New Year, new blogs

The New Year is well underway and so are my new blogs.  When I decided to divide my interests and create two new blogs I was not sure how it would go or what type of reception I would receive.  Quite honestly, for my little blogs, the reaction has been amazing.  I had been reading different articles on how to build my blog over the holidays and realized my confessional style blog was not in the same interest area for most readers as my hobby posts about decorating, projects, and recipes. 

That information helped me to make the decision to move in a new direction and create two new blogs.  Unless I can figure out how to import particular articles to different blogs I will be keeping this one up, but not really writing on it any longer.  The reason?  I cannot produce that much content!  Additionally, my page views for Thrush Cottage (my therapy/fun/hobby blog) and The Beauty of Authenticity (confessional journal style blog) are significantly higher than my page views for Life is a Garden have ever been.  In one month Thrush Cottage has had a quarter of a year's worth of hits and The Beauty of Authenticity has exceeded my old yearly average.      
 

I have loved my time here at Life is a Garden.  I have learned a lot about my vision for writing and have tried to learn to balance my attempts a professional writing with blogs, homework, and most importantly, family.  I have not always done well but I am getting there slowly.  Please join me at my new blogs and follow there if you would like.  I have started a series on marriage, have accepted the joy dare, and have taken on a diy challenge.  With family and school those things pretty much take up my free time here lately! 

Thank you to all my family and friends who have encouraged me here over the years. 

Love,
Shawna

Dividing My Interests

I cannot help but notice that when I write I have two definite areas of divergence, the more personal, introspective postings, and the more general recipe and craft postings. (I also hope to get back to writing for Examiner.com)

In order to work on the two different writing styles that this necessitates, I have decide to split my blog.  For now I will keep writing here but at some point I may just keep this for the old posts that I would not want to delete and write on the other two.

So, head on over to Thrush Cottage (the creative, crafty, cooking blog) for a delicious baked apple recipe that I created.  It is the best of my two favorite apple recipes, apple crisp and baked apples.  Please be sure to leave some comments if you try it and I would really appreciate any attempts to make it more healthy and get rid of the butter and sugar.  I hope to have something thought provoking on The Beauty of Authenticity soon as well.

Love,
Shawna
 

Christmas Break

I had planned on starting to blog as soon as school was out.  It was a rough semester and I just wanted it to be over.  I was tired though.  Really tired.  I did not want to write or even read for pleasure.  Instead I did a bit of baking.

Crisp Baked Apples

I enjoyed spending some time making things that did not require analysis or spell checking.  Just simple and satisfying handiwork.  I made pins to hang Christmas cards to give as gifts.

Barry and I wrapped presents until we were a little sick of paper and bows.

 

But they all looked pretty under the tree.

And I had extra time to spend with this lot.

Along with my personal superhero.

I believe I am officially in burnout recovery.  I am starting to get antsy to write again, but the past few months have been worrisome for me.  My assigned writing has not been up to par and I have not felt like writing for pleasure at all.  I am hoping this rest will help me get over my creative gridlock.  I have been toying with some blog topic ideas.  Maybe a marriage series leading up to Valentine's Day and some tutorials for the projects I have had so much fun with over the holidays.  I have decided to keep creating in one way or another.  I want to make presents year round and have a good little stockpile for next Christmas.

Even better, I felt a poem brewing in my brain today and it excited me.  

So, I will try to start up again.  Little bits at a time.  

...from our home to yours.  

 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:11

Dream a little dream with me

I have been struggling with what to do with myself.  I love being at home for my children.  I do not want to change that aspect of my life, but we really could use extra income.  Really, who couldn't? We were talking on the phone, he and I, mulling over ideas.  I am a pretty spoiled having not worked for anyone but myself for most of the fifteen years we have been married. (Except for five years at a dentist's office part time.) I have sold Home Interior and Pampered Chef, babysat, cleaned houses, typed, whatever seemed good at the time.  The thought of being tied to someone's schedule beside my family's is not what I want.   

Now I want something more settled but I still want my freedom.  There is a new certification being offered at my University and I am thinking about tagging it on here at the end while I am so close to graduation.  Teaching English as a second language.  A mere fifteen hours.  Since I usually jump in with both feet and then wonder how to get out of the hole, I thought I would get a job as a tutor and see if I liked it.  So, I am going to see how this works out.  I am going to call and check into it tomorrow.  I really hope it is a job I can love because it ties in with a dream.

I want to travel.  A lot.  But what I really fancy more is actually living in other countries for a bit to explore, to learn, to absorb.  I have read a about teaching English abroad and I would not necessarily have to have a teaching degree if I have experience.  So my plan is to write, write, write, and tutor and some day when Barry retires I will teach English abroad and we will live in foreign places like gypsies.  

It may sound silly, or impractical, but it is still a dream.  In saying it out loud I make it a goal also.  I have a Thing To Work Toward.  If the dream changes, if the goal changes, that is okay.  It is always good to have one though.  He, well he is warming up to the dream.  We are funny he and I.  Change scares me but he is fine with it.  Dreams seem to scare him but I could not live without them.  It seems the two would go together but they do not in us.  That is fine though.  Together we make it just fine.      

Cheaterpants Gravy

Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake.  I blame college.  Seriously.  I don't have time for anything else lately.  Hence the big gap in blog posts.  Two papers so far this semester then midterms.  I have been slightly neurotic and overwhelmed.  I was on a quick trip to Branson with my Girl Scouts a few weeks ago and was educated by friends concerning The Pioneer Woman.  I even hear my non-foody friends moan, "I would looovvvee to cook at Ree's house with her!" After spending a huge amount of procrastination time on her site one day last week, I get it.  The sad thing is, if someone from our house got an invite to Ree's house it would probably be my husband.  He was blessed with Memaw's cooking genes. 

One of his specialties is pot roast.  Funny enough it is very similar to Ree's recipe, which we checked out today when we were starting our pot roast.  The only differences are these: he does not like carrots so we skip that step and he also dredges the roast in flour, salt, and pepper.  (My Grandma Vera taught us how to cook pot roast not long after we were married.  It was time well spent.)  He also likes a thicker gravy rather than pan juice and sometimes we make it from scratch, but other times we are total cheaterpants.  If you are not a homemade gravy maker, we have a recipe for you. 

Cheaterpants  Gravy

 After your roast has cooked strain the pan juices.  (This helps to get any pieces of fat out.)  He then puts a packet or two of brown gravy mix in the same pan he braised the roast in.  Then just add the pan juice instead of water.  If you follow Ree's directions on adding beef stock you will have plenty of pan juice.  This. makes. all. the. difference. in. the. world.

If lumps are a problem we break out the potato masher.  A real one.  Not the one with a single squiggly bar.  By the way, those are not lumps in the picture above.  They are little chunks of roast.  Yes, it is as good as it sounds.  No one would ever think it was not homemade gravy.   
 

Grandma Mason's potato masher

 
  Midterms are over but I have a thesis and outline due Tuesday so I may be quiet for a while yet, but I'll be around.  I have so many ideas, so many things I want to share and I feel restricted by school right now, which is unusual for me because even with all the craziness that it adds to my life I have loved going back to school.  It is a dream in progress.  

Healing in words

Imaginative Writing 2853 connected my mind and my heart.  Perhaps that sounds melodramatic but it is true.  For the majority of my thirty-seven years I had yearned to write.  To put pen to paper and write beauty.  I was in grade school when I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time and I remember my favorite line.  It was not discussing Scout's bravery or even the social issues that came to rest in my malleable young mind.  It was simply this, "Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."

I read it again and again.  Harper Lee wrote a sentence about how hot summers were and about women sweating and her crafting of words made it beautiful.  I did not just fall in love with a book, I fell in love with words.  I read it aloud and heard the alliteration in noon, naps, nightfall as well as soft, sweat, and sweet.  I did not know it had a name, this lingual song that I could hear in words.  In Words.

What I found this spring was that I could use this writing down of words to settle my mind and clean out my heart.  There were things I could not yet speak of that I could write.  Things I could not work out in my head poured out of my pen.  I found and have continued to find that when I write I heal.  It is the way my mind works, it is the way I reconcile what I know to be with what I live now, with what I have lived through.  That is why it was so painful for me when I found myself afraid to write yet again.

The following poem was a big breakthrough for me, in healing and in understanding my need to be pleasing.  Always.  No matter the cost.  No matter the damage.  So just as words planted these things in my heart, words helped to pluck them out.  I knew that healing was waiting for me to let go because God does not heal what we cling to, what we obsess over, what we keep closer to our hearts than Him.  These words were the beginning of release.   They are not pretty.  They are not even especially emotional even though I hear the edge of anger.  They are just painfully authentic. 

My Grandmother’s Words

People will like you
if you make them happy.

I heard her words
Long after she said them.

Smile and stand up straight.

I never called them forth,
But they came all the same.

When I was your age I was thin.

Whispering spirits with steely
 Tongues cut deep.

No one loves you like I do.
Not even your parents.

I searched for the secret
Mark that flawed me.

Marry someone handsome-
you wouldn’t want ugly babies.

I stripped away bits of self,
Trading them for approval

You know nothing.

Until I was a secret
Whore working for love.

I could raise your children better.

I used to wonder why some tribes
Sewed shut the mouths of their dead.

I deserve more than you.

Now I know it was to bury
Their curses with them.

No one loves you like I do.

I won’t listen anymore.
I’ve sewn her mouth shut.

  

 

Miniatures in the making

When I see miniatures like these my heart goes pitter patter.  Granted, I usually do not see miniatures of that age and quality unless I am visiting a museum, but I have seen sweet little reproductions at antique stores.  The prices may be reasonable (Starting at around $15-$20.) but they are not in the budget right now.  A single purchase might be feasible, but they look better grouped, and that makes the price climb quickly.

They do speak to me though, these tokens of love and affection before the age of photography made it easy to capture a face for remembrance.  They are representative of my obsessions and I find myself standing long in dusty shops staring at dainty portraits.  I feel drawn not only to the artistic beauty, but also to the history.  I also feel the spark of imagination that flickers within me as I gaze long upon unknown faces.

So when my studio art major daughter, Coley, handed me three postcards and asked if I wanted them the spark flickered.

I remembered the miniature mirrors I had bought on clearance one year after Christmas (75 cents for all three!) that were in my party decoration bin gathering dust. 

Here is my little ember of inspiration: 

My Mod-Podge is lost hiding so the project is temporarily on hold.  I plan to take a tiny brush and make brush marks on the surface of the postcards that will be framed so it will look like they have actually been painted.  (Well not exactly, but it will make me happier.)  I will post pictures of the finished product after I find my Mod-Podge or, more likely, go buy more.     

Pouring out

I was cooking dinner; bell peppers, onions, and chicken mingling together delicious.  Onions caramelizing, peppers tender, chicken browned just right.  After Grace burned her tongue taking a stolen bite and was shooed away I added the curry.  Color spilled across pan, aroma rose to meet me.  Then I burnt my own tongue and frowned.  Not much flavor.  So I poured out more and tasted, poured out more and tasted.  Still frowning I looked at the label.  It was old.  Expired.  Flavor life ended.

The careful combination of spices meant to enhance and enliven was all but useless.  I thought about a journal entry from earlier that day.  "The thing I love (writing) I left.  When things were difficult I let go of it because I was afraid if I let go of enough emotion to write even a line of poetry with any honesty it would all come pouring out.  I was afraid of being spent, empty, poured out, and never full of anything again.  I spent sixteen weeks learning how to not be afraid to write.  Something I had wanted to do all of my life.  In less time than that the courage was gone."  So I stood there and thought, "This is what I have become.  A vessel filled with the old, the mediocre, the flavorless."  But I was not afraid anymore.

 

I know this release, the journaling, the joy list making, the writing are all pouring out to make room for new.  It has been a pouring out of old and recent hurt and fear combined, all caked together, matted and worthless.  Pouring out is not using up, it is making room for the new, the fresh infilling.  

I must pour out to be filled.  Pour out strings of words on paper, pour out words typed, pour out in love, pour out in service, pour out in prayer, pour out in grace, pour out in hope, pour out in faith.  Until all of the old, flavorless, useless pain and regret and fear have gone.  

I used to think that to heal I just had to acknowledge and walk away from it.  It is not that simple.  It is a constant determination to never go back the way I came.  To never put the old in the cleaned out vessel. 

Walking out of death

How much sense does it make that I am walking out of death and I am terrified of what that means?  I know why but it is like taking the bandage off a wound and looking without flinching.  I am still flinching.  I am still flinching, wanting to please, afraid to say anything.  Then I do and there is no happiness in it but I do it anyway.

I am going to craft a personal statement for myself.  I do not know what it will be yet.  There are many things I want to encompass.  My religious beliefs, my personal ideals, my work ethic...I am just not sure.  I know it needs to be shorter than the Declaration of Independence because I am a single person, not a fledgling country.  (I am trying to be funny here.  It usually does not translate.  Or so my girls tell me.)  But it is that.  It is my declaration of independence from the tyranny of perfectionism.  I do not have to be perfect.  That also means I do not have to please everyone all of the time.  That still makes me feel skittish.

Mainly because more than hating my perfectionism, the cancerous thought process that was eating away at my spirit, I desperately do not want to be that cranky old woman.  You know who I am talking about.  The woman so intent on having it her way, on always being right, on validating herself through that whole process.  I bet you might have met her at church.  She had something to say about your children when they were little after a service.  You probably had to take them out to the hallway and she was going to make sure that you knew you disturbed her.  Perhaps she saw you at the library and scrutinized your stack of books, eager to correct you on any wrong choices.  Maybe she was at work and felt the need to compare and criticize how you do things.  Even better, perhaps you met her in your philosophy class where she browbeat you because your beliefs because do not line up exactly with hers.  I do not want to be her so badly it is hard to say anything at times.

Above all I want to have compassion.  I want to be up front and honest but always in love, never in self-righteousness.  You know what though?  I am going to mess up.  I am going to fail spectacularly anyway.  And I have to be okay with that.  I have to realize even though I am almost forty that I am new to this life I am choosing.  I am frightened and vulnerable and I have to fight my instinct to flee all the time.  So I am asking you right now.  Forgive me.  I am new at this.

Cradling a dragon's wing

 She came to me cradling a small piece of red cabbage in her hand.  Nothing special, just a peeled back layer of Brassica oleracea boiled to make a pH indicator for a science experiment, yet it brought a little wonder into our home.  It was not simply the alchemy of acids and bases, of magically changing colors, it was the pleasure in her eyes when she said in a quiet voice, "This is what a dragon's wing would feel like."    

 

Anatole France said, "To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act."

We stood in the kitchen holding a piece of cabbage and feeling the leathery hide of dragon; tracing its veins, observing bone structure and the power of latent musculature.  

I am thankful that I did not react as I have all too often...with a hurried reply or an easy dismissal.  I stopped.  And listened.  And loved what I heard.  In that moment we were not just mother and daughter, we were kindred spirits of imagination.  Imagination sparks dreams and I was able witness the spark simply because I did not smother it.

My own One Thousand Gifts.  One through eleven are a bit personal but #12 - #15...

~ Summer rain

~ End of drought- earth drenching rainstorms 

~ A little girl who loves ducks because her daddy does

~ Another who sees a dragon wing in an everyday thing

  

Pan fried catfish

This is a re-post from 2008.  At some point I thought I would have enough time to dedicate to a completely domestic blog.  Let's just say it didn't happen.   

Catfish is not a dish often served at our house, and when it is, it is usually grilled with Creole seasoning. Today Audrey and I made pan fried catfish. Barry and I agreed that it was the best catfish recipe we have ever tried-even better than restaurant meals. The catfish was accompanied by baby green beans cooked with a fat garlic clove and Creole seasoning and Kettle brand sea salt and cracked black pepper chips (for Barry the non veggie eater). My sister-in-law Sydra's green tomato relish was a wonderful addition to the meal. Previously Audrey has not been a big fish eater but she ate one and a half fillets and would have eaten more if there had been more. She calls herself "Little Chef" and wants to be THE helper in the kitchen now. I find that this helps encourage her to try new things a little easier.

Pan Fried Catfish Recipe

4 (8-ounce) catfish fillets
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 tapioca flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon creole seasoning
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 cup milk
canola oil

Rinse the fillets and pat them dry with paper towels. Mix the cornmeal, flour, salt, creole seasoning, paprika, and pepper together in a shallow dish. Pour the milk into a second shallow dish. Dip the fillets into the milk and then into the cornmeal mixture, coating them well and shaking of any excess.

Heat canola oil in a large cast iron skillet (best if you have one) over high heat. Use enough oil to allow the whole bottom side of the fish to be covered, but not up over the top. You want the fish to cook on one side at a time. Fry 2 of the fillets for about 3 minutes on each side, or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork and is golden brown.

Transfer the fillets to a serving platter and keep warm. Repeat with remaining fillets. Serve immediately.

You may substitute regular flour for the tapioca flour. Tapioca makes a nicer crust than flour when mixed in a multi-flour or cornmeal mix...in my opinion.

Then I realized I wasn't alone

A product of this past year in my life is a new honesty.  I have always considered myself an honest person, but there is a gray area where I did not lie, I simply withheld...myself.  One of my huge moments of discovery came after I spent time and prayer wondering and searching for why I was not reclaiming my joy and peace.

I could see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, but I was still, well, heartbroken.  I was still pulling further and further away from everyone in my life.  It took a simple phrase from a guy at church, a guy who I love like a kid brother.  A guy who, when I helped with his and his brother's weddings, people thought I was their sister.  (Okay--it helps that we look like we could be related!)  I walked into church and Dan looked me in the eye, grinned his easygoing grin, and said, "Hey! How are ya doing?"


In the face of his honest kindness I suddenly understood what was wrong with me, why I was not healing, and I could not call forth the fake smile of false peace.  I stopped abruptly, mumbled something that was probably incoherent and I left.  I walked right out of the church, barely managing to make it outside before I broke down sobbing.

Stumbling, dropping keys, eyes burning, I was running away from the truth of my realization.  I'm not one to make a scene in church and I thought I had managed to not attract attention, but Dan's wife Tasha and sister-in-law Kathleen had followed me.  In the midst their soothing, loving words I just lost it further.  "I just can't do it.  I can't pretend anymore that nothing is wrong."  Then Barry was there, holding me and I told him, "I've figured it out and I feel horrible."

There are many people that would have been there for us.  People who would have loved us and supported us through all the hurtful, ugly events, but we did not let them. It was not a need for the appearance of perfection, it was the weight of the expectations of others and pride. 

 

The need to not disappoint, the need to not embarrass others by the rawness of our pain, the ugliness of our messes.  These needs were a slow death to the spirit.  A ripping of the soul.  A wearing down of the body.  Messy pride was smeared all over it too.  Because I did not want to disappoint.  I wanted approval because approval was love to me.   

Sometimes revelation is a balm and a beautiful gift of clarity but sometimes it is the taking away of a crutch.  All I could see and feel at that moment is my brokenness and the rawness of my hurt.  In that moment another fear was revealed.  What if I was a messy, ugly disappointment?  What if this meant I was not loveable.  I know.  I can see how convoluted my logic was but I was finally being honest.

Even though all the problems were not about me, even though I was not at liberty to share some things with others I could have said, "This is hard.  We need help.  We need prayer.  I need help.  I need prayer.  I need someone to walk alongside me because I do not know if I can take this much longer."  Instead I had just shared spilled out moments.  Little bits of crazy when I could not pull the seams together tight enough.

Since then I have felt bolder, more honest, more authentic.  I am not afraid to disappoint others because I realize their love for me does not depend on my having it together.  It helped to realize that others could love me like I loved them.  That the daughter I feared for loved me even if I was not the best mom.  That my husband who I loved, who had hurt me, but I now loved with a deeper authenticity, could love me as honestly.

Today I found a blogger that crystallized how I want to live, and love, and write, in words that could have come from my own heart.  I realized I was not alone.  On her sidebar was a badge that said, "I choose authenticity."  I clicked it.  As I read the opened page I felt a bubbling excitement and a little remaining fear niggling at me.  There was a movement of like-hearted people.  People who were tired of sharing only half their heart because of fear.  People who had also realized that, "Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite Grace, Joy, and Gratitude into our lives." Brené Brown, Ph.D.

Then I realized that my most recent posts were not a phase that I needed to work through until I got my junk together again, they were the truest things I had ever written.  They are authentic because they show the good and the bad.  They are honest because I am not trying to impress anyone or gain approval because I am handy, or smart, or talented in some way.

When I write it here I make it more real.  I set a standard for myself, a standard of authenticity.  I have a living reminder of my failures and the fact that they matter much less than I believed. I have a living reminder that I am worth loving.  I have a living reminder that it is okay to mess up and get up and try again.  Why living?  Because I am sharing myself.  I am making myself vulnerable and in doing that these truths are made concrete in my life by friends and family.  These truths are made real by people who say, "I understand" or "I have felt the same way."  They are made especially real by people who say, "I love you!" even after I peel off the bandage and show them the ugly raw mess of me.       
   

Standing still to see

This winter there were several snowstorms that hit our area.  Arkansans may know how to cope with floods, fires, and tornadoes, but snow is another matter entirely.  Life in this little river valley ground to a halt.  Children released from school flocked to hills to spend dazzling days sledding as closing after closing scrolled across the bottom of the television screen.  

For once, instead of just following our little family around documenting everything with my camera, I joined in.

 Well, I actually did a little of both.  It is hard for me to be surrounded by beauty and not document it.

Snow is not a guaranteed event every year here and many do not see it through the grateful eyes of a child.  Where some see blessing, others see curse.  So I wonder to myself...how often am I like that?  I really know the answer, but who wants to say it, to admit it, to expose their truly ineffectual conception of their own reality.

 
When I write I feel like I express myself better than when I speak.  I can choose my words more carefully.  I can edit.  When I am behind the viewfinder my mind operates in a different way.  My thinking is clarified and it is then that I feel like I can hear most clearly the little whispers of God.  I am incredibly visual and He uses these times to drop things in my mind.  I am quiet and contemplative and ready to listen.

I can only see through a glass darkly, and I know this, but it still does not always penetrate.  It does not always make the unimaginably long journey from head to heart, from knowledge to understanding.

 
Today I see something in the images of February that I could not see then.  A lot has happened in six months.  My view has changed.  There were horrible moments in those days between.  I would not want to ever go back and relive them.  But I know that things are better now than they were before.  This creates a paradox in my mind.  What, then, is blessing and what is curse?

Maybe part of my answer is in this.  When things were at their worst I clung to thanks and love.  When everything seemed to slow into a few single frozen moments of pain, it was then that my mind was clarified.  It was then that God began to change me even in the midst of situations that were not about me.  Changing me so that I would bend and not break.

 

In those frozen moments I saw myself clearly.  I saw the girl grown to woman still hungering for approval. I saw the teenager who never quite fit in trying to earn love.  I saw chubby knees and freckles and curls sticking out at all the wrong angles and I knew I never got over feeling like not quite enough.  Not pretty enough, not smart enough, not talented enough, not pleasing enough.  Not a good enough mama, not a good enough wife, not a good enough anything.  And in that moment I decided to stop.  Just to stop.  Because I was tired of listening to lie after lie.  Here is the thing: I do have chubby knees and freckles and curls sticking out at all the wrong angles.  I have made a million mistakes as a person, a wife, and a mama.  But if I always look at the lie, if I always look at the negative, I will never see the positive.  I was worn out and I could not keep going down that path and keep my sanity.

  
So maybe this has been the worst year of my life.  Maybe there are things I never want to relive.  But in the midst of all the hurt and heart sickness I found thanks and beauty and love.  Instead of dwelling on self and doubt and fear, I was able to look past me and extend love and grace and feel the true joy of a thankful heart. It may have been slow at first, but as my heart was warmed, as it flowed through me more freely, it was easier.  It is easier. 


"...unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified." Isaiah 61:3

On when I wobble, but do not fall

Those who know me, who are as close as I let people get to me, to what has been a fragile soap bubble of self, know that I have said repeatedly this year, "The past three years have been so hard.  I don't know how much more I can take."  The thing is, when I wrote all of those things in January, I had no idea that it was going to get much worse before it got better.  I did not know that I would come too close to losing a child myself.  I did not know that my marriage would falter.  I did not know that the search for a job would still be going on to the point of desperation.  I did not remember that it is always darkest before the dawn.  So I let the dark frighten me.  I closed more and more of myself off with each new hurt, with each new harsh and painful event until I was alone and afraid.

Then I became angry.  I have made a point to live my life without a spirit of fear, or so I thought.  I am not afraid to try new things, to try and fail and try again.  I decided to take my life back.  Once again I was going to live with purpose, and flair, and gratitude.  But it is not always easy because sometimes the fear comes back so hard and fast that I feel like I am having an asthma attack.  I am knocked breathless and shaking and I hate it.  It is then that I wobble, that I feel that sense of complete vulnerability just like the moment when I hit a bump on my bike and I don't know if I will fall.

But those moments pass.  I take a deep breath and remember all that I've been through in the last three years.  I think about what could have been and what was instead.  I think about how God delivered me, not in a blazing fire by night, or discernible cloud by day, but in little increments.  And I know why they were little.  Because little by little I let go of the fear I did not know was fear.  I let go of my need to know, to control, to look like I had it together when I did not.  I had to let go of the fear that had been with me so long I did not recognize it for what it was.

I wanted to do something different to celebrate this decision so I decided to conquer the one fear I had left from childhood.  I had long ago learned to light a gas stove (no explosions!), refused to be afraid of spiders, and went camping with a gaggle of girls and moms without my husband to protect me in the dark. I decided to learn how to ride a bike.  I thought I had a good chance at this since my repeated exposure to roller coasters since I married into this clan.  I could now ride those without feeling like I was going to die.  Surely a fall from a bike would not be as bad as the fear of my cart somehow leaving the tracks. Perhaps a little gravel or blood, but I'll be honest, I take that chance every time I walk through the yard because I am a total klutz I am not that coordinated.  My childhood experiences with this had been faltering.  The fear that came over me when I took that second foot off the ground to push down on the pedal and thrust myself forward, suspended on a thin framework of metal with no seat belt or safety mechanisms at all had always defeated me in the past.

So Barry and I took the bikes that had been given to us by a generous friend who was moving, that had leaned in our outbuilding gathering dust, tires slowly deflating, and went.  Bike helmets and water bottles in tow we headed to a bike trail near the river and in the summer of drought, of doubt, of fear, I learned how to ride a bike.  It was not a pretty sight.  I wobbled and jerked and glanced fearfully at the gravel path, but I did not fall.  Time after time, in the hot dusty days of a too dry summer, we went back until I was not afraid, until I could ride faster and longer, until I was not watching gravel, but thinking about how amazingly free it felt to ride.  This, this is how I want my life to be. 

My first experience in workshop

Workshop (wûrk shop) n. 2. An educational seminar or series of meetings emphasizing interaction and exchange of information among a usually small number of participants: a creative writing workshop.

That sounds all cozy and fun, hmm?  Well, I had my first workshop experience this week.  We turned in our poems, copies were made, and everyone reviewed the poems and offered suggestions.  Does it still sound fun?  It was rather like standing naked in front of a room full of people who discussed all my saggy bits and bobs and then offered suggestions on how to fix them.  Constructive no doubt, but not really fun.  Honestly, it was very helpful and I am beginning to see how to further refine and sharpen what I may have thought was a finished product.  But editing, while constructive, is rather uncomfortable.  


Here is my workshop poem:

Insomnia

Eyes closed,
Body dead tired,
Mind racing,
I am hungry for sleep. 

Thoughts scuttle
Through my mind
Like spiders in a
Forgotten attic.  

 

Some nights I channel Dickens,
Endless apparitions
But with no hope of
Redemption in the end.  

A mockingbird perches on my chest
Serenading me in those dark hours,
Its song eating away my peace,
Its black eye piercing my soul.

The night wastes;
All is intangible
Nothing is concrete
It is useless to lie. 

In the gray morning I am spent,
But the trills of the thrush
Awaken a truth within me,
And I rise.

Post workshop initial edit:

Doubt

Thoughts scuttle
Through my mind
Like spiders in a
Forgotten attic.    

A mockingbird 

Perches on my chest
Serenading me 

In those dark hours,

Its song drowns

My words
Its black eye 

Pierces *.

The night wastes

And in the gray morning 

I am spent,
But the trills 

Of the thrush
Awaken *

And I rise.

What is interesting to me is that the poem started out literally about insomnia.  Our instructor made an off-hand comment about Dickens in class and something flashed in my mind...

Some nights I channel Dickens,
Endless apparitions
But with no hope of
Redemption in the end.

Because everything can seem hopeless when you go long enough without sleep.  Every doubt and remembrance seems overwhelming.  What if Scrooge was shown all his mistakes, but was not able to rectify even some of them?  So I am tucking away my verse about Dickens to use somewhere else. 

But then it changed.  Toward the end it was about self doubt (mockingbird) and inspiration (thrush).  They are literally symbolic for doubt (mockingbird) and poetry or song (thrush). Still yet, this may not be the final edit.  Who knows?  I do know that a writer must always be willing to edit, must always be willing to cut, and shift, and change.  Even when the cutting draws a little blood.


* I have no clue what to do here yet.

 

Homemade laundry soap

For the past year or so I have been making laundry detergent. I have friends who have been making it for years, so the idea was not foreign to me. What kept me from doing it before was the fact that some of the recipes I had read were more complicated and did not seem to last long, as well being as expensive to make as the detergent I was using. I have not done the math yet, but I know this is considerably cheaper than my former detergent, Sun.  Okay, to be honest I probably will never do the math, let's face it, I am an English major. The ingredients and my bucket and lid came to just at $11 and all of the ingredients, except the Fels Naptha, make multiple batches. It was really easy, taking less time than I imagined, which had been another deterrent in making it. I mean, come on, if it was going to take three hours I might make it the first time, but I know myself, it would not be something I would do on a consistent basis. Michelle Duggar's book, The Duggars: 20 and Counting changed my mind. Here is her recipe:

1 Fels Naptha soap bar, grated
1 cup WASHING soda
1/2 cup borax

I have adapted her direction:

Grate the soap into a medium saucepan. 


(Grated soap? I don't think so, unless it is in the food processor! I grate mine in the processor, then pulsed it until it was the consistency was as close to powder as it gets.  The soap grates better if it is opened and allowed to harden for a week or two beforehand.  As soon as I buy my soap for the next batch I open the end of it.  I put it on the list as soon as I make soap so I am never left without ingredients.)

Cover with hot water. Cook over medium low heat, stirring continually, until soap completely dissolves.

(Note: I would reserve a pan for this use since metal can retain smell and taste. I opted to put mine in a large Pyrex measuring bowl with a handle and cook it in short bursts of time in the microwave. It has to be watched carefully so it does not overflow Glass does not usually retain smell and taste and I didn't want to ruin one of my pans. I used an oven pan liner in my small crock pot the most recent time I made soap.  It worked great and only took about an hour to melt.  Since this is not the use according to directions, please use your own judgment.)

Put washing soda and borax in a 5-gallon bucket. Pour in the hot, melted soap mixture. Stir well, until all the powder is dissolved. Fill the bucket to the top with hot tap water. Stir, cover securely, and let set overnight.The next morning, stir the mixture.

(Note: You can use a five gallon paint stirrer, but we have a paint stirrer that attaches to a drill.  It does a great job.  We had this anyway from DIY projects.)

Mix equal amounts of soap concentrate and water in a smaller laundry detergent dispenser or container. Shake before using. 1 cup for top-loading machines and 1/3 cup for front-loading.

(Note: I am going to vary again here. I see no reason to add water at this stage since it will be going into the washer directly. I am just going to use a 1/2 cup in my top loader. That should be the same as using the new ultra concentrates. Shake well before pouring.)

At first I set my old laundry bottle on a tray beside my homemade detergent and using a funnel and soup ladle I filled it. You have to stir the bucket each time you remove detergent from it and shake the bottle each time you dispense from it. It is a very gelatinous mixture, reminiscent of something Nickelodeon would package and sell as a bodily fluid to gross people out. Now I just stir it with the extra long paint stirrer every few days and just get it straight from the bucket.

The detergent smells exactly like the Fels Naptha soap, which is a little medicinal, but I cannot smell it after I wash with it.  Essential oil could be added if scent matters.  I have sensitive skin so that is not an issue for me.

I have been grating Fels Naptha and using it as a laundry additive for several years-even before I made detergent. I also have a reserve bar that I use to spot treat stains. It is incredible. 

Here is the breakdown of what I bought where and how much it cost.

Fels Naptha soap Yeagers on Rogers Ave $1.27
Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda Yeagers $2.97
Borax (had it at Yeager-cheaper at Wal-Mart on Rogers) $3.36
5 gallon bucket with lid Lowe's $3.72
5 gallon sized paint stirrer- already had.

I have tried doubling this (then you would only use 1/4 cup unmixed, 1/2 cup mixed with water.) but have had problems with the ingredients not melting as well and coming to a pure liquid mixture.  I am going back to my original to see if I have the same problems.  Perhaps I was just in a hurry and did not let it melt well enough. 

A new season

If I end up with a professor who is prone to talk for long periods of time I sometimes have a wandering mind.  As I sat in Imaginative Writing this week I got stuck on a part of the lecture.  My professor was discussing how a writer's work was never finished.  Revision is a constant.  A work may seem finished but if it is picked up a week, a month, a year, or ten years later, the writer's eye will find errors (and arrogance I think).  I smiled, remembering old papers, journal entries, and blog articles that I read over the break that made me cringe.  Especially cringe-worthy is one I wrote only a week or so ago.  This is going to be a long one, so please forgive me.

From last week: "Every new year I choose a new Bible verse...This is not my verse for the year, but it is along the lines of what I will choose...I am naming 2011 The Year of Truth.  I want...I must know... It is funny how the simplest of things can be so hard for my mind to wrap around.  To trust I have to let go of my notions and rely on God."  

It doesn't seem bad at first glance, but as I end the day...a day of listening to God instead of telling Him what I want for this year...I find it arrogant.  It was all about "I" and my plans instead of being patient and waiting to hear what His plans for me were.  

Let me tell you a bit about the past year or two.  Before being diagnosed with asthma in the spring of 2010 I had struggled for quite a few years with bronchitis that had finally become almost a constant in 2009, interspersed with bouts of pneumonia that did not want to end.  Pair that with a serious vitamin D deficiency that had resulted in depression.  I did not feel good.  I was not healthy.  I was not happy.  

During this time my relationship with my grandmother was deteriorating.  There are many things that had been ongoing since my childhood that I did not see until after I had children. As I had children and I saw her transfer her affection from one to the other I had to discuss things with her, discuss how my children could not be treated badly in favor of the new darling.  How she must never tell my children their parents did not love them as much.  How she was not to talk badly about my cousins and their children in front of my girls.  It always ended in tears and emotional blackmail concerning what a poor parent I was and how she was so mistreated by me.  Things worsened as she developed dementia and all pretense of love and kindness evaporated.  In early 2010 we severed ties as I would no longer allow her to be around my children without supervision. If she could not have free reign she did not want to be in our lives at all.  It was a painful decision, but one I do not regret.  

2010 was a difficult year for Cole.  Her thyroid and hormone problems worsened and we did not understand the full implications of that.  Increasing panic attacks and uncharacteristic behavior had made things tense.  She then decided that she would stop taking her medicine.  Which, we found out later, could have killed her.  This came immediately after an old friend lost her first born child who was Cole's age.  Her loss drove home all the harder what my loss could have been.    

It has also been difficult for Barry.  While his job had been a good one for this area, the yearly winter shutdown had grown from two weeks to months on end, and for most of last year he was off work.  He went back for a short period of time and then in October of 2010 he was on lay-off for the last time.  No more job.  No more insurance.  He had forethought this might come and had gone back to University, graduating in 2009.  Eighteen months later and not only had he not found a new job, he lost the one he had.    

Through most of this (except the episodes of depression) I remained optimistic.  Things could be sorted out.  I was sure of it.  I made plans, I expounded ideas, I poured my energy into them.  It would get better, I knew it.  But it did not. 

I thought that I just needed to get closer to God.  I started making plans and schedules for that too.  But, the thing is, I cannot schedule God.  Do not misunderstand me.  It is not wrong to want to desire things in the Lord, or to set aside time to spend in prayer or in the Word.  But that does not feel like what I was doing.   It felt more like I was trying to bend God and wrap Him around my needs and my plans.  Perhaps that is why I never could settle on a verse for this year, why I never felt peace about it.  

This morning I was thinking about a sermon my pastor (and dear brother...well, Barry's brother, but I claim him too!) had preached concerning Psalm 121 " ¹I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. ²My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth."  The choir was singing and I was thinking about how he had discussed the grammatical construction of the sentence and his study of the verses.  First, notice the comma.  It causes a pause between the two thoughts in the sentence.  Instead of assuming that the Psalmist is saying his help comes from the hills, he is looking at the hills and making an entreaty that he then answers.  Hills were not friendly places for travelers.  Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Psalmist is looking at the hills and perceiving the danger and asking where his help will come from.  Then, he answers himself.  "My help cometh from the LORD..."

That is when it dawned on me.  Even in the midst of my smiling and professing optimism I was looking at the hills and worrying in my own subconscious way.  I find it so unacceptable to not be optimistic that I buried my worries.  They seeped out though.  Nights I could not sleep, waking between dozing to feelings of terror, days when I could do nothing but cry but did not "know" why, headaches, stomach pains, and nervousness.  I was looking at the hills that were full of dangers but instead of saying, "My help cometh from the LORD," I  kept making plans for how to fix things, even at my darkest point when Cole was at her worst.  

As I stood there in my tender moment of realization the Lord spoke to my heart in a still, quiet voice and told me, "I am the only one who can free you from these things.  I am the only one who can fix them." Tears filled my eyes.  Then the choir came to the chorus of "Days of Elijah"

Behold He comes
Riding on a cloud
Shining like the sun
At the trumpet's call
Lift your voice
It's the year of jubilee
Out of Zion's hill salvation comes

And then I knew why I never figured out my verse for the year.  You see, it is not The year

of truth.  It is the year of Jubilee.  The year of Jubilee was a special time 

for the Jewish people.  It was a cyclical event in which land reverted to its original owners,

debts were forgiven, and slaves were released. 

So I asked the Lord, is this what You are trying to tell me?  That I need to be freed from 

these things, that I need to take possession of what is mine?  I tend to ask a lot of questions.

I think I got my confirmation from the evening sermon, "A New Season." 

I am ready for a new season. 

There may be things that are completely out of my control, but they are not out of God's 

control.  I may not be able to change my grandmother, but God can give me peace 

about the situation. 

I am healthier and so is Cole. 

I believe that God is working in Barry's future. 

God does require things of me, but I cannot work myself away from problems and 

closer to Him. 

I CAN be released from the bondage I have been in.  The worry, the fear, and the 

belief that my plans are going to see me through. 

Perhaps my verse this year should be: 

Psalm 62:1 Truly my soul waiteth upon God: 

from him cometh my salvation.

I'll let you know...after I pray about it.