I'm doing good today. I went to a kickboxing class this morning and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I just don't have a whole lot to say right now, but here are some pictures I've taken over the course of the past few days.
Yesterday, I thought I'd get some pictures of the gorgeous leaves before they've all left me.
I'm going to write now, while I'm still in a good mood and actually have some time. Later, I will have been tainted by seeing family I only see on holidays.
I'm making up a squash casserole to take to my mother-in-law's for dinner this afternoon. My hubby had to work all morning into the afternoon, so it's a late dinner for us. Me and my tot have been lounging around the house watching the parade all morning. I can't get him to eat a single thing, so hopefully he'll dig in during Thanksgiving dinner (feast).
While watching the parade, the old Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman specials advertised. I'll need to mark my calender, those little programs still give me warm fuzzies. For years, I've wanted to collect all of the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer ornaments. They are just pricey! Maybe I should buy one per year or something. The island of the misfit toys holds a special place in my heart. Then there's Frosty, I used to cry every single year when Frosty melted in the greenhouse. It was traumatic!
Happy Turkey Day, everyone.
I refuse to let another day pass without blogging. I've got to have something to say, right?
So here I sit in my cozy black recliner, laptop on.. laptop, headphones securely in ears, The Cure's homesick playing just as loud and beautiful as can be. My tater tot is staying with his grandma tonight, so hubby and I had an evening to ourselves consisting largely of strolling Target's toy aisles. Santa's shopping mission: complete.
Shew.
Christmas is so stressful.
And the obligatory family gatherings, I won't even get started on that.
Not that much can beat that, but the most frustrating factor is funding. I don't have extra cash to spend the other 364 days of the year, so for what reason would I magically have the extra cash for Christmas time? It's baffling. So we sit and plan and scrape and figure out ways to manage, to spread our money as thin as a silk thread - all in the name of December 25th.
Any other meaning is and has been, sort of lost.
Who am I to bitch, though? I've already spent over $120 on my 22-month old and November isn't over yet. But.. it's fun when they're little, I say. I love the excitement. But do I want my son associating the holidays with big ticket items, hence money? Gifts, I want-I want, presents, selfishness? Where's the life lesson in that? And how to integrate it? I worry all the time over instilling the important things in him. I want to him to grow into a compassionate, grateful, giving human being. (only to be thrown into a world that will let him down and people who will make him cry! .. ahem, sorry. inner pessimist)
I can't raise him not to look forward to Christmas for reasons like toys and candy, either. It's everywhere. What's a mom to do?
Someone special once gave me a printed quote by an unknown source which still hangs on my fridge - "There is no way to be a perfect mother, but a million ways to be a good one." So I'll do what I can and be a good one.
See how easily I can overanalyze a holiday and associate it with possible parenting gone wrong? I'm good, I tell you.
And we haven't even gotten through Thanksgiving yet. Bring on the turkey, I'm ready. Nothing I can obsess over teaching my tater tot wrong on Turkey Day, right? Cranberry sauce is good, gravy is good, stuffing is good...
All we can really do is keep the few wonderful people in our inner circles, breathe, and by God- listen to good music.
I've not been able to blog in days, thanks to the hustle and bustle of car trouble, work, life, and your daily blindsiding and stress. Even now, I don't have a lot of time to gather thoughts for a decent post.
However, I had some buried words in my purse from the other day.
With nothing much better to do on a Wednesday waiting for my car to be repaired (on the day of the Tori Amos concert, hello frustration), I took out my trusty mini purse notebook and did what I could with cars zooming by on the main road and the smell of engine oil in the air.
---
If the sun is a star, then the sun burns out. Clouds must cower and hide their doubt. Rockets have seen things we'd never understand, so blind must be the satellites spinning round and round. Debris shines brighter than giant spheres of power. We telescopes get confused with all the condescending showers. Protective gear, balloons, we can only enlighten ourselves. The real stars will thank us, they've always done it so well. Holding out their own radiance, regardless of the crowd, gleaming hydrated and tall despite the drought. Shine or be shunned, fly or be flown. We decide on unique stars, no queen in this drone.
For months now, I've been nearly finished with this book, finding five-minutes spurts here and there to read before bed. In what may have been the first or second section of the book, Anne Lamott mentions Kindergarten as a topic to get your brain flowing. I tried this exercise myself, and couldn't believe what I still retained from my Kindergarten days.
...
I find it astounding that I still remember the way my kindergarten class smelled. All Crayola crayons and fresh construction paper, tables set up across from one another, teeny-tiny chairs.
Mrs. Anderson was my teacher- a petite black lady who wore pretty lipstick shades and twisted her hair into a cute up-do. Miss Wise was the assistant teacher, both of them motherly, caring, and helpful to us little baby ants. For some of us (me), this was the first time we'd been away from our comforting little anthills and in some other strange territory.
One of the many painfully cute things about early elementary school was the pinning-onto-shirts of important notes and such. I wonder how that straight pin wasn't too much of a poking hazard for us little ones, and if things are handled differently now. I know how rules are always forming and reforming. I recall how Mrs. Anderson's perfume-lotioned hands smelled, carefully pinning on my day's note which could not be lost and was it's safest on my shirt.
Walking in a single file line had to be learned quickly. We walked in lines for eons in grade school, careful not to stray, messing up the beauty of the child bodies in structure. Shuffling along to our next destination; the playground, restrooms, lunchroom, art trailer (personal favorite), the chorus trailer (second favorite). The walks from place to place seemed like a long, adventurous trek.
Something else still clear in my memory are those semi-frightening fire drills. I always worried that perhaps our planned evacuation destination wasn't quite far enough from the building of possible flame and disaster. I was a worried child. Were these adults sure about what they were doing? Were flames one day going to come roaring out at me on the playground? I always imagined the building bursting into flames during the drill. I wonder what that means..
After all was said and done, we'd return to our tables in single-file, safe and trained. I'd get back to my little table and felt shapes, surrounded by fresh, crisp paper and cigar style crayon boxes.
And of course, the soothing smells I think I'll always remember.
There's something so incredibly heartwarming about sharing a bowl of trail mix with your 22-month old. I loved watching him pick his favorites out of the mixture. I think the variety of textures and color attracted him. He caught on after a few times of me telling him, that the M&Ms were too hard for him to eat. So instead, he'd pick around them and eat dried apricots, pineapple and the occasional raisin.
It was amusing that he steered clear of peanuts, as if he knew they were also a no-no.
A few minutes later, he went to pick out another M&M, but just to point out to me that it was green. He proceeded to hand me every green candy piece. Good idea, Drake. So we sat at our tall kitchen table, his feet dangling above the floor by a mile, and sorted M&M's by color out of our trail mix bowl.
And I wouldn't have rather done anything else in this world at 2pm on my day off work.
Today (tonight rather.. as I near midnight) seems to be one of those uninspired days, as writing goes. I'm giving it a shot regardless, because I have a goal for myself to write something every day. I didn't want this blog to start sounding livejournal-esque, but due to my brain's lack of creation of interesting topics, I'm elaborating on the movie me and my hubby saw tonight, Across the Universe.
If you haven't seen it already, and are a fan of unique musical films, I suggest you see it. I was impressed and enjoyed it a lot. I think I got chills more than a few times. Beatles songs work magic, they seem to sort of 'puff' into your ears and head and you can't help but move along, sing along, or even cry along. I loved the surprise appearances by Joe Cocker and Bono. Probably my favorite song renditions were Bono's great cover of I am the Walrus, the scene of the guys singing With A Little Help From My Friends (made me want to sing along to the song with my good friends), and the Hey Jude scene towards the end.
The overall art direction was lovely. The rendition of Strawberry Fields was war-themed and pretty interesting. There's a circus-like psychedelic scene featuring a made-up Eddie Izzard that I actually wanted my 22-month old to be able to see, he would've loved it.
Parts of the movie made me want to be a free-loving hippie. And I'm sure movies make the whole "make love not war" thing look more glamorous than it indeed was. There was much hurt and chaos in those days, as there surely are today. Surely. Though my inner flowerchild can't help but want to share a marijuana smoke filled, artsy partment with five of my hippie friends and dance around in the grass in my spare time. Just once.
I kind of fell in love with the character, Max, who looks so much like Kurt Cobain it's eerie.
Sorry, I'll try and not give away the entire movie. I'm just appreciative of it, I haven't seen something so original in quite awhile.
Long live The Beatles.
Anyone else want her necklace as bad as I do? I mean, how cool it that?
I'm going to see Tori Amos for the third time next Wednesday. So, exactly one week from today. Each time I see her, it's a whole new invigorating experience. At my first show, she was with the band (all hail Matt Chamberlain), the second time it was just her and the ivories. While seeing her without the band was unique and beautiful, my senses are ready to taste the guitar and drums once again. The vibrations, the way your head just uncontrollably nods and your foot won't stop tapping. I, myself, am a finger-to-thigh tapper. Rat-a-tat-tat-.. pretend-piano.
I also want to talk a little bit about the song 'mother'. That was the first live song performance that I actually sat and sobbed to. The resonation was heart-stopping. It was also during a time when I was struggling really hard emotionally and it just hit my core and brought out all of these tears which seemed to have been snuggled up behind my eyes for decades.
.... circus girl without a safety net
There really are no words for how encapsulating live music is.
I'm so pumped for next week. Nothing beats Tori prancing onto stage, making her way to her bench and rocking the piano and her loyal fans' ears for a couple of hours.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how close I am getting to thirty. I know, thirty is by no means 'old'. I'm really not so much dreading it as I am just in disbelief that I'm almost 3/4 of the way there. I thought I would just stay twenty-six forever. This age just has seemed to kind of .. stick in a strange way.
As soon as I had my son, time started moving at lightening speed. I make my own schedule at work every Tuesday, and I continue to be astounded how quickly the weeks pass. Week ending the 3rd, week ending the 10th, week ending the 17th, and so forth, then the month is poof - gone! Where does it run off to? Do the days all gather up in a meeting place somewhere at the ends of the Earth and trot off to the sea when the month is up? Come back here.
Then I start to ponder what I have accomplished. Anything in particular? Even if I didn't become a professional photographer this month, I know I got lots of practice snapping pictures of my son's many expressions and grey skies when I went on walks. That's what it's really about, after all. What little things are you doing that really add up even though you may not think so? My therapist (who is quite amazing, might I add) reminds me to be aware. Aware of the colors of the flowers you're passing as you walk into a building, the way your hair feels when it blows in the wind, the cute squirrel you dodged on your way to work (score! you saved his little life just then). I think I agree with her. I'm no pro, I struggle with being aware and appreciating things on a daily, even hourly basis. But I'm trying.
Now, where was I going with this? Oh yes, thirty. I have this mental image of my turning thirty being a spiritual, emotional, all-powerful awakening of sorts. Maybe the clock will strike on my proper birthday and sparkling flower petals will fall from the sky, all around me and I'll rejoice and turn in circles.
Somehow, I'm not counting on that. But isn't it true in many women that confidence and contentment come with your thirties? I sure hope so. My twenties have been quite the experience, let me tell you. And for lessons learned and battles fought, I am thankful. It seems like my internal clock is just winding down, saying something like "alright now girlfriend, we've done our dues of emotional havoc, let's settle into the idea of turning thirty"
And maybe it's all a mind thing.. Let's just say I'm very aware of my rounding the last corner of my twenties, and I'm okay with that.
I recently joined my first-ever real gym. A gym with tons of snazzy equipment, showers, lockers, wooden floors in the yoga room, TV's built into the treadmills, personal trainers, all you could imagine.
The only other gym settings I've ever been in are- my Middle School gym where I sweated out many a crappy PE class and was awkward in my cotton shorts and growing boobs. Also where I played 7th grade basketball and my Nazi coach refused to let me get my asthma inhaler during practice. Next, my High School gym where I didn't give two shits, was high on reefer most of the time, never dressed out into uniform, and got a C in PE of all classes. Damn me. And lastly, when I was twenty three'ish, I joined Curves, a circuit-training ladies workout center, where I was traumatized by body fat talk and going around in terrifying circles watching other struggling ladies just as pathetic as me run in place and attempt leg curls.
Well, I feel like royalty in my new gym. It's another all-ladies establishment but much more fancy-schmancy. When I go to work out, I am Queen Elizabeth of iPodLand, in my own world away from tending to boys' needs like finding the ketchup, away from housework, and Kroger. I keep my nearly 2 year old's sweet little face in my head, but don't have to put up with sporadic hissy fits. I'm in Utopia, that is, until I realize I still have 5 fucking minutes to go on the elliptical.
I'm a determined little grasshopper, too. I found a way to trick the machine and rest instead of stopping. That's not cheating, right? Just leaning forward a bit, alleviating some impact, keeping the same heart rate, still acing the test. It's amazing the amount of self-talk you can do in five minutes on the elliptical. I think I've decided to educate myself on the settings. I'm not an American Gladiator, after all. I'm just Heather, perfectionist employee slash mommy slash spaz. What do you want from me, Mister Elliptical? (I'm convinced it's male - it's about as demanding as my OCD boss.) I showed it what I was made of, though. Five minutes at an astounding target heart rate, doing my hop jump weird movement.. what do you call that movement? I've tried so hard to describe it to my hubby but find myself trying to physically act it out and it never comes out right, I just end up looking like I'm tripping on acid, convinced I'm bouncing off clouds or something similarly enthralling.
And my two year old just busted the gate down into the kitchen entrance. That's what I call showing equipment who's boss. True story.
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