thoughts on a Friday

Random things in my head this morning.

Question: Could my feel get any more swollen and hobbit-like?

Answer: Probably. Then I'll be reduced to wearing slippers to the store (always classy) instead of any of my already uncomfortably tight shoes.

Confession: I am terrible at remembering to take off eye makeup at night. That, of course, leads to looking more like Alice Cooper than anyone really should.

Revelation: Is there anything more intriguing, beautiful, tasty and puckery (I think due to tannins) than a persimmon? My favorite has always been the Hachiya...but you see the Fuyu more often. I think it must be due to the simple fact that it's fun to say (and type) Fuyu.

person #1: "Hey, see this persimmon? It's Fuyu"

person #2: "For me?"

person #1: "Um, no."

Aaaand that's Friday folks. Still haven't gotten around to getting pictures off of the camera. Maybe before the new year?

sleep is hard

Words that are not like me to utter...ever. Seriously, I am a champion sleeper. I do NOT have trouble sleeping. It's kinda one of my things. Some people are good at a sport or a craft...I'm a good sleeper. I own it because it's what I've got. This was me for 32 years...even through the first months after adopting Cab. I didn't always get a lot of sleep, but I never had trouble sleeping.

Enter pregnancy.

I'm only at 30 weeks (yes, yes, I hear all of your voices in my head, "Oh goodness, it's right around the corner now!" Well, zip it. I know it's...he's coming. Stop stressing me out.) and things are only going to get bigger, more unwieldy and (likely) more uncomfortable.

This brings me to sleep positions. Not something I ever gave too much thought to before. I always considered myself a side sleeper with occasional back-sleep periods. I would have told you that I never sleep on my stomach. It's not comfortable and is very bad for your spine and back (true story, ask a chiropractor). I come before you today...tonight...to say that I was wrong, oh so wrong. I may have been falling asleep in a semi-side sleep position...but I was not a side sleeper. In fact, that semi-side was a stomach sleep position posing as a side. And I was really a full-on back sleeper for the majority of the night.

Where did these insights and epiphanies come from? The minute I was told I couldn't (shouldn't) sleep on my back or stomach (cue the light-bulb) it all became so very clear.

Side-sleeping is NOT comfortable, it's just not. Okay, maybe it would be if I wasn't 20 pounds heavier than normal with loosey-goosey joints that start to ache after an hour or two...maybe. There is also the whole rolling over debacle. Really folks, it IS a debacle. Here's how it goes:

1. Roll from side A onto my back
2. Pull body pillow along for the ride
3. Try to scooch over back toward side A (from whence I have just rolled) to avoid rolling onto husband
4. Roll onto side B
5. Try to get shirt and pj bottoms back in order (from the scooch) which requires much bouncing and tugging
6. Get body pillow readjusted
7. Apologize in loud whisper to husband, who is now at least 30% awake and wondering if he's been roused to check on Cab
8. Repeat every 1-2 hours
9. Add a bathroom trip every 2nd or 3rd roll

That's pretty much how it goes. And E wonders why I stay up so late.

Side-note to my whining:

This baby, this experience of pregnancy, is worth every ache, pain, discomfort or challenge. This, all of this, is what I hoped and prayed for all the while despairing that I might never know it. I thank God for blessing us and entrusting us with this baby. I also thank Him for allowing me to see the humor in it all. :)

to blog well, or not to blog well

I'm going to take a moment to ramble. I'm doing so mainly because it's my blog and I can verbally wander if I want to. Secondarily, I really don't think there's anyone out there reading much of this blog these days (or ever...hi mom, I know you're still there).

Hmm...that sounded like a pitiful, cry for attention, didn't it? Unintentionally though. I'm serious. It really doesn't bother me that this is just a place that my parents check monthly to see if I've posted any pictures of Cab. So, if there is someone out there reading, I apologize for the following...leave me a comment telling me to "zip it" if it really bothers you. :)

Aaaand begin rambling:

Since I've been home full-time I've been reading a lot of blogs out there on the internet-blogosphere thingy. Usually to do with families or cooking or crafts...that's just my bag, I guess. So many of them are well (or at least fairly well) written using wit, humor, insight, etc. Or they have some purpose, like sharing creativity...recipe inspirations, crafts, selling of crafts. It makes me contemplate my own lowly blog, which was started to humor curious friends and family about our chicken project (because I wasn't about to carry pictures of chickens around with me...but dedicate a piece of internet property to them? Yeah, I could do that). I could look back and tell you the last time I wrote anything about said chickens...but it's early and let's just say it's been quite a while. I'm at peace with it, what is a web log but a changing and morphing thing? My life has changed and morphed (radically and dramatically...is that redundant?) since the inception of this thing...how could the content not change along with it? But I digress.

Back to my bloggy thoughts. I wonder sometimes if I should make more of an effort. Spend a little more time coming up with creative posts, artistic pictures, witty and clever stories that not only entertain but plumb the depths of the psyche. I'd also have to curb my gross overuse of commas and elipses...(see?) and learn to craft a proper sentence. Conundrum.

Do I have time for such endeavors? With Cab on the brink of crawling and just (shy of) 3 months until the arrival of Peter...should I really be thinking about taking on such a challenge and commitment? It makes me think of all of the other things I should be "taking on" in my life. Perhaps stepping up my housekeeping skills, getting the house prepped for carpet, doing more spiritual reading and praying, taking more time to prepare healthy (and planned) meals...the list goes on.

It would be nice to have such a regular routine of emptying my brain for the entertainment of the masses. I think I'm not quite there though. I think I need to chip away at some of the tangible items on that list that impact our family life a little more acutely.

So, for now, I'll keep browsing and appreciating other people's blogs. Maybe someday in the future I'll be able to make something more of this little ol' blog, just not quite yet. Until then, I'll just blog as the Spirit moves me.

End ramble.

Pregnancy is...

...going to the bathroom then, while washing your hands, realizing you have to go again. :)

Playing with the look...

I want to give the blog a warmer feel...but I'm not so good with the blogger layouts...or html...or knowing how to tweak the layouts that you can find online. So, bear with me as I fiddle with everything. Hopefully I'll get it figured out.

Big picture update on Cababy coming soon.

xoxo!

The Domestic Monastery

A friend sent this to me, thanks Anne. What a beautiful meditation on our domestic church. I have felt the withdraw from society very acutely these past 6 months. Anyway, give it a read, it may speak to you the way it spoke to me. Definitely puts the daily duties into spiritual perspective. You can find the original article here.

The Domestic Monastery...

Ron Rolheiser OMI

January 7, 2001

Carlo Carretto, one of the leading spiritual writers of the past half-century, lived for more than a dozen years as a hermit in the Sahara desert. Alone, with only the Blessed Sacrament for company milking a goat for his food, and translating the bible into the local Bedouin language, he prayed for long hours by himself. Returning to Italy one day to visit his mother, he came to a startling realization: His mother, who for more than thirty years of her life had been so busy raising a family that she scarcely ever had a private minute for herself, was more contemplative than he was.

Carretto, though, was careful to draw the right lesson from this. What this taught was not that there was anything wrong with what he had been doing in living as a hermit. The lesson was rather that there was something wonderfully right about what his mother had been doing all these years as she lived the interrupted life amidst the noise and incessant demands of small children. He had been in a monastery, but so had she.

What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart (period). It is also a place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that time is not ours, but God's.

Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. John of the Cross once described the inner essence of monasticism in these words: "But they, O my God and my life, will see and experience your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus enabling themselves to experience and enjoy you." What John suggests here is that two elements make for a monastery: withdrawal from the world and bringing oneself into harmony with the mild.

Although he was speaking about the vocation of monastic monks and nuns, who physically withdraw from the world, the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries and become monks and nuns. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation. They too provide a desert for reflection.

For example, the mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is definitely monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centres of power and social importance. And she feels it. Moreover her sustained contact with young children (the mildest of the mild) gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild, that is, to attune herself to the powerlessness rather than to the powerful.

Moreover, the demands of young children also provide her with what St. Bernard, one of the great architects of monasticism, called the "monastic bell". All monasteries have a bell. Bernard, in writing his rules for monasticism, told his monks that whenever the monastic bell rang, they were to drop whatever they were doing and go immediately to the particular activity (prayer, meals, work, study, sleep) to which the bell was summoning them. He was adamant that they respond immediately, stating that if they were writing a letter they were to stop in mid-sentence when the bell rang. The idea in his mind was that when the bell called, it called you to the next task and you were to respond immediately, not because you want to, but because it's time for that task and time isn't your time, it's God's time. For him, the monastic bell was intended as a discipline to stretch the heart by always taking you beyond your own agenda to God's agenda.

Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart. For years, while raising children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. She hears the monastic bell many times during the day and she has to drop things in mid-sentence and respond, not because she wants to, but because it's time for that activity and time isn't her time, but God's time. The rest of us experience the monastic bell each morning when our alarm clock rings and we get out of bed and ready ourselves for the day, not because we want to, but because it's time.

The principles of monasticism are time-tested, saint-sanctioned, and altogether-trustworthy. But there are different kinds of monasteries, different ways of putting ourselves into harmony with the mild, and different kinds of monastic bells. Response to duty can be monastic prayer, a needy hand can be a monastic bell, and working without status and power can constitute a withdrawal into a monastery where God can meet us. The domestic can be the monastic.

Does Grape Kool-Aid Stimulate Our Shopping Urge?

Can anyone tell me why the entrance at the Issaquah Costco smells like grape Kool-Aid? Anyone. I can't figure it out.

Is it a cleaner? If so, keep it far away from kids, because it smells exactly like the beverage popular with the under 4-foot crowd.

Is it an air freshener? If that's the case, I would think there would be a more broadly-appealing fragrance.

Is it a marketing ploy to pursuade people subconsciously to buy bulk quantities of artificially flavored and colored, sugary drink mix?

I've polled the person who sits across from me and she's never experienced this phenomenon at any Costco she's been to (she doesn't shop at the Issaquah store, so could not confirm nor draw conclusions).

Anyway, let me know what your theories are and if you've experienced this as well. :)