goodfountain

I was tagged last weekend by BeThisWay to participate in a Friday Night Book Meme. The idea is to grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 123, locate the 5th sentence, and type the three sentences that follow.

When I was tagged, the book nearest me was the one I am currently reading, The Kite Runner, but as I was not yet to page 123, I opted to wait. This is not a story that would forgive skipping ahead.

Here’s the section.

What I remember next is the blinding light of early morning as I climbed out of the fuel tank. I remember turning my face up to the sky, squinting, breathing like the world was running out of air. I lay on the side of the dirt road next to a rocky trench, looked up to the gray morning sky, thankful for air, thankful for light, thankful to be alive.

The whole book is as good as that passage.

So good, in fact, that I’m tucking into bed at this early hour of 8:30, so I can finish reading it.

The primaries can wait. This story cannot.

This was an unusual weekend for us. We worked the business that we own as our employee planned to spend a romantic weekend with her betrothed. Nice, huh? A weekend with nothing to do but wrap yourself up in the warm blanket of love you share with your One. No interruptions, no demands, no tears, no spills, no breastfeeding. While I admit to daydreaming about such a weekend day, I’m not yet ready to give up the giggles, the hugs and the kisses that out pace the tears and the spills. I could do with a little less nursing though (Ess, are you listening?).

Our business is located at a very large, very busy, very crowded flea market. Generally not a good combination for a sensory sensitive kid. Chee has had her ups and downs visiting it. Right now she’s in a good place. She calls it The Farm (most of the doors are painted red like barn doors) and there are plastic giraffes and other animals a top the various buildings. A little bit “Green Acres meets Old Las Vegas.”

This was an Up weekend for her. She insisted upon pushing Ess’ stroller - a wise move as it kept her focused and moving and one that I need to slip into my bag of “Managing Chee” tricks to pull out for occasional use. If your kid is anything like mine, they’ve figured out when they are being distracted played by Mommy and the bag of tricks has to be restocked and reinvented often.

I am hopeful all things will remain Up this week. We’re meeting a new speech therapist. I was unable to find anyone locally who has experience with hyperlexia, so I took the recommendation of a fellow Therapy Mom and we’re meeting with Nancy who has very many years of experience. After a phone conversation with her discussing Chee’s history and her language, I feel confident that she will develop a therapy approach that uses Chee’s strengths, particularly her reading ability.

And we also have our first Parent-Teacher Conference. I swing up and down between excited and nervous about it. I am so hoping to get a good report. There is the nagging worry though, a whiny little voice that sits on my shoulder, plaguing me with concerns that things have been awful at school and they’ve just not told me. Or that she’s been a behavioral nightmare. Probably neither of those things are true. My pendulum of worry swings pretty wide here. Friday can’t come soon enough.

Other things are on the Up this week, for me personally. I am spending Friday night scrapbooking with some girlfriends. They paper scrap, while I am all digital, but with my trusty laptop I can scrap anywhere anytime … no mess. And I’m finally, finally taking the time to dive into my reading list. I started this weekend with The Kite Runner. Next up is Water for Elephants.

I like when things are Up.

Up is good.

I used to be a writer. A professor once told me there are people who can write and there are writers. He put me in the latter category. I loved writing and kind of thought of it as my thing.

And then life happened in ways I didn’t expect. I almost literally fell into a career in marketing. And we know nothing can suck the creativity out of one’s soul more than working for a corporate behemoth. On the side I tried my hand at some political writing (so so not for me). I dabbled in some motivational type writing (fabulous am I at quirky titles), but never found a topic I could stick with for more than a chapter or two.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I told myself that my time would come. A passion would stir up inside and I would find my voice. Meanwhile, my skills rusted. I lost confidence. Fifteen years have passed since I graduated college. Since the last time I was fully immersed in the art of writing.

When I first heard about blogging, I thought it was more like an online journal. I couldn’t imagine making my journal public. It’s truly not for public consumption. Not because it’s so personal and deep but because it’s so lame. Oh my. It’s lame. I’ve haven’t journaled in quite a long time, but I often use it to vent about people in my life. No one needs to watch me sort through my angst and anger. It’s not pretty. Therapeutic, but not pretty.

I have one friend whose blog I have read for going on two years now maybe (gosh, has it been that long?). While I love reading it, I didn’t see myself writing something along those lines. She’s a gifted writer who can find the funny and brilliant in even the most mundane thing (go see for yourself!!).

Some other friends have blogs focusing on personal finance, a subject near and dear to me. I manage all of our household finances and I am always trying to do a better job. Spend less and save more. I found though that while it it enjoyable to read about money and frugality, it’s not something I have a lot to say about. I just do it I guess.

When I decided to start my own blog, I determined I would avoid talking about Chee. For reasons I am no longer certain of, I didn’t want her to be the focus. Yet she is so much the focus of my mental energy, it’s hard to avoid. Her frequent echolalia prompted me to Google the term and I stumbled across this most excellent post about a boy called Bud. I was overcome with emotion about how much Mom-NOS’s description of her son’s language development paralleled my own daughter’s language development. Partly the emotion was relief at feeling connected with another mother. Partly terror at the recognition that indeed my daughter is pushing us into the Special Needs world. No matter whether she’s on the Spectrum or not, she’s not developing like any other kids I know. That has been a bit of a lonely place for me from time to time.

That sequence of events, along with clicking through Mom-NOS’s blogroll (and all of their blogrolls), led me to begin to write about Chee. In turn I can see what Chee’s gift to me is. Yes, she brings me joy on a daily basis. True I cannot imagine loving anything or anyone as much as I love either of my daughters. My girls make me who I am. I exist for them.

But Chee has given me something else. She has helped me find my voice. She stirred up the passion inside me that lay dormant for a decade and a half. Because of her I call myself a writer again.

I’m surprised with how overcome with emotion I am writing this. For no longer am I simply a Mom raising a Girl, but I have a Girl who is inspiring a Mom.

First my apologies for the lengthy absence. After posting my Year in Review I left for a road trip (that should take 10 hours but took us 13) with Chee and Ess and my Mom. We were off to celebrate a couple of family member birthdays including their cousin turning Four. I will write more about that trip later. My girls did awesome!

However I want to look ahead to 2008 and talk about what is yet to come. I have read about a gazillion posts on various blogs from people who have resolved to no longer resolve. I began to wonder, am I the lone fool out here in the Universe who still makes a New Year’s Resolution or two? Surely not. Perhaps others will feel comfortable coming forward now that I am bravely making public my Resolutions.

On the simple but serious side, I am resolving not to talk on my cell phone while driving. The stats are out there - it’s just not safe. And my little ones are usually on board too. Therefore I am done with talking for the sake of talking while driving. One of the side benefits will be me reconnecting with what’s going on in the music world. One of my favorite bloggers, Mom-NOS, and her son have a love affair with Dierks Bentley and I haven’t a clue who he is.

On the more practical side, I resolve to do a much better job with personal finances. That’s going to take some time and effort on my part, but I think it’s an important area of focus for this year.

My final resolution is to pick a hobby and stick with it. I have a few hobbies actually. I love writing. I enjoy scrapbooking. I want to be a better photographer. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect myself to do all of those things extremely well. But to focus on one area is realistic. No time like the present to choose the hobby, so (drumroll please) I choose scrapbooking! I am soooo behind. So very, very behind. That doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly become a terrible writer or that my photography skillz are going down the toilet. Rather I’m going to choose not to put the time into those two things that I would if I had all the time in the world.

So there we have it. A few resolutions … some things to stay focused on in 2008. Wish me luck!

As promised I spent today thinking about how I was going to decide what my priority should be. I am torn between building a website for our small business and working on a picture slide show of my daughter’s first year of life (she turns one on Thursday!!).

I don’t want to work on the website, but I feel very guilty about that. I imagine the guilt comes from feeling like it’s my responsibility since my husband works a full-time job and therefore the vast majority of work related to the business should be my responsibility. I don’t do every thing, though. He sets up on Saturday mornings and I close up on Sunday nights. He counts the money and makes the bank deposit each week. I track our expenses and sales info and, most importantly, pay the state their due each month. I process payroll every other week and place the weekly orders from our suppliers.

I decided to come clean with the guy and tell him how I feel. That I have no interest in building the website. His response surprised me. “Great! I want to do it anyway.” Well now that was easy enough. Why didn’t I think of that sooner - just tell him the truth. Funny how that works. Here I was feeling obligated to do it, and he is over there wanting to learn how. (Mind you, I don’t know how either. My plan was just to fumble my way through it.)

Guilt-free now I can sort through pictures and create a video for my baby. My baby who started walking this week no less.

For me this was an important lesson. I tend to feel like everything is my responsibility. Even though I don’t necessarily DO everything, I think I should. I’m the Mommy. My husband loves to say to me, in jest of course, when asking me a question to which I might respond, “I don’t know / don’t care.” He’ll say, “But you’re the Mommy.”

About a year or so ago I remember feeling very frustrated because it seemed he asked me questions non stop. I started feeling overwhelmed with pressure to be the decider on all things great and small. He would ask me whether our daughter needed to wear a jacket outside. Should she have this for lunch or that? What shoes should she wear? Should he pack a sippy cup? I would get really short with him and snap that I don’t know whether she needs a coat and I don’t care what shoes she wears. Eventually the snapping and eye rolling was too much and we finally had a conversation about it. Come to find out that he was only asking me to see if I already had an idea or preconceived notion of what she should or shouldn’t eat or wear. If I don’t, all I have to say is, “I don’t know. You can decide.” What a huge difference that made! A noticeable drop in the tension and frustration levels.

I could see those levels starting to build regarding the website. He’d ask if I had made any progress and I, feeling guilty and somewhat failure-ish, would slump in my seat and hang my head while muttering that I’d get to it as soon as I [fill in the blank]. Always something else I needed (or wanted) to do first.

Ah, but now we are back on same page. Communication is a good thing.

And tomorrow I get to start on my fun project. I’m looking forward to that!

Perhaps I set too lofty of goals for myself. I don’t know. But all of a sudden I feel like I have too much to do and I’m falling into my predictable pattern. I’m becoming overwhelmed with the numerous projects I want to do, so I’m not working on any of them. I default to the mindset of “If I can’t do it all, I won’t do any of it.”

This frustrates me, and begs the question of what is reasonable to expect myself to accomplish?

Let’s break it down. From about 7 am to 5:30 pm I am the sole caretaker of a one year old and three year old. From 5:30 to about 8:30 I am half of the persons responsible for the same two small persons, but add in there fixing dinner, cleaning up, bathing kids and putting them to bed. And my other half likes some attention here and there too. That’s reasonable.

I will admit I don’t spend every second taking care of my two charges. I surf the net here and there, post on a message board, and talk to a friend here and there. Those are all activities that require limited attention. I can read a few posts on a message board, walk away to play a game, or nurse a baby, and come back to the computer. I can do many, many things while talking on the phone.

When I’m not breastfeeding, playing a game, changing a diaper, or getting a snack ready, I’m cleaning up after the snack, sorting a load of laundry, folding a load, or putting away the game. Add in there trips to Target and Costco and playgroup and our weekdays fill up pretty fast.

Assuming I keep the house fairly picked up during the day, I have my evening left to work on my projects. And my project lists keeps getting longer and longer.

I have several assorted projects for the small business that I own. Projects from which I stand to benefit financially if I would (could) get them done. I have a few Mommy projects on the list. Some of my Mommy projects are ongoing. And then I’m hoping organize my home (and life), improve my relationships with the people in my life, become more frugal. Oh and let’s not forget that I want to Blog about it all for motivation and to hold myself accountable.

Experts would tell me that I need to prioritize my projects. That makes total sense. Prioritize. Make a To Do List. Check my projects off one by one. Am I whiny because I just don’t wanna do that? Perhaps I should schedule my time better. An hour on this project, an hour on that project. Truth be told I hate schedules. A schedule is just something else I have to do.

As said earlier, I’m falling into my predictable pattern. I have projects I want to do and projects I need to do. I’m overwhelmed with wanting to try and get things done.

Therefore I just spent two hours watching Saturday Night Fever and writing about all the stuff I wish I was doing.

Seems everyone has a blog these days and many of the ones I’ve read have been very motivating. People are really accomplishing great things for themselves and/or for others. There’s something about writing, I guess, even if just for yourself, or a small audience of virtual strangers, that is inspiring. To me at least.

I’ve read a number of personal finance/frugal blogs of late that have inspired me to take a closer look at how I spend my money. I would call myself a little frugal, but I could be better.

Going green is all the “rage” right now and is likely one of the political hot buttons for the upcoming election. I have changed most of my bulbs to CFL, but I could do a little more.

I could be a healthier eater, and I most certainly need to exercise.

My spouse and I could stand to work on our relationship. Try to remember that we’re more than just parents.

I wish I didn’t waste so much time. There are things I’m interested in reading about and learning to do and I don’t seem to ever get started.

I’d like to do a better job with my business. Maybe put some effort into and see if I can make a little more money.

I’m mostly happy with the job I do raising my two girls, but sometimes I think perhaps I didn’t spend enough time with them on a given day. Or maybe I didn’t hug enough

All of that is what is leading me to Blog. I’ve been noodling the idea around for more than a few days. What would I Blog about? What do I want to get out of it? Mostly I came to realize I just want to do a better job at being me - a wife, a mother, a (really) small business owner. And the me that likes to scrapbook and is interested in learning more about photography - I’d like to do a better job there too.

I’m not exactly sure how this will ebb and flow and what directions it may or may not take. But I’d like to look back in a few months and see that I have made some positive changes in my life, and maybe impacted those close to me in a positive way.