Meet Marley, the latest addition to our family

It has been over a year since we lost our thirteen year old dog, Cassie.  Yes, we missed having a dog around, but it’s been pretty nice without one, too.  No dogs to walk in bad weather.  No vet bills, arthritis meds, or visits to the kennel.  And the carpet stays so much cleaner!  So, logically, you would think that we wouldn’t be interested in getting a new one.  Dogs are great, sure- but even the good ones are a TON of work and why would I deliberately choose to complicate my life, right?  Right??

Sure, the photo was staged after the meeting ended, but you get the general idea.

I am trudging up the walkway to my house after a three day business trip to Chicago and then two grueling, twelve-hour days in the office.  All I want to do is hug my family, relax for awhile, then fall asleep on the couch.  But I hear noises behind the thick log walls of my house.  Is it crying?  Yes- I hear two children crying.  The noises are coming from their bedrooms.  I walk in the front door to find the house completely trashed, and my husband is standing there, grimacing a “hello” at me.

We didn’t go away on vacation.  We did not attend a parade or a church service.  There were no cookouts at neighbor’s houses to enjoy.  It would have been a great weekend to straighten things up a bit, but as I look around at the toys on the floor, some in the same place they were in on Friday, I realize I was quite neglectful of this particular duty.  I’m partly proud and partly embarrassed by this fact.  

Below are some of the reasons (excuses) why I never managed to clean everything up.

1. My son found the Luna Moth in this photo on the side of our house near our garden.  We had to photograph it and then research the moth to learn more about it.
2. We had to attend my daughter’s softball game Friday night.  After the trip to Dairy Queen, it was much too late to do any straightening up.
3. One of my daughters had a friend sleep over.  I was busy making sure that our son didn’t harass the girls too much.
4. I went out jogging each day.  I figure my health is more important than the cleanliness of my house.
5. We had campfires Saturday and Sunday night in our side yard at dusk.  I can’t be inside cleaning when there are three children under the age of eleven sitting outside by the fire.
6. My husband and I spent time drinking coffee and talking about the veterans that serve our country- some of whom made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom- and how much we appreciate them.
7. We had some amazing thunderstorms yesterday; we had to stop what we were doing for a good hour and watch Mother Nature’s show.
8. I caught up on sleep.  
9. The weekly supermarket ritual ate up a couple of hours of my time.
10. The kids and I took our first trip to the beach down the street from our house.  It took an hour to get the kids ready, we spent a few hours there, and then I had to treat them for minor sunburns when we came home.

You see, when Life speeds by us all at such a rapid pace, it seems a shame to spend it making beds.  And Life is way too short to dust- ever.

A ten-year-old’s wisdom

Every now and then, you have an “Ah-Ha!” moment- one that gives you a true glimpse at the philosophical side of life. I had one this week, when I discovered a hand-written list in my ten-year-old daughter’s school bag. 

• Try not to get in trouble at school.  I’m not sure how Kaitlin learned this one, but it sure is true!
• Make sure you have lots of things to do after school.  Boredom is the enemy of happiness.
• Make sure you have friends.  I love the fact that she is taking ownership of nurturing relationships- nice!
• Try to be friendly around your teacher.   A positive outlook always helps, at school and everywhere else.
• Be nice to parents.  We sure can make their lives miserable when they aren’t nice, can’t we?
• Be happy on holidays.  What struck me about this one was that she understands that being happy is a conscious decision that we make.  You go, girl!
• Don’t worry about too many things.  This is true, but tough to do.   I wonder if I could get her to write an essay on the subject?
• Be causouse.  Being cautious can certainly help you avoid costly mistakes that can diminish your happiness.  But I’m sure that some day she’ll learn that taking calculated risks can add to your happiness too.
• Study hard/ Work hard.  I loved this one!  So much of our satisfaction in life comes from a job well done.  Not only can it make you happy in the short term, but it helps to create a brighter future, too!
• Get at least five hours of rest.  While I might need a little more sleep than Kaitlin does to function, I applaud her understanding that taking care of ourselves is paramount to our happiness.  If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.
• Try not to dislike people as much.  Well, I just about fell over when I read this one.  How on Earth does a ten-year-old girl understand that our negative perceptions of people harm us?  Its okay to not be friends- you don’t have to like everybody- but don’t put a lot of anger and negative energy into thinking about them.  Wow.

And the final, most inspirational advice on Kaitlin’s list:

• Be happy about what you have.

Thank you , Kaitlin.

Happy 10th birthday, Shelby!

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the most significant day in my life. 

Today is the day my oldest child, Shelby, was born.  About a week after we brought her home from the hospital, I had the second most significant day of my life.  This time, it was because my husband and I had made the decision that I would return to my career, and he would quit his job to stay home and take care of our child. 

I turned to the experts.  I started reading Women at the Topby Diane F. Halpern and Fanny M. Cheung.  They interviewed 62 women in top leadership positions in the US, China, and Hong Kong, that either had children or took care of adult members of their families.   These women DO seem to have it all.  Not only are they successful both at home and at work, but they manage both roles calmly.  Most of them also had rich, rewarding relationships with their husbands.   Here are some of the things I learned:

• Prioritize the important.  Make a list.  Decide what comes first, second, and so on.  This is the first step to fitting everything together.
• Budget your time carefully around your priorities.  If you want to spend quality time with the kids on the weekend, put it on your calendar.  Do your best to keep to that schedule.  Make sure unimportant things don’t eat into time you set aside for the important.
• If it isn’t important, find somebody else to do it.  Outsource!  Enlist other family members to help with things that don’t add value to your day.  This may mean asking them to handle errands, cook, or clean.  If there is nobody to help at home with these things, then pay somebody to do it.  Not only does this allow you to focus on thekey tasks, but it reduces your stress level. 
• Be prepared to let go of your personal time.  The high-achieving women in this particular book set aside hobbies and other enjoyable things.  They had their priorities and understood that to reach the top, they couldn’t have a lot of activities that delayed their progress.
•  Focus on one thing at a time.  Although these women were incredible multi-taskers, when it came to the most important things, they would focus on them 100%.  When they had family time scheduled, they were intensely focused on their children.  When they were working, that was it- they were working. 
• If you need more time, sleep less.  This is not healthy long-term, as we all need a good night’s sleep in order to maintain our health and our performance both at work and at home.  Just the same, many of these women claimed that they stayed up late at night to fit in a few more hours of work.
• Choose a supportive husband.  Most of the women the authors quoted were more successful than their husbands.  In most cases, they women had found husbands who were not threatened by their success.  These men were proud of their wives and were willing to take on more activities at home to help out.  In the cases where the husbands were not supportive, the marriages usually ended in divorce.  When they re-married, they seemed to find the right type of partner the second time around.

Although my specific reason for reading this book was to find out how to balance work and family, it also showed me how much effort it takes to be a working mother at the top of her field.  It put my own life into perspective.  The next time I become tense because there is too much “To Do” list for the time available, I will remember this book and relax.  I’ll make sure I’m working on the things that matter most, and try not to worry about the rest.  And speaking of “rest”, I’ll probably set the alarm clock an hour earlier the next day, too.

It lasted exactly fourteen hours.

At 5:40am the following day, it became just like the mailbox it replaced- junk.

It wasn’t the only mailbox hit that morning.  Our next door neighbor’s box was hit so hard that he found it in the wood behind its post.  Other mailboxes looked to have been hit too, but on a country road like ours it’s hard to tell  new mailbox damage from old.  We were sure ours had been the main target; as our neigbor put it, “You can’t put fresh bait out and expect them not to take it.”

Ed was furious.  He banged the dents out as best he could.   After watching our mailman struggle to shut it, Ed began making plans with the neigbor to catch the vagrants responsible.  After all, when they realize the box is still functional they will be back for another round of  Mailbox Wars.

As a manager and mother of three, my solution is to remove the source of the conflict by switching to a post office box.  Ed flatly refused.  He said that was the same as admitting defeat.  We discussed the various tamper-resistant mailboxes on the market, but we made no plans to purchase any of them.  They are expensive and they don’t stop crafty teenagers.  One of our neigbors has a tamper-resistant box, and when the vandals want to damage it they just run over it with their cars.

The event bothered me all day.  It wasn’t that the box was damaged- I don’t take that personally.  What bothered me was that Ed was choosing to fight a battle for which there is no end and no chance of victory.  But I think now I understand.

Mailbox Wars are a miniature version of life’s struggles.  We can’t control what happens to us, only how we respond.  My husband has chosen to never, ever give up.  That attitude is worth any price- and certainly worth the price of a few black metal boxes with flags on them.

Yes. I recommend “Doing Nothing.”

Christopher Robin explains how to Do Nothing in The World of Pooh by A.A. Milne. He is having a conversation with Winnie the Pooh about favorite things. When Pooh asks Christopher Robin what he likes to do best, he answers, “What I like doing best is Nothing.” “How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time. “Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘what are you going to do, Christopher Robin’, and you say, ‘Oh, Nothing.’ And then you go and do it.” “Oh, I see” said Pooh. (I don’t think he did see, really.) Christopher Robin then clarified it a bit. “It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
If that explanation doesn’t help you, here are a few of my favorite ways of Doing Nothing:

* Throw rocks into the puddle in my driveway with my youngest daughter
* Crawl back into bed mid-morning on a Saturday for no reason other than it is warm and cozy
* Sit on a chair in the back yard while the kids play on the swings and let the sun warm my face
* Perch on the edge of a bed to watch one of my children sleep
* Wander around the yard and down my street after everyone goes to bed, watching the clouds race in front of the moon.

In other words, Doing Nothing.

Any of these activities put the breaks on the holiday roller coaster. They give you a chance to catch your breath, wipe your eyes, and fix your hair before the wild ride of Life continues.

 Once that door is shut, I can look forward to the journey. Sure, I’ll miss my daughter and the rest of my family like crazy. But the occasional business trip is good for the working mom. There are elegant meals that we don’t have to cook, pay for, or clean up after. There are king-sized beds with mountains of pillows that we can hog all to ourselves. And there are no small children or pets to disturb our slumber. Ahh- can’t you taste the hotel room coffee already? But before I can enjoy any of this, I have to fly to Phoenix.
     I never take the magic of flight for granted. You’ll always find me in the window seat with the shade open. Most of the people on board look like they are traveling on business. You could say that I do too, but I’m really still Mom, watching the unfolding scenery through the eyes of my children.   As the plane takes off, I am treated to a view of the fall foliage from the air. I’ve never flown in the fall before, and the colors and patterns are gorgeous. The trees are soon obstructed by thin, wispy clouds. “Cirrus clouds!” my son Cole would shout. He likes everything about weather, and I know he would love this view. The plane reaches its cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, where the clouds look like fluffy mountains. If Cole were with me, he’d be pointing at them saying, “Cumulonimbus! Wow!”
     The flight attendants serve breakfast. I save the tiny box of raisins for my daughter Sarah and the muffin for Shelby. I eat the Honey Chex cereal out of its little disposable bowl and think again of Cole. He would love this flavor. I’ll have to buy it for him when I get home.
     Outside, the clouds are now smooth and flat. They seem more like ground covered with snow than floating water vapor. A rainbow appears, looking as though it was spray painted on the clouds. The illusion continues as the plane heads west. I watch for a long time before I realize that I have absent-mindedly eaten all of the raisins. Oh well; Sarah has raisins at home. I eat the muffin too.
     I doze off with my head leaning against the window. Not for long, unfortunately – we hit turbulence. The infant a few seats away fusses, which makes me miss the kids again. I can see the reason for the bumping; we are flying over a mountain range. I decide that I would explain turbulence to the kids as being when the wind bounces off the mountains and into our plane. I have no idea if I’m right or not.
     The decent into Phoenix starts. The desert is broken up only by small lakes. They all have funny shapes; one looks like a lizard and another looks like a shark. Shelby, Cole and Sarah would have so much fun naming their shapes, like they do with clouds. The ground gets closer and soon I am watching cars travel on roads. I see a baseball field. A cactus. The wheels grab the tarmac and I imagine my children shouting “Hurray! We made it!”
     Now it is time to turn on the cell phone, grab the laptop, and put my family out of my mind for the next few hours. After all, I’m a grown-up on an important business trip. But before I do, I recall something I said to Shelby before I left.

Sarah and her entourage enjoying the Junk Stroller

     I own one of those jogging strollers that holds two children.  It’s been a member of our family ever since child # 2 was born seven years ago.  Whenever the weather was good I would take the two children out for a weekend jog.  At first it held Shelby and Cole, then Cole and Sarah, and now just Sarah and her Care Bear collection.

     It isn’t the best looking stroller.  When I first purchased it new it was  dark blue.  Now it has weathered to a purple-gray color.  There are bird droppings on it.  There are dried spider egg sacks dangling from the bottom of it.  And it holds the stains of a hundred Popsicles.  Yes, I did try to clean it once but the results weren’t impressive enough to ever attempt it again. The tires lose their air quickly and the front wheel wobbles and clacks when it rotates. 

     Sarah will have outgrown it by next season, so I’ve resisted the urge to buy a newer, single version.  I looked them up on Craig’s List early this past spring but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $50.00 or more on something I’d only be using for a few months.  I’m not sure why; goodness knows I’ve spent $50.00 on dumber things before.

     I really haven’t spent too much time thinking about it until we went to a birthday party this past weekend.  There were twenty shiny, nice cars lined up the length of the driveway.  There was one junky stroller- mine.  At one point during the party I glanced over at it and saw just how shabby it looked, and I wondered what people thought of us.  When we were leaving (early, because the sun was setting and we had to walk the mile home before dark) one of the dads approached us and offered us a ride home.  I believe that he thought we didn’t have access to a car and had walked out of necessity.  His look of charity turned to one of puzzlement when I tried to explain to him that we had deliberately walked over for the exercise.  Sigh.

     While jogging today I reflected on the stroller some more.  I thought about the different bits of wear and tear on it as proof of many years of honorable and selfless service to our family.  Heck, at leat it hasn’t spent the last seven years parked in the garage!