Since I'm Being Me...

...might as well make sure you understand what that can entail.

Those who know me, like, you know, actually KNOW me, know that I'm a Dork. A Geek. Almost, but not quite, a Nerd--though when it comes to words and grammar and stuff, I definitely cross that line.

Just, you know, a COOL one. *ahem*

While my awkward, shy, not-so-cool dorkiness didn't do me much good back when I was in high school, it's amazing how much it's done for me these days. Self-confidence ftw*, srsly.** It makes all the difference.

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*ftw = gamers' slang***, literally "for the win", basically meaning "is awesome"
**srsly = texting slang, short for "seriously"
***The fact that I know this and have used it both in and out of games means I'm an authentic dork. Q.E.D.  Also, my decision to use "Q.E.D." Srsly. I've also decided to make my footnotes less footnotey, as I'm afraid by the time people finish my lengthy posts they've forgotten what the damn asterisks are for. You're welcome.
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Students like my dorkiness. It's real. It's funny. It's also heavily tongue-in-cheek, because I know it's humorous and life's a lot more fun if you can laugh at yourself.

I have a lot of fun.

You, beloved peoples, shouldn't be surprised by this side of me. I have, after all, mentioned being a gamer before. Also, I'm very into sci-fi and fantasy, and while I can't pull up a post from memory, I'm sure I've mentioned that. And yesterday I gave you a glimpse of my inner Elf. Some of you know that the boundaries of my geekery and dorkdom go far beyond that, and I am in fact pushing ever deeper into that realm. (Hey there, A Teacher!)

MTL calls me a dork on a daily basis. For those of you for whom "dork" is an insult (*sigh* you silly people), do not fear. It's a term of affection with us. I call him one back. Because truth be told, we're two of the dorkier people you'll ever meet. Just in an awesome way, I think. And our mutual dorkiness has a lot to do with why we clicked and fell madly in love. I can be freely Me in all my gawky, geeky, awkward, silly, dorky glory around him, and he'll only love me more for it.

While laughing his head off, of course.

So. This is Spirit Week here at my place of work, and each day has a dress-up theme.

Uh, what? you say. Where you going with this? Where the hell is the segue, oh Great Grammar* Goddess?

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*and Writing, of course, but that doesn't have the same alliterative je ne sais quoi.This is a practical example of literary license and writing style. SEE? I even do it here. That's how much I rock.
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Really, it makes sense. Stay with me.

Today was Band T-Shirt Day. In other words, we're supposed to wear t-shirts displaying bands. You see how that works? Right. Easy, you'd think. I mean, who doesn't have some old band t-shirt lying around in their drawers from that awesome concert all those years ago?

Well. Um. I don't. I mean, I used to have a few, but they were all kind of crappy to begin with and didn't really fit and weren't particularly special and so they got tossed out this summer along with all the many, many, many other items that I decided I didn't need to lug around any longer.

So. No band t-shirt. Not even one for the marching band here at school, because as much as I love them, I haven't ever bought one of their t-shirts. I know. I suck.

But my lack thereof wasn't going to keep me from participating. Because I like to feel the SPIRIT, yo! This morning I donned a long-sleeved shirt and a pretty but plain t-shirt over top and grabbed a handful of small safety pins. Then I made sure I got to work a few minutes earlier than usual.

And made myself a band shirt:

I know that top one looks rather like a dying worm. I swear it's just rubber. *ahem*

There are more on the back. I had another teacher help, in between snorts of laughter.

Get it? BAND shirt? You know? RUBBER BANDS? ON A SHIRT?

Oh yes. That's how much of a dork I am.

By the way: you know what's a very good measure of just how well a student is capable of thinking outside the box? Or how much of a dork he/she is? Or the quickness of his/her intelligence? Or all of the above?

See how quickly they catch on to the joke when they see something like this.

It's been an awesome day.

Me, My Elf, And I

So it turns out that if you wear a pair of realistic elf ears into a Meijer at around eight o'clock on a Sunday night, just long enough to grab a jar of maraschino cherries*, you won't get that much attention. Well, other than from the old man waiting for his wife to finish checking out the fab Meijer clothing. He will look quite surprised and a touch alarmed.

However, if you wear that pair of realistic elf ears into an El Patio Mexican restaurant so that you can nom some nomilicious chili rellenos and tacos, well, you will get some attention. Hilariously, it will come in the form of sidelong stares and en espagnol asides and surreptitious giggles from the (all male) staff. And possibly the customers, according to MTL, though I couldn't see them. NO ONE WILL SAY ANYTHING.

I love society.

Also, MTL now realizes to what an extent his social anxiety has faded over the years, because he was amused rather than bothered in the least by sitting next to an elf-in-human's-clothing in a public area. You know, other than the Renaissance Festival, where such things are blase and normal.

The attention being the potential issue, not the ears. He LOVES the ears. Trust me. *ahem*

Yes, peoples, I am a geek.

You want to know just how much of a geek I really am? The ears (purchased and custom skin-tone blended at the aforementioned Renaissance Festival, where I could easily spend thousands and thousands of dollars if I had them) (the dollars, not the ears) are my first step towards assembling a kickass Elf Ranger costume.

Oh yes. THAT MUCH OF A GEEK.

Next thing you know, I'll be LARPing.

Because, peoples, Geeks are Teh Awesome. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Or I'll nail 'em in the ass with an arrow.**

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*This purchase is less odd than it may appear. But that's not the point of the story, so I'll leave it to your imagination.
**Well, I will once I have some. And a bow. And a quiver. Anyone have a few hundred dollars to spare?

Personally, I Picture My Conscience In Stiletto Heels. The Better To Stab Me With.

I KNOW. Second post on the same day. I make no sense.

But here's the thing: I am sitting here on my prep hour, which comes at the end of the day, which means I get very very very little actually done because I'm pooped, people, pooped.

[Tangent: I now frequently sit at the dinner table with four males--one supposedly an adult, one preteen, one kindergartener, and one preschooler. I am Queen of my domain, people, and thusly have had to ban (1) farting and (2) poop jokes and (3) I'm serious, DramaBoy, NO POOP JOKES at the dinner table. Am I crazy for having so much damn fun?]

Where was I? Oh yes. Pooped on my prep. Anyhow, I decided to read back through that last post and suddenly had an attack of conscience. Yes, that one particular teacher is annoying and frustrating and infuriating on a regular basis. HOWEVER. Once she gets all the griping out of her system, she really does want to do well. Which is, I think, part of her problem: she's terrified that she won't, and the situation is a challenging one, and she is dealing with all sorts of new things, and she's resorting to her default coping mechanisms.

I joked, sort of, about playing Compare Our Lives with her. I said I'd trump her. Then said that didn't really mean I "win."

But really, in my head...that's not true. I DO think I "win." And that's a bunch of bullshit too.

She doesn't know all the details of my life and how much I deal with every day.

I don't know all the details of hers, either. Just because she appears one way doesn't mean that's the truth--or at least, all of it. I should know. I spent years portraying one image while hiding the truth.

So I'm being just as bitchy and nasty (and behind her back, no less) as she seems capable of being.

So here's my next challenge: stop listening to the words she says and listen instead to what she means. Stop assuming I know the woman and resigning myself to "getting through the year with her" and start actually getting to know her a bit.

Maybe she'll turn out to be just as annoying as I've always thought she is.

And maybe I'll find out I'm about as wrong as I can be. I have a niggling feeling that this may very well be the case.

Don't you hate it when your conscience starts whispering? Or, when that doesn't work too well, pricking you vigorously so you'll sit up and pay attention?

Yeah. Me too.

Oh, I Have a Blog? Righto, Maybe I Should Post Something Then.

How's the school year starting off, TM? you ask. Since it's been a week now and nary a peep about that from me.

I know, I know. I make this big declaration about taking my blog back and then silence. Blame bad habits. Blame exhaustion. Blame the start of the year and the fact that I'm actually getting off my ass and being a much more active and interactive teacher.

I came into this new school year with some higher expectations for myself. The last two school years have been full of chaos and distraction for me: first with all the depression and wading my way out of despair, then with all the divorce and whatnot. Even last year, when I was in a much better place emotionally, I was so distracted by the divorce proceedings and mediation meetings and finances and then the world of dating and then, lo and behold, falling in love...Yeah. The academic side of things kind of went to the wayside a bit.

Not that I was an abysmal teacher. Just not as good as I know I can be.

I did connect to my students much better during those years, though. I think it's because I became much more Real in the classroom as well as in my personal life. I stopped hiding behind my wall of reserve and started connecting with my students in a down-to-earth way, flaws and all. I have always had students with whom I have connected strongly, but never so many and so wide-spread as in the last two years. As a result, my students tend to be more interested and alert in class, and they've also increasingly seen me as a safe harbor, counselor, and mentor rather than "just" an English teacher.

It's time to put both pieces together: the academic and the personal. So I have high expectations for myself this year, and I'm spending far less time sitting at the computer.

So how's it going so far? It isn't so much the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as it is the Exciting, the Frustrating, and the Infuriating.

My students are awesome. I truly enjoy the mix I have this year, and I'm Excited to meet and interact with them each day. I am teaching the new twelfth grade curriculum, which I helped design, and it is NOT tied to the ACT/MME (Michigan Merit Exam) or other conventional standardized tests, and I'm ever so Excited to work with such a different class. The literature is pretty damn awesome, too.

However, the same curriculum presents some challenges, since we have limited funds available to do things like, oh, buy more books. So we each have a class set--or rather, are supposed to, since I currently have only twenty-three copies--of the textbook. The students can't take it home. There are only class sets of a number of other books for the class as well. There's a large technology component to the course, but with the budget cuts we have extremely limited access to either computers or the Media Center. I'm also the only teacher in the building who is familiar with the course curriculum AND the literature. Therefore, I am the woman to whom all the other twelfth grade teachers come with their questions and freak-outs. This is all very Frustrating.

And then there are the couple of people with whom I must work in this new course who, well, are very negative. One in particular is a teacher whom I struggle to respect. She seems to have an excuse for every bit of real work she has to do, not to mention complaints about everything that is new. Which is basically the whole damn course. Most Infuriating of all, she uses her mommyhood as her default excuse. She "can't" handle all this new stuff because she has "mommy brain." She isn't familiar with any contemporary (or ancient, apparently) world lit because all she reads these days is baby books and child-rearing books and, apparently, the Shopaholic chick lit books.

It's a bullshit excuse. There are exactly two people in our rather large department who don't have children. Most of us have YOUNG children. Our department head has one toddler and is due with her second in December. DramaBoy is all of one year younger than this teacher's oldest child. Yeah, she has three young children. She also works part-time and has for years. If she really wanted to play Let's Compare Lives, I'd trump her. I have two young biological children, three stepchildren (one of whom lives at home with us full-time, so there's three in the home), I work full time as does MTL, and I also have the stress of constant negotiation (peaceful, but still) with an Ex. Also, I am the only English teacher in this building with three different preps instead of two. The two she teaches in her part-time day? I teach both of them. PLUS another.

Does that mean I win? No. It just means that like every other person here, my life is busy and complicated and stressful. I just want to yell at her to Suck It Up, just like everyone else.

But I can't. I need to be able to work with her and the other teachers and keep things calm and moving in the right direction.

I've been biting my tongue a lot. As of yesterday's lunch, literally. Ow.

Life's a bit crazy.

In other words, business as usual.

I should go eat my lunch now, in the few minutes remaining. It's been lovely to chat. I promise, I'll be back soon.

Maybe, if certain people keep pissing me off, sooner than you think. Just sayin'.

With Three Toilets And Four Males In The House, I Should Be Better At Clearing Clogs By Now

You know what's been bothering me? he asked, and I waited expectantly, because he is wise in many things, my love is.

You have this blog, and it's basically an online journal for you, and it's an outlet that you need. And here you don't even feel like you can be yourself there anymore, and so you're missing that outlet! I mean, I get it. I understand why you're hesitant these days. But it's not right. I think you should do something about it. Either start a whole new blog or stop the email thing. Think about it.

He knows it's part of why I've been agitated lately. Just a part, but it's there.

And, you know, he's right. This blog has gotten me through many a day, helped me process, helped me work through thoughts and feelings and bad times and good times and has been ME. Especially for the last year and a half. But you see, like many semi- or non-anonymous blogs, there's the little catch: you know some of the people reading it.

Lately, this hasn't necessarily been all that good a thing. For various and complicated and valid and sometimes only semi-valid reasons, I have been censoring myself here, frequently to the point of silence. I can't or won't lie. I won't be someone I'm not on this blog. Instead, I've stopped blogging much at all.

But I need it. I don't journal privately well: I am the sort who will write a page or two, an entry or three, and then forget. I do need that sense of audience. So as I've been dealing with a whole new phase of my life lately, one that unfortunately has elements that cause tension and controversy with a few people, one that makes me very happy but is also full of stress because IT'S LIFE, people, and....I can't tell you how many blog posts I've composed in my head that have never even made it as far as the keyboard. I feel constrained and silenced. My choice, I know, but also, well, because I don't like conflict and don't like making people uncomfortable.

Well. Here's the thing. Ages and ages ago certain much-loved people asked me if I could have my blog posts emailed to them. For varying reasons, it's much easier for them that way. Blogger has a little formatting doohickey that will automatically email posts to indicated addresses once I publish them. It's marvelous....Unless. You see, too often the idea that people will automatically receive those posts, rather than coming to my blog to read them, makes me hesitant. I hold back. I overthink the potential effects my words might have. And my anxiety over this has become such that I would rather just not post.

And my outlet becomes closed to me.

Maybe it doesn't make any sense, but if I'm just posting here and people are choosing to come read a post, I don't feel that same sense of silencing.

So. Given the choice between shutting down this blog and starting a new and actually anonymous one, or simply disabling that email feature....I'm choosing the latter.

This is the last post that will automatically be emailed to anyone. Please...if you are one of those people, this doesn't mean I'm effectively banning you from my blog. That is not my intent. I just need to unclog the flow. I need to be able to be myself here again. It may very well be, with some of you, that what I write makes you uncomfortable. I suppose I'm sorry in advance, but I can't keep on like this. I need this.

It comes down, I suppose, to why I blog at all. It's not so that friends and family can keep up with my life, although I know it serves that purpose for some. It's not so that I can connect with people online, though I cherish and value the connections I do make (and hey, I'm still a comment whore! Some things never change.) Ultimately, this is my voice. I have other outlets, other venues, other ways in which to connect and vent and process and be heard, but I need this one too.

So I'm taking my blog back. I may not be changing diapers any longer, but there's still plenty of crap in my life. And I may be facing different dragons, but they lurk in their lairs, waiting for battle, nonetheless.

It wouldn't be life, otherwise.

Dregs

I'm just too tired. Drained, really. It's not just the whole moving thing or school starting thing or occasional money thing or the fact that my car decided NOW NOW NOW when we have so many start-up costs to require ALL FOUR WHEEL BEARINGS AND THE ATTACHED TIRES to be replaced (though we're doing them in stages, for sanity's and wallets' sake).

Oh no. There has also been Angst and Drama of the sort that has me, MTL, and his ex running to our parents to sob out our apologies for everything we ever did to torment them back when we were teens.

Also, we're rather grateful that we somehow survived and weren't strangled in our sleep by enraged parents.

Not, mind you, because they weren't enraged. We're fairly sure they all were. Multiple times.

It's the not-strangling-us thing that has us grateful.

I can't really go into it all more than that. Not really. For privacy's sake. But I think you get my drift. Fill in the blank, peoples. Really, let your imaginations roam.

Chances are, if you have or have had teens, or were one of those particularly TEENISH teens yourself, your imaginations are getting somewhere around the mark.

I'll tell you this much, though. I chose this life. It may not always be remotely what I expected (MTL keeps shaking his head over my incurable optimism) (and then admits freely that it's one of the many reasons he loves me) but it is the life I chose. For better or worse. And even when there are these trials by fire, I keep choosing it. I wouldn't want another.

Hey. I always told you I'm crazy.

Woohoo!!!! Cue Happy Dances And Cooing Noises!

I am officially a TeacherAuntie!!!!! My nephew arrived very punctually and in an organized fashion this morning, on his due date. No artificial persuasion required! He even waited until an hour and a half after midnight to start the process--and until the day after his parents had gotten everything set and the house cleaned!

Very much like his father already, that one.

And in a few weeks they'll move to Canada, thus being, ironically enough, only three and a half hours away instead of fifteen.

So we can go SEE HIM.

*happy baby-induced sigh*

(Also: WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP POSTING BLOG POSTS? I HAVE NO TIME TO READ. NO TIME, I TELL YOU!!!!!!!!!)

(Argh.)

If It Wasn't For Meme, You Wouldn't Have Me At All

Well, at least right now. Because life, it's a little crazy. Bless DraftQueen for tagging me. I'll be Up North in the Michigan backwoods for the next few days, so I will not be on the Interwebz. Well, even less so than I have been lately.

So. Ten questions (and answers, natch) about me, and then I'm supposed to tag six people:

1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing it that way; if you are not anonymous do you wish you had started out anonymously so you could be anonymous now?

Well, I am and I'm not. My name and my fambily's names are, obviously, nom de plumes. But I did that whole Oooooh I'm writing a blog! Come read me! Do you need me to make it email itself to you automatically???? thing for my extended family and friends (and The Ex, who wasn't my Ex back then) that a lot of beginner bloggers do, and there have been times when that has been...inconvenient. Ever since I crashed and burned back in December 2008/January 2009 and then started blogging again in March 2009, I've been as open and honest as I can be. There are times when I need to write about something that I'm not comfortable being read by certain people, however, and that's when I resort to friends who will lend me their blog for a day or two.

Thank God for bloggy friends.

What was the question, again?

2. Describe one incident that shows your inner stubborn side.

HA! Which to choose, which to choose...because really, it's not so much an "inner" stubborn side. It's pretty much HERE I AM AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?!?! Um...okay. Shall I be all open and honest here? And you can decide whether this is me being stubborn or all conflict-avoidance.

There's a friend who has been a fairly good friend for quite a while who said some things to me back in January about my divorce and how she saw my future playing out. I was pretty hurt and bothered by some of it, and I haven't talked to her since, even when she's texted or Facebooked me. I even composed a letter in my head explaining why I was hurt (I don't think it's even the part she expects it is) and why I've been avoiding her. But I haven't written the letter.

I suck.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the face in the mirror?

Someone beautiful and flawed and fulfilled. You have no idea how amazing it is to be able to say that with honesty.

4. What is your favorite summer cold drink?

Iced tea with lemon, NO SUGAR thankyouverymuch. Though I have to say the tropical sangrias I imbibed at the Olive Garden last Friday would top my list if I was more of a drinker.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

READ. Lavishly. Preferably the kind of books that do NOT end up on summer reading lists, though I think those lists could use more like what I read. Ugh. Remind me to whine vent tell you about that another time.

6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life? What is it?

I seriously think I'd like to be published. I'm not certain whether it would be for poetry, fiction, or essays, but I'd really like to be published. You know, by other people. And ideally also read by other people.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the class shy person, or always ditching school?

Oh, definitely the overachiever. For a long time my intelligence and academic success were the only things I thought worthwhile about myself.

I still attend school occasionally, by the way, because there's that pesky ongoing education requirement for my certification. Nowadays I'm the class smartass. I'm still at the top of the class, though.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what do you see?

Past? Future? Sad-poignant? Happy-poignant? Come on, people, be specific! Um.

Past sad-poignant was the moment last year I realized my marriage was dead. Not just dying, but dead. I'd already cried all my tears, so I didn't weep for it again, but it was a moment that I'll never quite forget.

Past mostly-happy-and-also-freaked-out-poignant was the moment DramaBoy was first shown to me and I fell in love in a totally different way than I expected. I also realized that life would never be the same and I wasn't quite so sure I was ready. Turns out, I wasn't. I survived, though.

More recent and purely-happy-poignant was when MTL first told me he loved me. I already knew it, but still, the first time those words are spoken...I can still picture it all perfectly. *mushy sigh*

As for future poignant--well, refer back to my answer to #1. Maybe I'll tell you once it's happened. *wink*

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?

I don't think I can help but write about myself. Very few of my posts are about other people without my involvement. This is essentially my rather non-private diary. Same for my poetry--it's all based in reality.

Sure, it's navel gazing, but they say to write what you know! Hehe.

10. If you had the choice to sit and read or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

Oh, the answer to this one should be obvious to anyone who's been reading my blog for long! Sit and read ALL THE WAY!!! It's my addiction, after all. Even more so than shoes. (I know. Gasp.)

I actually prefer texting on the phone to talking on it. And I'll take talking to someone face-to-face over the phone any day! I've become more like my mother that way as I've gotten older. Now sit down with me over a cup of coffee or a lovely slice of dark chocolate cake with raspberries, and I can talk--and listen, believe it or not--for hours.

Which is what I plan to do the next few days, because my parents are IN COUNTRY and IN TOWN until Sunday, when they fly out to Boston for the birth of my nephew!!!

MTL finally met them last night. I won't tell you how nervous he was. How very, very, very nervous. *ahem*

(He survived.)

(I love that man. As he says, I better. Heehee.)

I'm supposed to tag people, right? Eeek. Um. Okay. Yikes, can't tag DraftQueen. Or Brenda at MummyTime. Or Wanderlust. Or Melissa at Rock and Drool. DQ already tagged them. Dammit, woman!

Okay. I tag:

Lori at Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum
Pants With Names at Pants With Names
Katie at No Missed Opportunities
Nicola at Some Mothers Do Ave Em
GingerB at Gas-Food-Lodging
Monica at And I'll Raise You 5

Your turn!

You're welcome.

Sometimes Eventually Happens

How do you and MTL deal with real life so easily? she asked, and I sat there thinking how on earth to respond to that. It was a bit of a shocker, really. I don't view myself as someone who "deals" all that well, truth be told, considering the more or less daily soap opera playing out in my head for three decades. Days of My Life: now with more child actors.

But I think I know from whence her question came. She and her best friend, both former students, had called me up late at night in fear and anguish, and MTL and I had gathered them up, plunged into their drama, and been the safe haven they could not find elsewhere. She also knows a good bit about my own drama played out over the last two years. And because of their own sufferings, I had talked with them about what happened when I was five.

I suppose MTL and I have dealt with "real life" and its sorrows better than many. It's the "easily" part that struck me, because it has not been that, not for either of us. What seemed so easy to her?

It isn't really our own strength, I told her. We both have faith in God, not to take all the hardships away or make everything go right, but to give us the strength we need to deal with what comes. We've both had to lean on him pretty heavily at times. That's what makes it look easier than it is.

I've been reminded these last two weeks just how much I do need to rely on that strength and grace, because life has been messy and draining and complicated. Those friends' drama, with its unhappy and maddening and ongoing outcome. Learning the ins and outs of a blended family and providing for and monitoring and parenting five children (plus the occasional friend staying over, which makes us a full-blown Brady Bunch even without the kitten). Attempting to deal with an angst-ridden fourteen-year-old girl who does not want to go to a new school in a new district with new people on top of starting high school.

It's bringing back some awful memories, that last one. I'm remembering too well the anger and depression of being fourteen, coming back to Michigan for a one year furlough, going into my sophomore year with people I either did not know or who might remember me vaguely from fifth grade as that weird girl from Africa. And who wants to make friends with someone who doesn't have a clue about anything that is Important like the popular clothes and music and movies and TV shows, and will be leaving at the end of the year anyway?

I get it. All too well. Add all that drama to the natural angst of being female and fourteen...

It's been interesting around here.

So last weekend when The Dark One invited me and MTL to go with her to her church (she wanted us there! with her! in a public place!) we went. We were rather delighted with the service. And the pastor, who is an energetic young man with four kids and dreadlocks. We'll be going back.

Before his sermon, Pastor Devine (pronounced "Devin") talked about the need to hand over all our burdens and worries to God so that we could come freely before Him, and he asked us to bow our heads and then raise a hand if we were in a situation where we needed that strength and grace. My right hand shot up. I felt MTL's hand cover my other, and we held each other tight as we prayed. There's grace right there, I thought, this man standing beside me.

This week has been a testing of that prayer. Each day has gotten busier and crazier as I have performed the tasks of chauffeur, launderer, cook, maid, mother, stepmother, and teacher. Yesterday was the peak. I hadn't actually written out a list of everything I needed to accomplish (which might have helped my focus, really), but if I had, it would have covered at least two pages.

At one point I caught myself getting strident as I urged the children to get their chores done and rooms cleaned before I had to take the four oldest (MTL's three + The Dark One's BFF, who has adopted us as her parents and calls us Mommy and Daddy) the 50-minute drive out to their mother's place. One of the many, many things I've learned from this new family experience is that when I start getting strident, things get worse. The kids get sulky, resentment builds, and I end up feeling guilty and mean.

So I took a break. I went upstairs and closed myself away in the sanctuary of our bedroom, and I picked up the book I had grabbed at random off my bedside table the day before. It was a God-step, because in the pages of Anne Lamott's Grace (Eventually) I found the words I needed to bring me back to center, accompanied by the wry humor that appeals to me about her work. I even underlined some lines, the ones that spoke to me and reminded me that (1) we're all in this together and we're all a mess, (2) I'm not in charge, (3) yes, parenting is hard, but that's normal, and (4) God loves me and sometimes that's not a warm and fuzzy thing.

Let me share, because she puts it all so much better than I can (well, outside my head, where this blog post was ever so much more eloquent this morning, let me tell you):

We're invited more deeply into this mystery on a daily basis, to be here as one-of; a mess like everyone else, and not in charge. That's why we hate it. (125)

Why was he [her son Sam] sabotaging himself like this...and for what? Well, this is what teenagers have to do, because otherwise they would never be able to leave home and go off to become their own people. Kids who are very close to their parents often become the worst shits, and they have to make the parents the villains so they can break free without having it hurt too much. Otherwise, the parents would have to throw rocks at them to get them out of the house. (190)

It turns out that all kids have this one tiny inbred glitch: they have their own sin, their own stains, their own will. Putting aside for a moment the divine truth of their natures, all of them are wrecked, just like the rest of us. That is the fly in the ointment... (193-194)

I had behaved badly? It all started up in me again, but this time it didn't take over, because something got there first. You want to know how big God's love is? The answer is: It's very big. It's bigger than you're comfortable with. (125)

Then I said the stupidest thing to God: I said, "I'll do anything you say." Now this always gets Jesus' attention. I could feel him look over, sideways, and steeple his fingers. And smile, that pleased-with-himself smile. "Good," I heard him say. "Now you're talking. So go home already, and deal with it." (192)

So I took a deep breath and tossed a mute Help! and I'm sorry! and Thank You! up to God, girded my mental loins, and headed back into the fray. But I made sure to talk to The Padawan and apologize for my tone and thank him for all the help he's been giving and the good job he's been doing with his chores and the little kids. And I took the time to talk to KlutzGirl about how I know it's hard to suddenly be the only girl with a bunch of boys so much of the time. And I made sure to give DramaBoy and The Widget some hugs and cuddles, however brief, in between dashing about Getting Things Done. And when I picked The Dark One up from her orientation that she hadn't wanted to attend and over which she had actually cried, I took her to 7-11 to buy a Monster, and I told her how proud I was of her for going and trying even when she really really really didn't want to.

That's grace, really, in those small yet not-so-small moments: the strength and patience to do what needs to be done without losing track of the hearts and minds and souls of those God has placed in your life. It's stretching me, making me grow in ways I never dreamed, widening my capacity for love and patience. If you had given me the same sort of day with the same sort of To-Do list just a couple of months ago, I would have broken down. Instead, the day ended in smiles and laughter and connectedness.

It all has its rewards. Last night when MTL held me close and told me how much he loves me and how much he appreciates everything I do, I told him that I finally am starting to understand what some of my friends have been saying: these friends with big families and crazy lives who say that they find joy in the insanity, that they have a sense of fulfillment in parenting such large broods.

I feel the challenge, yes, but I'm also feeling the blessing.

Today they're all gone, all of these children small and large, off to their other homes and other parents. There's a part of me that relishes the silence and sanity and prospect of uninterrupted hours spent with MTL. And there is, against all logic, a large part of me that misses them and their noise and squabbling and laughter and craziness.

It's not easy, this life. But it's full of unexpected grace and joy.

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All quotes taken from Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott.

Toast Me

I just solved a great domestic engineering mystery.

I figured out where to set the dial on the new toaster.

Now before you scoff (you scoffing scoffers you), keep in mind that this toaster simply had a set of numbers on the dial going from 1 to * (no really, an asterisk, following the 9) with no indication whether 1 was "barely toasted" or "charcoal briquet", and no clue whatsoever what the punctuation was for.

When I took a stab at it yesterday, I set it to 4ish in a wishy-washy middling attempt to determine the proper setting. The resulting toast was....edible, but the "left a little too long over the campfire" sort of edible. There was also an accompanying odor of baking plastic as it toasted, so I suspected that perhaps there was some sort of coating on the interior of the toaster. I elected NOT to scrub it off in the sink.

My intelligence is not purely of a literary nature.

So I set the dial at * and let the toaster toast air, in a crazy guess that perhaps the asterisk was some sort of self-cleaning setting. Correct or not, at least this morning it only emitted the lovely scent of toasting bread rather than burning petroleum-based synthetics. However, I still faced the problem of where to set the dial. Was 9 the highest regular setting, or was 1? I tried 6.

I'm a little confused now. Are there people who ENJOY eating toast that looks like it should be fueling a grill? Because if the resulting blackened bread at level 6 is any indication, level 9 produces filler for charcoal bags.

RIP those two pieces of bread, by the way. I don't like wasting food, but I also didn't really need an emetic this morning.

So I settled on a setting of 2.5, and the toast came out Just Right. Still on the slightly darker side, which makes me wonder what someone who wants light toast is going to do.

And yes, I very much enjoyed my Nutella toast, thank you very much.

With a side of Victory.