Click on the collage to see it larger. It's impressive. :-)
You probably haven't noticed, but the 2009 photo challenge Year in Color has fallen out of fashion. So in the absence of directives from a professional-er (yes, I know that's not a real word) photographer, I have been on the prowl for my own little lovelies.
This is my "Fall Collage", or if you're given to legalism, call it the "Fall Colors Challenge Collage." Suit yourself. :-)
I enjoyed the search for fall lovelies, and they certainly were abundant. A good many of the pictures in this set were taken while Avery and I walked the countryside. Oh what a special time that was.
It was wonderful to see Romie Boy again. I was a little "too present" for his comfort, especially in the beginning. He liked me in small doses but would be overcome with rudeness when he got up in the morning and I was still there. He took a precious amount of time warming up to me, but he finally did. Not before I'd said, "well that little t-u-r-d," a few times though. I said this rude comment when he countered my, "Good Morning Roman" with "Umph," which I interpreted as "Get outta my house."
This picture was made on my first evening there. He liked the I Spy quilt I made for him and really got into the game. It kept him occupied for quite a while.
On my second morning there, he came into the living room where I was sitting with his quilt draped over my legs. He rushed at me, grabbed his quilt and gave me a royal "Umph."
Roman finally warmed up to me, but not until I'd invested a bit of time. He loved playing outside, going for walks, and feeding the ducks with Beppie. I eventually became a friend.
Roman loves playing in his backyard and he and his daddy do it lots. But in a pinch, when Daddy wasn't around, Beppie could fill in. (I have several pictures from this little outing. When Rachael looked at them she said, "You're so pulling a dad-moment with those black socks and white runners.") Rudies (that's Dykstra-ese for "rude ones") abound in my life. :-)
Roman is a loving brother to Avery. I never saw any jealousy or ill-will, just love and affection. On my first morning there, I took Avery out to the porch swing. Roman started crying "Baby, Baby". It was kind of heartbreaking that he was afraid I was taking his baby.
Once when Avery was starting to fuss in her swing, Roman ran to the swing, dug around Avery and found her pacifier. He put it in her mouth and tucked her blanket back around her. Avery stopped crying and Roman beamed. It was precious.
Roman loves the outdoors and loved when we did outdoorsy things. This wagon ride was a bonding moment for us.
Roman is just 2 years old. But he can spell his name and knows many letters of the alphabet by sight. I'm pretty sure there's a college scholarship in his future.
When I left him this past Sunday, this is what he was doing; lining up his little animals in a nice clean circle or straight line. Then we drove off, and he cried, "Beppie, Beppie." I cried. And I just cried again as I typed that.
Howdy Ya'll.
I've been gone. Did you notice? I got home Monday morning after a glorious little holiday to Arkansas -- where I met my first granddaughter Avery. Needless to say, she stole my heart with her sweetness. She kind of liked me too.
In grandmotherly fashion, I have a few pictures to share.
I'm the first to admit this little picture isn't the hottest, but it captures Avery on the rag quilt I made her. Truthfully, she didn't seem too awed by the quilt, but maybe one has to be older than 6 or 9 weeks to fully appreciate it. You reckon?
Avery was considerate to reserve her first smiles for Beppie. She knew I came a long way to see her and she wanted to say thank you in her own special way. Her first smile was for Beppie. I love her considerate nature.
Stephanie and John Mark had their 4th Annual Laney Harvest Party a few weeks ago. Avery was the resident Princess, all dolled-up and adorablish.
As in the above smiling picture, Avery is smiling for Beppie here too. Isn't she precious?
Here is a 5 Generation picture that we made at Memaw's house. Aren't we blessed to still have a Memaw and a Mimi?
Meeting Avery was the biggest highlight of the trip, but truthfully there were numerous highlights. Stay tuned and you'll be privy to a few more.
A rag quilt is a super forgiving quilt to make. If you want to try quilting, this is a great type to begin with. Precision is optional {smiles} and that's a whole lot of freedom that most quilts don't allow.
Cut 35 seven-inch squares of adorablish fabrics. I used flannel.
Cut 35 seven-inch squares for the filling. I used flannel.
Cut 35 seven-inch squares for the backing. Guess what?, I used flannel.
Cutting the squares is the most laborious part of this quilt. Once the squares are cut, it moves very quickly.
Put a top, middle and bottom layer together, like a sandwich. Stitch an X over them. Do that 35 times.
Arrange the squares to make a design/pattern/statement you like.
Shoo the dogs off over and over.
Once you've found a statement you like, sew the squares together in rows with the seam side up. Sew the rows together.
Then add your border, if you want one. Many rag quilts don't have borders and look beautiful.
I forgot to capture a picture of snipping the seams. Once you've got your quilt sewn together, have fun snipping seams for a couple hours. By "snipping seams" I mean cutting little lines in the excess beyond the seam. Do not literally snip any seams.
After snipping seams, throw the quilt in the washing machine and wash it, maybe even two or three times.
Presto! When you take it out of the dryer, your snipped seams will be ragged looking (hence, the name, rag quilt).
Doesn't this look fitting for precious little Avery?
Here's a view of the backing.
And a little closer up...
(My camera is on the edge of dying and my pics aren't as clear as I'd like.)
This was fun to make, and seriously, anyone could do it and have a lovely little quilt in the end.
My regret on this quilt is making it three layers instead of two. Three layers would be fitting if she lived in my neck of the woods. Two layers would suit her environment better. Avery's quilt is a little heavier than I anticipated.
This is my little love quilt to Avery who I meet in less than 48 hours. I can't wait to snuggle with her, feel her warm thick body, and teach her to say "Beppie". She's almost a month old, ya know, and quite bright.
I crave holding her like you wouldn't believe.
Who in their right mind wouldn't crave holding this little bundle of preciousness?
And this is Avery, again. Isn't she so lovely? Three more days and I get to hear her grunty yawn. . .
:-)
These are a couple of Rachael's sketchings. I think she's getting so good. I love her drawings.
And this last one is just something that makes me smile. Smile with me.
So here's some random info about my being away.
1) Last week I was sicker than a dog. Remember when I was terrifically sick in February and nearly threw up my toenails? We'll I got that "bug" again. Nearly died, was sure it was the end. Even had the kids convinced my liver was shutting down. That was between heaves when I was trying to garner sympathy. I asked if my eyes looked yellow, because it looked like my skin was yellow to me, and Rachael answered that yes, my eyes looked yellow. To which I replied, "Figures. Now my liver is shutting down."
2. This time I had a huge mental breakthrough (you thought I was going to say breakdown, didn't you?) after I got well. I realized, and later confirmed, that this "bug" and the one in February was really a reaction to an antibiotic. Now before you think I'm slow for taking so long to figure that out, let me assure you it crossed my mind. Between heaves, I crawled to the trash can four times to read that list of possible side effects from the antibiotic I was on. Never once did it mention, "may lead to vomitting up one's soul". For that matter, it didn't even say vomiting was a possible side effect. So I dismissed the idea that the antibiotics and the sickness were connected.
3. When I got back to work a couple days later, I looked up when I took those sick days in February and then called the pharmacist to see when I was on those antibiotics last. BINGO! It all lined up. Now I know my body detests the little black and white capsule from hell. You can be darn sure I won't be taking them ever again. Thanks for letting me share that little horror in my life.
5. Do you see the cat picture up above? I chose that cat specially for this little tidbit. Doesn't the cat look curious? I certainly think so and it reminds me of me and here's why: You won't believe what/who I met last night. A real live dominatrix. She looked like Morticia Munster, only not nearly as pretty.
6. I'd heard of dominitrixes, but I'd never given their profession much thought, except thinking how dark it is. So last night after learning of this lady's profession, I swear I must have looked like that cat above. I caught myself staring at her with my mouth agape imagining her doing her thing. I just couldn't make the picture in my head work, which probably is a good thing, but that didn't stop me from trying.
7. Now I can't get that profession out of my head and am amazed (in the negative sense) that people actually do this kind of work and people actually pay to get beaten. As Hurley would so accurately say, "That's messed up."
8. And still after points 5,6,&7, I still can't shake it. I'm still looking a bit like that cat. Curious, alarmed, curious, aghast, curious, disturbed, curious, sickened... You get the idea.
9. Lucy is coming home for good. I'm happy to have my favorite mutt home. She'll bring all the fur needed to build a dog every other day. Yep, the shedding is the down-side, but I swear my Lucy has the best personality of any pooch anywhere. I can't wait to hear her groans of ecstasy as I rub behind her ears.
10. Seriously, can you believe people pay to get whipped?
11. I'm working on Baby Avery a quilt, a little quilt and an easy quilt, as far as quilts go. I'm hoping I get it done before I leave for Arkansas. It's 50-50; I may finish it, I may not.
12. My leave of absense at work starts October 1 and I head south to see the southern family on October 2. I'm so so excited about it.
13. Get whipped and get sexual pleasure? That is so messed up. If there is anyone reading this that "gets" that, I don't even want to know.
First, cut lots of squares out of cool fabrics.
Carefully and with much love, sew fabric squares into long rows.
With lots of sweet memories and grandmotherly affection sew the rows together. Iron after each row, thinking "whazat?" as you do.
Enjoying the process and hoping for lots of good memories to be made, admire the work thus far.
Carefully lay the quilt top on the dining table for all the family to gather around and play I Spy With My Little Eye
... a hot dog
... Ronald McDonald
... children building a snowman
... and whatever you do, don't overlook that Arkansas Razorback.
Enlist the help of Trudy, the quilting diva, to make sure it turns out just right. Back the quilt in Uncle Christopher's football pajama pant fabric. (Sorry I never got those pj's to you, Son.)
Finally, fold the quilt with much joy and satisfaction knowing it's ready to make some memories, Beppie and Romie Boy style.
PS I spy with my little eye ...
a grand piano ...
a green gecko ...
a swing in an apple tree...
I know you're super curious what Avery looks like today. Well, it just so happens that I have a few pictures. I can almost feel her, hear her and smell her sweetness. Especially when she yawns; I can hear that yawny grunt. Can you hear it?
Thanks for oowing and awwhing with me. She's beautiful, isn't she?
Crab-apples;
about 6 buckets of crab-apples
Crab-apples with stems and leaves;
about 6 buckets of crab-apples with stems and leaves
Crab-apples with no leaves;
about 6 buckets of crab-apples with no leaves
Boiling crab-apples;
about 1/2 bucket at a time of boiling crab-apples
Crab-apple "cider";
nearly 36 liters of crab-apple cider safely placed in the freezer.
Plenty of cider for the cold wintry nights of 2009/2010.
The sticky end.
Yesterday, Grant (Gordon's brother) and Char had a group of people to their house. This get-together was a sort of "thank-you lunch" for those that helped them in their recent move.
After lunch we had a most unusual surprise. A limo showed up to take the kids for a ride. Grant is phenomenally gifted with coming up with who-woulda-thunk-it entertainment/gift ideas; this is just one example.
The limo carries 16, so we hauled in a went for a little cruise - all the children and five adults. These are some pictures from the ride.
That's Deborah getting in.
This is our neice Sela, Jo's daughter.
Rachael.
Deborah, a bit goofy.
Our nephew Eric (Jo's second son), thoughtfully watching Edmonton go by.
It was a fun memory-maker. I wish I could have captured pictures of all the kids, but my seat in the limo didn't lend itself to that.
So did you go for a limo ride this weekend? :-)
1. I have a new grand-daughter and can hardly wait to meet her. Avery Claire was born on September 1 and weighed 8.4. She is beautiful and perfectly charming -- all babies related to me are.
2. I will be with Avery and Romie Boy all of October. Isn't that so so special? I can't wait to play I Spy, have a picnic, bake cookies and go for walks with Roman. We will have so much good bonding time, because that's what Beppies do.
3. I can't wait to hold Avery and sit with her in the porch swing. She'll be one month old and plenty old enough to think I'm the softest Beppie going.
4. Roman was traumatized (in Beppie's sense of the word) in a church nursery recently. Not his church's nursery, but another one. Now he's afraid of his old fun, familiar nursery.
5. I'd like to visit the nursery-worker that traumatized him and give her a piece of my mind. Because I'm mature and grandmotherly, I'd weigh my words really carefully. I'd say something like, "I'm Roman's Beppie," and then I'd kick her really hard in the shin.
6. But I won't be visiting her. And she can keep the shin guards at home.
7. Every day I'm getting closer to finishing Roman's I-Spy-With-My-Little-Eye quilt. I have to say it's not very pretty, but I'm hoping it'll be very fun.
8. Hannah's bedroom is right next door to my sewing room. We meet in the sewing room nearly every night to play like we're playing with Roman.
I spy with my little eye a donkey dressed up all snazzy-like.
I spy with my little eye a monkey with an umbrella.
I spy with my little eye a puppy.
If everything goes according to plan, this quilt will be Roman's forever-attachment to Beppie and give him hours and hours of fun. Lordy, I hope. I'll be sorely disappointed if he's not interested in I Spy with my Little Eye.
9. But I would never kick him in the shins.
10. It's been a long time since I saw Roman. The last time we saw Roman he was in the "whazat?" stage. He's long past that, but in our minds he's still there. In my and Hannah's evening I Spy game, we always point at something and whisper, "whazat?".
11. Roman is very loved.
12. He talks in his sleep. Isn't that cute?
13. He loves Madagascar, the movie. He laughs in all the right spots. They went to the zoo on Sunday and instead of calling the zebra a zebra, he called him Marty.
I know I'm going past 13, but it's Roman...
14. Often when I'm talking to Stephanie on the phone, I'll hear John Mark and Roman playing and laughing in the background. I love John Mark for that. I really really love him for that.
15. Today at the hospital a nurse took Avery away to take her blood. Roman cried and said, "No no!" to her.
16. The first time he saw Avery he touched and patted her and rubbed his chubby little fingers on her head and said, "tickle tickle."
17. That sweetness is almost too much for this Beppie to contain in her heart. It makes my eyes leak.
I'm a month behind on my photo challenge. July was red month and I'm just now doing it. It's just four photos which officially classifies me as an underachiever.
To my credit, on something totally unrelated to photography, please notice the red poinsettia leaf. I have kept that baby alive since last November. Does that make me a green thumb? I kill everything that lives in dirt if it's in my house. This poinsettia is the exception. Cool, eh?
We finally finished Rachael's bedroom. I was out of "the zone" on this one, biting my nails hoping she'd like it. She does. She actually quite loves it.The "MUSIC" painting above the window was a labor of love from her daddy. She had drawn it in pencil. Instead of painting over it, like I would have done, Gordon carefully painted it. He's so sweet and thoughtful that way.
She saw this tree dilly at IKEA and thought it was pretty sweet. It's the one decoration in her room that I kind of dig. The rest, not too much.
Rachael is forever writing and drawing on her walls. Hence, the chalkboard. Most people do the chalkboard paint for their toddlers. We did it for one of the teenagers....
And these lovely (not) pieces of art, Rachael chose herself. They are stairs -- it took me a while to figure that out. She loves them, I think their mildly ridiculous and not-so-mildly ugly.
As for the masks, Rachael is kind of into masks. Yuk.
And this is her chalkboard a few days after it cured. This is going to be fun.
Rachael, do your homework first.
Clean this pigsty.
You should speak nicely to me -- some day I'll die and you'll be racked with regret.
But of course I'll also leave notes with Bible verses and Robert Munch poetry. After all, that's what well-adjusted good moms do.
I think we're all going to like the chalkboard.
I've had the mullygrubs lately. It all started when, well, I guess that part's not important.... Then we borrowed a bunch of LOST episodes and saw Charlie die. Then I felt like I was Kate and Jack didn't love me but loved Juliet instead; or that I was Sawyer and was a loser; that I was Hurley and I'd always be fat; that I was Jack and was becoming a drunk; I was Kate and was going to prison; I was Hurley and was going to the mental hospital; I was Sayid and was murdering folks.
This genuine propensity for getting seriously entwined in non-reality is the precise reason that I can't watch TV. Now, it appears I can't even borrow my friend's dvds.
Charlie died and some flash forwards showed that Jack's a drunk, Hurley is crazy, Sayid is a bad guy, and I am wondering if the rest of the bloody cast died on the island. It seems like LOST delivered me a platter of hopelessness. The story is fascinating but I'm finding it devoid of hope and I'm going down, down, down.
I want to know how it ends but I don't want to sacrifice my mental health to satisfy my curiosity. Oh the little choices that make me crazy...
So I've been sad, been down, been seeing the glass half-empty (and at that moment Sawyer says, "you have a glass?" :-)) thinking about all the hopelessness and sadness everywhere.
Yesterday I had a rare treat. Gordon called me at work just to chat. Because I don't often get calls from him, I was mildly disoriented.
V: "Gordon?"
G: "Yeah, I thought I'd call and to say hi."
V: "Awhh. How sweet! You have such a nice voice. If you weren't my husband I'd try to seduce you."
G: "If you weren't my wife I'd fall in love with you."
And then I felt better. It's not all about Charlie and Claire, Hurley's schizophrenia, Jack being a drunk. I have a husband who loves me and I love him too.
I know there are those of you who are thinking, and logically so, it's a silly tv series, get over it. And that is absolutely right. It is a tv show, but there are really Charlies who are drowning, Hurleys that are in mental institutions, young promising doctors who become drunks to drown their pain.
I know I'm weird. And I know it's not healthy which is precisely why I haven't had TV for over 20 years. But after feeling rejuvenated by my little phone conversation with Gordon yesterday, I think I might have to leave Hurley and the rest of the LOST gang on that beach.
This is one of the ladies we work with at the Seniors' Home. When I get old I plan to wear a worn out cowboy hat and sit like this.
1. Rachael is at camp. The house has a lot fewer eyes-rolling-attitude going on. I do miss the little dear though.
2. As you may have guessed, while she's gone we're re-doing her room. Her room style is not in my zone so it's a tough project for me.
3. I'll post pictures of her room as soon as it's finished.
4. 90% of American currency has traces of cocaine. In some urban areas, 100% of the bills have traces of cocaine. That's this week's trivia for you.
5. That statistic only surprised me a little. At the prison when I was going through training I learned that I shouldn't freak out if my belongings show traces of cocaine. Evidently we come in contact with it more than we know.
6. Zany Hannah pulled another crazy imitation the other day. Out of nowhere she imitated how she thinks I would be if something happened to Gordon. With a whine and slurred speech, here's what she said (pretending to be me after Gordon's passing): Since Gordon's been gone it's just me and the pain killers. I'm telling you, this child is a little crazy.
7. I've decided to start making my way through the BBC's top 200 books. If you want to see the list, go here. Does anyone want to join me in this challenge? I've read about an eighth of them already and there are about 10 that I refuse to read. This week I started Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities.
8. Deborah and Hannah are both in love with their "new" bedrooms. I'm thrilled about that.
9. I've gotten up early the past two mornings to do a 9 kilometer bike ride. It's a good way to start the day, even if it is a relatively small ride (about 5 miles).
10. My tickets are purchased for my trip to Arkansas in October. I'm looking so forward to spending the month with Stephanie & John Mark, Christopher, Roman and Avery.
11. Hannah has been offered a horse. It will cost her about $40 a month. She loves horses and this is a remarkable opportunity for her. However $40 a month is no small thing for a (almost) 13-year-old. She's working with numbers every day trying to come up with a plan to make it work. If it works out, I'll let you know. It will be cool to have a horse in the family.
12. The girls are all riding 25 kilometers in Bike for God next Saturday. Bike for God supports Operation Christmas Child (the shoeboxes). Please consider supporting them.We gladly accept PayPal donations and my paypal account is my email address. Please give, even if it's only $5. Thank you.
13. Things are pretty busy around here. Thanks for being patient with me as I'm pretty well only posting Thursday Thirteens.
1. I cannot believe summer is already in the back-stretch. School starts in a couple weeks and I'm kind of sad about that. I noticed this morning as I was leaving the house that my iris leaves are browning. I need many more hot hot days. I love the heat.
2. Deborah is at camp. I haven't heard from the little doll. Obviously she's having a great time and not missing us. No surprise there.
3. With Deborah away, we've been updating her room. The painting is done, but I'm struggling pulling together a "pow" affect. We may have to settle for it just looking fresher instead of being pow-wy. I've got another 24 hours to make it pow-wy, so maybe I'll pull it off. It's hard to tell right now.
4. I read an article recently about old-fashioned values. By this article's criteria I am stinkin' old-fashioned - I mean really old-fashioned. However I was not old-fashioned in the world wide web area. I twitter, facebook, blog, email, flickr and a few more things too. I'm old-fashioned and internet hip both. Evidently they aren't in the same package too often.
5. In the same article, two people were quoted as saying something to the effect of, "If I left them in my past, there's a reason. Why would I want to reconnect?" This of course was in response to Facebook's ability to reconnect folks. I found it sadly fascinating that these people don't seem to have "innocently drifted away" from folks from their past. It's not like we're all connecting to people we disliked in the past.
6. Nearly all of my cousins are on Facebook. That's kind of cool. I haven't seen them in years and years, but we are connected through Facebook. I like that.
7. When I was a teenager, a cousin (Paul), tried to set me up on a blind date with his friend Carl. The intention was for me to go to the prom with Carl to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. It sounded adventurous to me, so I agreed. As time progressed, but still way before the prom, I started putting pieces together about Carl. I learned his last name and instantly recalled him from first grade. Once in the line going to PE, Carl punched me with his fist in the stomach so hard it knocked the breath out of me. Once I learned this Carl and the blind date Carl were the same Carl, I thought something like, "When hell freezes over I'll go to the prom with that ugly twerp who punched me in the stomach."
8. I guess I didn't want to admit my weakness (I'd been punched) to my cousin, so instead I lied. I told Paul that something had come up. By golly, a girlfriend was getting married and I was a lucky bridesmaid and all us bridesmaids were going to Ft. Smith for dress fittings on the very day of the prom. Doesn't that just suck?
9. Just a couple weeks ago, Gordon and I were in the mall walking past a wedding store when I remembered this elaborate lie. I told Gordon about it and, as usual, he couldn't connect with my crazy female-ish dysfunction. He just stared at me in disconnect mode and then spoke profoundly, "That's lunacy."
10. So, back to the high school drama: I told Paul no-can-do on the prom thing and Carl himself started calling me asking for details about this wedding and dress fitting event. I knew enough about the mall in Ft Smith to know the name of a wedding store. I told him the name of the store. A while later he phones me back and tells me the wedding store doesn't have reservations for us and that he knows I'm lying.
11. So you tell me, does Carl sound like someone you want to go to the prom with? Me neither. Firstly, he's never apologized for being a wretch of a first-grader. (Of course, I didn't actually give him the opportunity since I was never honest about my gross disinterest in him because of his hitting me in first grade.) Secondly, he checked up on me as if he had a right to demand that I go to the prom with him. Thirdly, the very thought of my firstly and secondly made me sick to my stomach. I wasn't going anywhere with him. Period. However, I never just stated the facts but stuck by my lie. Strange -- even I can't understand that.
12. So 25 years later, yesterday on Facebook, I wrote my cousin and told him this story explaining my lie. It felt good to come clean. Therefore, I have one more reason to like Facebook.
13. In the movie "Little Rascals" there is the cutest scene where Spanky is trying to get Darla to hate Alfalfa so they will break up and he can have his best friend Alfalfa back. Spanky, pretending to be Alfalfa, writes Darla a letter: "Dear Darla, I hate your stinkin' guts. You make me want to vomit. You are the scum between my toes. Love, Alfalfa." That's the letter I'd send Carl if I could go back to first grade.
Here's the finished product of Hannah's room update. As you can see, she's quite the collector.
We're pleased with the outcome and looking forward to the little Hannah Banana seeing it.
PS Hannah has a thing for animal calendars. There were three on her wall when I started this project and I'm betting she hangs the other two when she settles in. My little Hannah will be home tomorrow. :-)
1. These are some pictures from our long bike ride last week. Didn’t we pass some lovely terrain and homes?
2. The picture of the girls in the canola wasn’t taken on the ride. I try to get an annual picture of them in a local canola field.
3. Hannah Bear is at camp this week. This camp is nine days, several days longer than any she’s been to before. We went to see her last night. It was such a joy seeing her smiling, enthusiastic face.
4.
5. While Hannah is at camp, Gordon is kindly painting her room “Citrus Punch”. It’s a bright bright yellow. I’m redecorating and am quite excited by the progress.
6. I think Hannah will love her newly decorated digs. She’s a most gracious child in this way. I can almost guarantee you she’ll look at her room and then run to hug me in appreciation. I can barely wait for that hug. J
7.
8. I’m on an email list from a magazine that solicits articles from writers from all over North America. Monday there was a giant glitch in their system and everyone on the list started getting email intended for the magazine’s office. Tons of mail. It was bizarre and mildly irritating. Mildly irritating to me, really irritating for some. Imagine sitting in a business meeting and your Blackberry keeps buzzing you with new email and it’s all meant for someone else. Frustrated, you bang off an email demanding to be removed from the email list, only to realize after you hit “send” that your email is going to everyone on the list, including yourself, and not to the intended party. This happened over and over. It was a bit like email rage. Fortunately there were plenty of good-natured folks on the list. They made jokes about getting acquainted with each other. I got a huge kick out of a guy who responded to all these emails from people he doesn’t know with this email: “This is a bit what the hey, but would you all like to come to my house on Friday for a pot-luck?” I’ll never meet this man, but I know I’d like him.
9.
10. Stephanie is just four weeks away from her due date. Lil’ Miss Avery should be arriving in early September. Of course Stephanie is hoping for something like mid-August.
12. 80% of orange tabby cats are male. That’s my trivia flash of the day. I never knew…
13. I love Alberta. These pictures, I hope, give you a taste of it.
This little cabin was home for the week.
We've been away on holidays. For the first time ever, we went to Family Camp with almost everyone in Gordon's extended family. Gordon and the girls had a fabulous time; definitely a highlight of the year for them. I crashed and burned and am quite embarrassed by the whole week.
I pride myself on being laid-back, easy going, well-adjusted, fun-loving, and a myriad of other positive things. :-) These characteristics cease and desist when I get around my in-laws. All my benevolence and patience and open-mindedness and well-adjustedness seizes up and dies, usually in an emotionally laden, fetal-positioned wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth sort of way. Not a pretty picture. It's probably the single biggest flaw in my character and person-hood. I hate this about me.
Before the holiday I tried valiantly to prepare and equip myself to "be in the now". I had a plan and some ideas for how I was going to be grown-up and good. I self-imploded and never figured out how to "be in the now" in any way that was helpful. When I tried to focus and regain composure by "accepting this moment" all I could think was, but it hurts too badly. That to say, my experimentation with pop psychology was unsuccessful.
Gordon is a wonderful husband and our relationship is warm, stable and loving. These good feelings we share degenerate when we are with his family. However, only very recently did I realized that the problem is in my relationship with Gordon, not his entire family. I'm not suggesting my negative history with the family is imagined. It is not. However, it's my marriage that is the "issue", not my in-laws. Here's what I've only recently come to realize: Mine and Gordon's relationship shifts dramatically when we're with his family. He changes, gets free-er. I change, get more up-tight. I clam up; he airs. I erect walls; he relinquishes all barriers. I tense up, ridiculously so. He becomes an open book revealing anything that comes to mind. What I realize is basically I don't like him too much when he's around his family. That's not very good, eh?
I don't really know what to tell you about our holiday. I usually show lots of pictures and tell some highlights. I don't have any to tell this year. It was all pretty traumatic. Again, my family had a GREAT time, but I couldn't even enjoy their having a good time because I was so wrapped up in my own bad experience. I reiterate that I truly hate this about myself.
Day 1 was good. Gordon and I went on a 40 kilometer (24 miles) bike ride and I enjoyed that very much. I took pictures and loved the country scenery.
Day 2 Gordon and I started going cross-eyed with miscommunication. By mid-afternoon I drove 30 minutes to the nearest city to "get away." I went to Chapters and bought a Christmas gift, visited my favorite thrift store, went out to eat, and then took in a movie (The Proposal). It would have been a lovely outing had my thoughts not been churning with negativity.
Day 3 I had to leave and come home before I completely lost my mind. I felt like an idiot for not being able to enter into the "good-time" everyone else was having, but knew I had to get out of there just to regain some emotional stability.I was smiling again before I got off the camp property. I felt hope.
It was on the drive home as I prayed and tried to figure out what had gone so sideways that I was able to articulate that this pattern in my life is a blemish on my marriage, not so much a blemish on my in-laws. That was the epiphany of the experience. Any epiphany at that point was a relief, even if it was hard realizing how it's me that's the problem (with some help from my beloved) and not someone "out there". The problem is me. I admit it.
So that was my summer vacation. The absolute worst I've ever had and hope to ever have. I'm happy for Gordon and the girls to do it every year, but I probably will only drop in a few times instead of committing to the whole week. That seems like a fair compromise to me.
I hope you're all having a wonderful summer. I truly (aside from last week) have loved it. Only four more weeks till the kids head back to school. That kind of makes me sad as there are still so many summer things we want to squeeze in.
14 Reasons to get a dog instead of a wife.
