Preparing for Pierce

I'm exhausted but wide awake. This time tomorrow evening, I'll be basking in the afterglow of our March houseconcert--Pierce Pettis.

I'm so thrilled to host Pierce at The Sprouted Acorn--honored that he'd say "yes" to such a small venue when people of less stature than he have said no. Maybe it will help us get our foot in the door elsewhere. Bring some good music to this sleepy 5,000 horse town.

And the numbers will help, too. As of now, the count is at about 66 guests. Sixty-six! That's a whole lotta people milling around my kitchen, ya know? I'm really looking forward.

The cheesecakes are in various stages of done-ness. Fifteen-year-old Houdin made two--a milk chocolate oreo crust cheesecake and a turtle cheesecake, and I made a caramel cashew cheesecake and a chocolate cherry cheesecake, with cherries actually baked in between layers of cheesecake. Tomorrow it will be time to make my electric roaster full of lentil soup, prepare the cabin for Pierce's overnight stay, and get ready for a rush of people.

It's been a lot of work. It still will be a lot of work. But it's something I enjoy. I often wonder if I could make a living doing this houseconcert thing. Would people come? Could we make any money? Right now, 100% of ticket sales go to the artist, and we lose money every time--with food, paper products, coffee, preparing for the day, etc. But the family enjoys it, and I'm always completely floored when I sit on my couch and watch these amazing musicians fill my home with their incredible sounds.

I have to sleep. I need to sleep. Do I want to sleep? Of course not. But once I get there, I'll be glad I did.

Role with It...

Lately there have been a lot of thoughts running through my head about my role in life.

I seem to get like this specifically when I'm busy with things that pull me away from the home, like work (right now, I'm working for a local greenhouse part-time), or classes (either my kids' or my own), or volunteer work, or activities, or social gatherings. My being gone really takes a toll on the state of the house. Right now, it's a disaster area. And that causes me a lot of stress.

But being gone takes a lot of toll on me, too. What I really want is to be a home-maker. I want to be with my kids, read to them, bake things, cook meals, clean the house, do laundry.... I know, I know. It sounds so June Cleaverish. But it's true. Nothing relaxes me more than a clean, organized home, a neat yard and a bucolic barnyard full of well-cared for animals.

Unfortunately, I'm the only one in my family who really has strong desires regarding these things.

So I feel like I spend a good portion of my time fighting the inevitable messes and prodding, bribing and threatening the masses to take a look around and take a bit of inintiative and take CARE of things!

Lately, I've been feeling the pull to get me back in the house. I almost feel like I'm caught in a trap, expending time and energy at the greenhouse, forensics club, choir, and even the housecare things that take me away from home, like grocery and thrift store shopping, and I'm wondering if it's all really where God wants to have me.

I'd like to wrap up this post by saying I had a wonderfully insightful epiphany about this while showering this morning.

But I can't. Because I haven't.

Last week when we were preparing for the forensics tournament, I just felt like my life was completely out-of-control, how I spend a lot of time serving in other areas for other people, and then my own home, health and family suffer because of the time we spend away. As we were preparing to leave, The Baby, who's four, wrapped her arms around me and said, "You're leaving again? Already?" and clung to me, bursting into heartbroken sobs, begging me not to go. Yesterday, after two days of being gone for the tournament, she clung to me and continually offered me "surprises" that she had for me. She was emotional, weepy and clingy. She really needed me. And I was gone. For what? What's so important? Especially in light of the fact that my other "little girl" was four just yesterday. And now, she's seventeen.

It's a complicated thing, this life. And being a mother? Oh. My. Goodness. Pressures like I never would have imagined.

Even at the tournament, I knew that I had certain responsibilities, but I also had children who were presenting pieces and wanted me to see them. No matter which choice I made, I felt guilty. If I went to see them, I felt like I was shirking my responsibilities. If I didn't go see them and made myself available for other things, I felt guilty for not being a good mother.

I think part of it is always second-guessing myself about what I'm "supposed" to be doing. Or maybe just what I think other people think I'm *supposed* to be doing.

Like now. I'm supposed to be running, and shopping for a dryer, and buying milk for my family and another family, and dropping things off at the thrift store, and checking on the goats, and heading to the greenhouse.

But I'm here. Trying to figure our my role in life.

Have you ever struggled with this?

We Survived!

This past weekend was the forensics tournament for our homeschool forensics club, and I'm actually still alive, thankyouverymuch.

It was a long weekend, but it was exciting and eventful. Our club hosted the event, so in addition to preparing my own family for the tournament, there were meals to make, shopping and worrying to do, and preparations to...prepare. I was the Individual Event Judge Orienteer, so I had to think of all of the things that are important for judges to know when they're filling out ballots for young speakers. While I had a DVD to work with, the DVD player at the church decided that it didn't really feel like playing the DVD, so I did two of the orientations pretty much from a script, making sure to focus on all of the things that are especially important.

Some people fell asleep. And, based on the ballots my children got back, some simply didn't listen at all.

But that's okay. It was a very good experience, and, while my own children didn't place in any of the events, they debated their hearts out and had good marks for their speech presentations. From the looks of things, Bard was in 5th place going into the final round for her Programmed Oral Interp piece, had very good speaker points for debate, especially for her first tournament going against advanced debaters, and ahd decent marks on her Humorous Duo Interp piece. Houdin didn't do well in his debate rounds at all, but he received some very constructive, helpful advice on how to improve, and he did quite well in his speech events. As a matter of fact, with a bit more practice and polishing, he may even place next tournament.

Sweetheart did VERY well, and while they don't give places for her age division, she did get a certificate and candy (though her candy was stolen before she could eat it all) and she had many very good comments on her presentation. Monet, too, had excellent points and comments, and simply needs to work on annunciating more clearly.

Our club took many of the events, including first and second place HDUO, first place Impromptu Apologetics, first in Sweeps and first in Informative.

Our next tournament is in four weeks, the same weekend as Sweetheart's birthday and just a few days after mine.

Today, I really just worked on recovering. From everything. The tournament, my 8 minute running intervals, our dryer combusting, work, preparing for the tournament, and attending the tournament itself. I slept in, caught up on our houseconcert responsibilities, did laundry and enjoyed my family. We worked on speeches and ate leftover soup and read ballots and did more laundry.

And now it's time to recover from my day, so off to bed I go.

Why I love my daughter

While there are many very decent reasons for me to love my firstborn child, my dear daughter, my young genius, I've just this evening added yet another.

As we were driving home from choral practice, a trip that takes over an hour, I was enjoying her iPod's music mix--Peter Mayer, Jack Johnson, Five Iron Frenzy, U2, Chris Rice, John Mayer, Barenaked Ladies, Bob and Doug Mackenzie--and we were all bopping along to the tunes when, suddenly, a familiar melody filled the van.

"...for so long
You and me been findin' each other for so long
The feelin' that I feel for you is
Growin' stronger
Take it from me
If you give a little more than you're askin' for
Your love will turn the key..."

Yes, my darling daughter had loaded Andy Gibb's "Everything" onto her iPod. My eldest son, soon-to-be sixteen-year-old Houdin, could sing the words AND hit the notes.

Of course I thanked Bard for the wonderful gift. She tells me there's more. Tune in next week to hear what other blasts from the past my daughter will share with me.

My heart is still going "pitter-pat."

Couch Potato to 5K: Hit the Road!

Kim and I hit the trail on Friday morning. I wasn't really up for running and had planned to slowly acclimate to the trail with a nice, brisk 3 mile walk. Kim had other plans. She arrived with stopwatch in hand, encouraging me to get back into the swing.

It wasn't all that bad, save the nagging nausea that seems to attack partway through the first leg of my run. I've done a bit of reading, and, apparently, that's just from being out of shape. I've tried eating and not eating, both with the same result, so it seems that I simply need to keep at it and the nausea will abate.

The schedule:

5 min run
4 min walk
5 min run
4 min walk
5 min run
Walk the remainder of the 3.3 miles (or so)

Today, I decided to run on my country road. It wasn't all that bad, and even the small hills were okay to tackle. I took it very, very slowly, jogged .6 of a mile, walked a minute or two, then jogged .5 mile. I was sweaty and it was definitely enough of a workout for me, but I hope to get up to jogging the whole thing, then adding to it.

Interestingly enough, I was most concerned about what the neighbors would think of the "crazy English woman" running on the road. I guess if I do it long enough, we'll all get used to it.

Tomorrow, it's off to the trail with Kim again. I'll try for 8 minutes of jogging. I think I'm ready for the push.

::: what a month! :::

My first instinct is to tell you what a terrible month it's been. I mean, if these things happened to you, you'd probably think it pretty terrible, too.

After all, it's not everyday that you see your life flash before your eyes. That kind of thing tends to happen when you're taking a trip, round a dark corner in your minivan stuffed with all of your children, half of their belongings, and your husband at the helm and suddenly become blinded by the oncoming headlights of a semi-truck. In our case, the occupants of our vehicle became silent. Wide-eyed and silent. As if that weren't scary enough, once the semi-driver realized that he was in our lane, approaching our vehicle in a very wrong way, he jerked himself back into his lane, leaving his trailer to struggle to follow suit around the curve. I watched as our lane grew more and more narrow, the semi-trailer approaching on our left, a steep drop-off and dense forest loomin on our right. My husband kept his wits, drove steady-on, and we were soon (though it felt like years) on the other side of the whole ordeal, breathing deeply and fighting the urge to vomit. After I was able to speak, I asked Bo, "What were your thoughts just then?"

"I knew it was over. I knew it would be quick and no one would be left behind. A truck hitting us at 60 is like hitting a brick wall at 120. It would have happened very quickly and painlessly."

"Then after the cab passed, what did you think then?"

"Then I was scared. We'd either hit the trailer, or we'd go off into the trees. And that...that would have been painful."

The rest of the drive to my sister-in-law's house was relatively uneventful, but those few moments kept my heart racing and my mind turning.

These are the kinds of moments that have peppered the last few weeks. A missing toddler; an emergency brake that didn't release and cost over $700 in repairs; triplet kids born to a nanny goat who decided that one of them wasn't worth worrying about so she rejected it, leaving it to die; time on the treadmill that made it feel like I'd been regressing instead of progressing; an close to midnight discovery of a fire in our laundry room that almost burned out of control and could have taken our whole house.

All of this packed into less than a month. Less than three weeks, actually.

And my first reaction is to tell you how horrible these three weeks have been.

But I can't do that, can I?

Because the semi-truck missed us. The toddler was found. The brakes didn't give out until we got home from Cincinatti. The goat kid was brought to health thanks to a very knowledgeable friend and goat-lover. I was able to hit the trail instead of the treadmill and do better than I'd thought I would. My husband was able to put out the fire, and only a dryer and a few items of clothing were lost.

In addition, we didn't owe money in income tax. Neither did our daughter, or my live-in father. We actually got money back! I've begun working at the greenhouse, and my first paycheck went towards paying for the brake repairs. A distant family member sent $1300 for the children's education, just in time to make a decision about Bard's trip to Germany this summer, though the family member knew nothing about the Germany trip. And several people have sent Bard money for her trip, so she will indeed get to go. Bo turned forty, and his family gave him a wonderful surprise party, blessing him with their time and gifts.

How can I focus on the near-tragedies, when God has made them all into miracles?

It's been a fabulous month, and I thank God for it.

Drawing of the church by Monet when he was 9.

Playing at a Thrift Store Near YOU

Okay, so it may not be near you, but if it is, stop into my favorite thrift store (if you know me, you know where it is. If you're a stalker, get lost) this Saturday and see Almost Dublin Over, a Celtic group featuring my good friend Linda, her daughter E. and my dear husband Bo. Should be a rockin' time.