like spat with one of the girls in our daycare yesterday, so now we get to enforce new disciplinary actions for the next week (which ironically are more of a hardship for parents to enforce than they are for the child to "endure"!). It's really uncharacteristic of him to fight like that, and we'd like to keep it that way, so the punishment is probably extreme for the "crime" committed (but don't tell him that!). We're worried about reigning in the insanity with the upcoming onslaught of hormones...we've gotten kind of spoiled, having a kid who puts himself in time out when he makes a mistake - we are totally unprepared to handle puberty!

Today has been better, so far. This morning the daycare kids helped me deliver invitations for our neighborhood 4th of July party. They hit over 100 houses in less than half an hour - we divided into teams of girls vs. boys, did the first half of the 'hood and met at Grammy & G-boy's for snack. We had to make a side trip to the copy center to make more invitations (I thought we'd be ok with 75, but we actually needed over 100) then we did the last 20 houses as a team - those kids were practically flying from house to house! We ended at our house, where they were rewarded with a water balloon fight in the front yard.

They are reading quietly right now - we're going to the library to learn about "Egypt's Hidden Mysteries" in half an hour, and then hopefully will go swimming if it doesn't rain!

Wow my life seems mundane when I see it in print.

Okay, I'm In!

I have been inspired by my brother, John, and sister-in-law, Jenny, and their fun family blogs that help me feel connected to them, even though they are far away, and our busy lives (and my poor communication skills) keep us from talking as often as we should. I am a total novice at blogging, though I have my share of partial journals dating back over two decades.

Not sure how to use this tool, except as an outlet for my writing, and a way to chronicle my adventures as a parent, wife, and borderline nutcase.

I have no business starting a blog; my "to do" list grows exponentially and there will always be at least 10 things more pressing and important than sitting down to type my thoughts (would you believe the dryer just buzzed as I finished that sentence!) - but something tells me I'll still spend far too much time on this, as it gets deeper & deeper in our living room.

so...let the TMI fest begin...