::: it was easier to fly slicing potatoes :::

As long as I can remember, my father has taught me fear. Don't take risks, don't take chances, don't dream dreams or trust others. Just fear. I didn't recognize it as fear when I was a child and was told that if I was ever found riding my bike on the road, it would be locked up forever. Living on a rural piece of property with no good riding land, I just never rode my bike. I wasn't allowed to spend the night with friends, go on dates or take walks. I wasn't allowed to have poor friends, black friends, hispanic friends or friends whose parents were divorced. I still had them, of course, because my dad, in spite of how much he loved me in his own way, wasn't really involved in my life.

Still, his fear branded me, instilling in me an unhealthy obsession with freak accidents and a very vivid imagination (okay, maybe God gave me the imagination, but my dad helped me with the vivid part). To this day, if one of my children has gone overseas, or over to the neighbor's house, if they are jumping on the bed or jumping on the trampoline, if they are climbing ladders or climbing trees, he's there, fretting, warning, instilling fear.

I was cutting potatoes for dinner when The Baby came running into the kitchen, her pink My Little Pony from McDonald's held firmly in her grip.

"Can I help cut potatoes?" she asked, grabbing one of the wet potatoes from the bowl. My first reaction was to tell her no, that I'm busy, that I want to get this done quickly.

And then I heard my father's voice behind me. Literally. He was sitting at the counter reading the paper, and I heard him say, "No, no, no. You'll cut yourself."

And then I remembered my grandmother, my father's mom, placing a potato in my hand long after I should have learned to cut potatoes, showing me how to cut towards my thumb, letting the blade meet the pad of my thumbprint. She taught me to peel them so that a long, unbroken string of brown peeling would fall to the counter with each peeled, naked potato.

I also remembered my husband's grandmother teaching me, long after I should have known, that potatoes need to be started in cold water when making mashed potatoes.

I took a knife from the utensil crock and handed it to The Baby. She dropped the My Little Pony on the wet countertop, taking the knife into her hand. It took a few tries to show her the right way to hold the potato, the right way to hold the knife, to keep her fingers out of the way, to angle the blade toward the pad of her own thumb, but soon she was peeling potatoes, cutting them into cubes and dropping them into the big pot full of cold water, which went onto the hot stove, and was turned into delicious whipped potatoes with browned butter, which she brought to me in a little vintage bowl and asked me to photograph.

I know that my father loves me. I know that he loves and wants to protect his grandchildren. But I will choose today not to allow my children to be bound by fear, not to let others bind them to fear, and we will both be better for it.  And maybe my father will even be better for it, too.

::: this is october :::

::: everybody's got the fever :::

Tonia at Study in Brown has a great post on the family medicine chest here. Lots of great suggestions that I already use, and lots that are new to me. So many people I know have the flu/swine flu right now. Tonia's post is so highly appropriate and full of truth, both practical and beautiful. Thanks, Tonia!

::: view from my desk :::

This is what's keeping me going today. Every time I look to the left of where I'm sitting right now, the window, filled with the image of that gorgeous silver maple tree, gives me just the amount of yellow life I need to make it through the next few minutes, and then the next, and then the next.

These days, when the days grow shorter and the skies grow gray, my energy level and patience both shrink drastically. Now more than ever I need help and encouragement from those I love, and lots of patience so that I might have some to pass on.

I don't like feeling weepy, cranky, snarky, but here it is. My vitamins and healthy eating don't seem to help. Road trips like the one we took to Niagara are just the lift I need, but how many of those can I pack in?

So I take the encouraging moments where I can get them, even if the only one I have is the view from my desk, the beautiful leaves that stored the summer sun and are holding on to it for just a little while longer. Thank you, tree. I'm glad that you are willing to share with me.

::: true story tuesday: crushed :::

In an effort to chronicle my life for my children and grandchildren, and also to hone my writing skills, I've decided to begin a weekly feature titled True Story Tuesday. In it, I will share a true story about my life.

Jimmy was one of the most handsome men in the whole world. He had wavy black hair, very big brown eyes, and the most friendly smile ever. I knew that our lives together would be very happy, and that he would treat me like a queen. Every word he spoke to me was like honey. Every look he gave me sent chills down my spine. Spending the rest of my life with Jimmy was all I could think about. I knew that I would have plenty of time to think about him, too, for the rest of my life.

Jimmy was in my first grade class.

It's so funny that a six-year-old child can have such strong romantic feelings, but I definitely did. I was very serious about Jimmy and could barely concentrate on learning my addition facts or staying inside the lines with someone as cute as he was sitting in the same room with me. And the thing about Jimmy wasn't just that he was cute. He was nice, too! He always had a polite word to say, and a nice smile on his face, and a nice answer for the teacher. There was no better word for him. He was just nice.

You would think, with as nuts about Jimmy as I was, that everyone would know how I felt. But they didn't. Not even Jimmy. He was, and remained until now, my secret crush. Sure, I've mentioned him a time or two. Why not? Jimmy and I were classmates from kindergarten all the way through graduation. But I never shared with anyone exactly how I felt about Jimmy. Not my friends, my other classmates, and especially not my parents.

As a matter of fact, I think that my relationship (or non-relationship, actually) with Jimmy was the conversation piece (or non-conversation piece, actually) that set the tone for communication (or non-communication, actually) with my parents for the rest of my life. I remember, very distinctly, sitting in my room watching T.V., because as an only child, it was totally understandable that I would have my own television in my room, and since my dad was (and still is) a T.V. junky, it only makes sense that there would be T.V.s in every room in the house, including mine. I was probably watching Sesame Street, or The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. It seems like it was evening, so I could have been watching The Brady Bunch or Sonny and Cher, too. But I remember that I was totally immersed in the show and not really interested in having a conversation. But here came my mom. And somehow, I felt very uncomfortable with her there in my room. I sensed that she was sabotaging me, somehow, and I didn't even know what that word meant when I was six years old. But there I was, and here was this uncharacteristic visit from my mother, right in the middle of one of my favorite shows. Maybe, in all fairness, she was just trying to bond with me. Maybe she had just been thinking, like I often do as a mother, that she should be spending quality time with me instead of letting me sit in my room watching hour after hour of television. But I definitely had the feeling that I was being set up. So here she was, in my room, sitting on my beanbag chair, and she was asking me about my day at school. I may be wrong, but I don't think it was the first day of school, and it wasn't like my mother at all to ask me about my day (at least not that I remember). She just wasn't a milk-and-cookies-when-you-get-home kind of mom.

After a few seconds of chit-chat about who-knows-what, she asked me.

"So...do you have any little boyfriends?"

I knew it. Sabotage. Maybe it was in the way she tried to slip into my room and be all nicey-nice. Maybe it was because of the way she worded the question, so demeaning, "any little boyfriends." Whatever it was, it totally set me off. I, even in my little six-year-old head, was offended by my mother's allusions to my immaturity and childlike silliness.

And it was at this point that I made the decision that would affect my relationship with my mother for the rest of my life.

I lied.

"No." I answered. That was it. Nothing else.

And I went back to watching The Six Million Dollar Man or Sanford and Son, or whatever I was watching. It could even have been Hawaii Five-O, because I just wasn't paying attention anymore. All I could think of was that my mom found out, somehow, about Jimmy, and that she was trying to weasel her way into my personal life, and I just wasn't about to let her.

This was a trend that continued all through my at-home years. Never, not even once, did I share with my mother about my crushes, boyfriends or even my fiances. Somehow I knew that she had some strange ulterior motive, that she was too overprotective or jealous to be trusted with such sensitive information.

I also vowed that I would never refer to my daughters' crushes as her "little boyfriends."

And I never have.

::: thrift store find :::

After finishing my shift at My Favorite Thrift Store on Friday, this pretty bedspread was hanging on the wall rack. It was marked "8.00, as is," no size given. I pulled it down and gave it a quick inspection but could only see a small yellow spot, which didn't seem to reduce the value to $8. I got it home, washed it up, and the yellow spot was gone. It turns out that it's a queen-size "Ret Rac" Chenille bedspread from Carter Bros. Unfortunately, it's not all soft and comfy like I think Chenille should be, but it looks pretty and will give my Amish quilt a break once in a while.

::: seeking the waterfall :::

As part of our Ambleside curriculum, the girls and I have been studying the world's wonders through our geography book, Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels, The Occident. Richard Halliburton is our absolute favorite geography teacher, though he's been gone from this world since 1939, shortly after The Occident was written. While reading The Occident and one of our other geography books. V.M. Hillyer's  A Child's Geography of the World, I got the itch to visit Niagara Falls. After doing a little research, I discovered that The Falls are only a five-hour drive from us and asked Bo if he'd be up for sitting behind the wheel for ten hours. It wasn't until after he'd agreed and I'd made the plans that I found out he'd never seen The Falls!

So, early Saturday morning, while 19-year-old Bard was on Fall break from University, Bo and I woke everyone (except 18-year-old Houdin, who is at Discipleship training for his trip to Africa) early in the morning and prodded them into the car for a road trip. "We'll be in the car for ten hours," we told them. "Bring a change of clothes. And comfortable shoes. And a raincoat. You might get wet!"

They were confused and thrilled as we passed first a sign for Pennsylvania, and then New York, and then, when they just couldn't take it anymore, we told them where we were going. Some were less-than-thrilled. The Baby thought we were going to a movie or an amusement park.

But once they got there, and they saw the rushing Niagara River and the absolutely breathtaking Falls, they were smitten. The winds were high as we rode the crashing waves of Horseshoe Falls on the Maid of the Mist, yanking shouts of joy and amazement from our bodies.

We got wet. Very wet. I was so thankful that we had and brought our waterproof camera. And that change of clothes!

When we all climbed back into the car for the ride home, we were exhilarated, inspired, ALIVE! A stop at Steak 'N Shake for dinner and a run to the Krispy Kreme next door (we can't get Krispy Kreme near us anymore!) made the day just about as perfect as it could get.

No car breakdowns! No major arguments! No unexpected expenses! And our randomized playlist even seemed to cooperate, throwing out songs like "Running with the Buffalo" by Peter Mayer, "Counting Road Signs" by Jonathan Reuel, "Coastline" by Brothers Creeggan, "Get On Your Boots" by U2, and "Suitcase" by Over the Rhine, and, just as we were rounding the last curves before our road at 10:45 PM, "Golden Slumbers" by The Beatles filled the van full of sleeping, sleepy and half-asleep travelers.

While the characters in Whittier's poem below didn't find the waterfall they sought, we did, and we were pleased in the seeking, as well.

Seeking of the Waterfall
~John Greenleaf Whittier

They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept--perchance a hunter's tale--
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.

Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;
But who had raised its veil, or seen
The rainbow skirts of that Undine?

They sought it where the mountain brook
Its swift way to the valley took;
Along the rugged slope they clomb,
Their guide a thread of sound and foam.

Height after height they slowly won;
The fiery javelins of the sun
Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade
With rock and vine their steps delayed.

But, through leaf-openings, now and then
They saw the cheerful homes of men,
And the great mountains with their wall
Of misty purple girdling all.

The leaves through which the glad winds blew
Shared. the wild dance the waters knew;
And where the shadows deepest fell
The wood-thrush rang his silver bell.

Fringing the stream, at every turn
Swung low the waving fronds of fern;
From stony cleft and mossy sod
Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod.

And still the water sang the sweet,
Glad song that stirred its gliding feet,
And found in rock and root the keys
Of its beguiling melodies.

Beyond, above, its signals flew
Of tossing foam the birch-trees through;
Now seen, now lost, but baffling still
The weary seekers' slackening will.

Each called to each: "Lo here! Lo there!
Its white scarf flutters in the air!"
They climbed anew; the vision fled,
To beckon higher overhead.

So toiled they up the mountain-slope
With faint and ever fainter hope;
With faint and fainter voice the brook
Still bade them listen, pause, and look.

Meanwhile below the day was done;
Above the tall peaks saw the sun
Sink, beam-shorn, to its misty set
Behind the hills of violet.

"Here ends our quest!" the seekers cried,
"The brook and rumor both have lied!
The phantom of a waterfall
Has led us at its beck and call."

But one, with years grown wiser, said
"So, always baffled, not misled,
We follow where before us runs
The vision of the shining ones.

"Not where they seem their signals fly,
Their voices while we listen die;
We cannot keep, however fleet,
The quick time of their winged feet.

"From youth to age unresting stray
These kindly mockers in our way;
Yet lead they not, the baffling elves,
To something better than themselves?

"Here, though unreached the goal we sought,
Its own reward our toil has brought:
The winding water's sounding rush,
The long note of the hermit thrush,

"The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond
And river track, and, vast, beyond
Broad meadows belted round with pines,
The grand uplift of mountain lines!

"What matter though we seek with pain
The garden of the gods in vain,
If lured thereby we climb to greet
Some wayside blossom Eden-sweet?

"To seek is better than to gain,
The fond hope dies as we attain;
Life's fairest things are those which seem,
The best is that of which we dream.

"Then let us trust our waterfall
Still flashes down its rocky wall,
With rainbow crescent curved across
Its sunlit spray from moss to moss.

"And we, forgetful of our pain,
In thought shall seek it oft again;
Shall see this aster-blossomed sod,
This sunshine of the golden-rod,

"And haply gain, through parting boughs,
Grand glimpses of great mountain brows
Cloud-turbaned, and the sharp steel sheen
Of lakes deep set in valleys green.

"So failure wins; the consequence
Of loss becomes its recompense;
And evermore the end shall tell
The unreached ideal guided well.

"Our sweet illusions only die
Fulfilling love's sure prophecy;
And every wish for better things
An undreamed beauty nearer brings.

"For fate is servitor of love;
Desire and hope and longing prove
The secret of immortal youth,
And Nature cheats us into truth.

"O kind allurers, wisely sent,
Beguiling with benign intent,
Still move us, through divine unrest,
To seek the loveliest and the best!

"Go with us when our souls go free,
And, in the clear, white light to be,
Add unto Heaven's beatitude
The old delight of seeking good!"

::: fiction friday: the pen :::

To balance my efforts in writing non-fiction on Tuesdays, I'll be exercising (exorcising?) the fictional side of my writing with Fiction Fridays. Each will be a short story, vignette or snippet. 

Enjoy!

The first words I could get out of my mouth had nothing to do with anything. He tells me now that I spoke very clearly, articulating each syllable with comedic, exaggerated mouth movements, pushing my lips forward as I formed each “o” or “ou” sound. He says now that he laughed out loud when he heard me speak, though he immediately felt guilty, because I was clearly very serious about my message. He even feels guilty about telling me all of this, though I enjoy hearing the story and ask over and over again for him to tell it. Usually, he gives me a kind of gentle scoff, then he averts his eyes, then he shakes his head. But because of my persistent begging, and because he loves me so much, and because, of course, he’s so glad to be able to see me, touch me, actually converse with me, he usually relents. Okay, he always relents. I’d like to take the humble approach and tell you that I’m not proud of the way I strong-arm him, but I’d be lying. I’m actually quite proud of that. Very pleased.

And that matters. Doesn’t everything? The time you set on your alarm clock. The amount of gas you put in your car. The kind of shoes you put on in the morning. It all matters. Some might say that even the gentle whisper of a butterfly’s wings or the innocuous flutter of a woman’s eyelashes can change the world. I might not have believed that before.

It’s funny, now that I think of it, how everything divides so neatly into “before” and “after.” Before, I wouldn’t have been the kind to strong-arm him. Before, I wouldn’t have believed that my choices, anyone’s choices, were all that important. Not on a global scale, anyway. Maybe not even on a regional scale. I wouldn’t say that I vehemently disbelieved it. I mean, I still voted, after all, so I must have believed that somehow my actions could make a difference. But I don’t think I put much mind to the little things.

And then, in my second life (Ben likes to refer to it as my second life because he says I’m a cat. I think it comforts him that I have seven more lives to go), I can’t stop thinking about how everything matters. There’s a penny on the ground. What will happen today if I pick it up? How will the course of the world be altered? What if I don’t pick it up? How will stopping for just that second--maybe even a millisecond--affect me and those around me?

And what happens, if, say, for example, a person comes through your line at the grocery store, and they neatly line up all of their purchases on the conveyor, and you greet them cordially, just like the manager wants you to do, and you mindlessly ring up every item, and you total up the order, and they dig through their purse for a checkbook before looking up at you and asking, very plainly, “Do you have a pen I could use?” Because, if you’re anything like me, you’d search the counter in vain for a pen before reaching into your hoodie pocket and pulling out your very own favorite pen, handing it over with total trust and assurance that they’re just going to use said pen, not stick it in their purse and walk away. If you’re anything like me, you probably wouldn’t even notice because the day is so monotonous and mundane that you’d forget to ask for the pen back, and you wouldn’t even think about it until it’s much too late.

How can it be too late to realize your pen has been heisted? You wouldn’t ask that if you’d lived my life, my other life, my first life. You’d know full well how a simple ball-point pen could change things. Everything.

For me, I realized that my favorite pen was gone when I reached into the pocket later that day, right after I’d made a fool of myself at the gas station, peering around the corner of the pump to check out the guy with the ’67 Volvo. Have you ever had your embarrassing mistake broadcast by a gas station attendant over the speaker system? “Attention pump #10. Your gas tank is overflowing.” And, sure enough, it was. The guy in the Volvo drove away, and I was left with a red face and a puddle of gas. The guy in the Rabbit stayed. Why didn’t I mention him? Because I didn’t notice him. But he noticed me, and there he stood, beside his rodent of a car, pumping his gas confidently and grinning, first at me, and then, after I shot him a look of indignation, at his shoes. And that would have been the end of it, except that I noticed the bumper sticker on the his car, the one that said, “Real Men Eat Maple Syrup”, and I knew that I just had to have one. Since he’d acknowledged my pathetic, gas-spilling presence anyway, I felt we’d already bridged that “I don’t know you” gap, so I asked.

“Where’d you get the bumper sticker?”
“Excuse me?”
“The bumper sticker. The one that says, ‘Real Men Eat Maple Syrup.’ Would you mind telling me where you got it?”
What I heard was, “Oh. Sure. I found it on blahblahblahsyrup.com.”
And I knew I’d never remember, so I reached in my pocket for the pen. You remember the one. The one I didn’t know I didn’t have. And, you guessed it, it wasn’t there.
“Can you, uh, can you write that down?”
“Sure. Do you have a pen?”
“In fact, I don’t.”
I’m not sure what it was that did it. Was it the way he said, “Sure?” Was it the way he leaned against his car waiting for the pump to stop? Or was it the bumper sticker itself that caused me to finally notice him? Not sure. But suddenly it was imperative that I get that website address on paper. With a quick, “Hold on,” and a quicker step, I darted for the gas station.

I didn’t see this next part, but I’ve been told how it went. Me, striding forward with single-minded purpose. Car, barreling through with absent-minded carelessness. At the crossroads, large metal motorized object meets small, human, female pedestrian. Not a good combination.

I don’t remember this next part, but I’ve been told how it went. After a rush to the emergency room and a long period of me not talking, moving or responding in any way, I fluttered my eyelashes, stared into the face of a man who somehow reminded me of buttermilk pancakes, and spoke, very clearly and with strong conviction.

“Indonesia has experienced a mighty transformation.”

That’s when Ben decided that he was in love.

As for me, I had to wait until the concussion wore off.

::: thou'st made the world too beautiful this year :::

Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide gray skies!
thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me–let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay in God’s World

::: the homework issue :::

Since Monet has made the transition from home education to private school education, there has been one major issue that has been a challenge, and that has been the issue of homework. Almost every school evening has ended in tears, both his and mine. I know this is an old story for many of you, but after home educating for almost 20 years, it's a new one for me.

If you're struggling with the homework issue, too, there is a good, clear, easy to follow article about motivating children to do homework here.   After reading it, I see a lot of areas where I can improve and help Monet achieve his goals. Up until now, I have just been hoping that the motivation for doing his homework would kick in, that he would do it because he knows he has to, and he would go from hating the homework to finding fulfillment in completing it. The article gives some excellent tips on how to help kids do the work, including setting a mandatory "study time" whether the child has homework or not. Setting aside a period of time and a quiet space of their choice for the child, plus helping them come up with an organizational method of assigning priorities to their homework assignments gives them the structure they need to get the work done. I hope to implement some of these suggestions today, and would love to hear what has worked and not worked for you, too.

::: true story tuesday: the giant who pulled my pigtails :::

In an effort to chronicle my life for my children and grandchildren, and also to hone my writing skills, I've decided to begin a weekly feature titled True Story Tuesday. In it, I will share a true story about my life.

The Giant Who Pulled My Pigtails

One of the worst things about living in rural Ohio was our very long lane. I can't even begin to count how many times I had to run to the end of that lane to catch the approaching schoolbus. Sometimes, when the icy air froze my nostrils together, my mom would wait with me in the warmth of our Volkswagen van, but most often, I was on my own. Even now, as a forty-year-old woman, I still have nightmares that I'm standing at the storm door in the front room, and I miss the bus, because I either don't have my schoolbooks together, or I'm in my Scooby Doo undies, or I don't have my hair brushed.

And having my hair brushed was a very, very big deal, so I certainly couldn't have gotten on the bus with my tresses in a tangle.

Most times, when I was very young, my mom would tame my stubbornly curly hair into two sections and pull them into pigtails on top of either side of my head. It was the only time my hair looked cute. Usually, it was a stubborn mess, a "rat's nest," as my mom would call it.

On one occasion, when I was in kindergarten, my pigtails and I took that long driveway to the end and got on that big bus full of kids who were all older than I, and I found my seat. I don't think I was particularly bratty as a little child (my pictures of me look sweet enough) but something prompted one of the eighth grade boys (who were absolutely GIGANTIC when I was five) to use my pigtails daily as a source of entertainment. I was so intimidated and afraid of losing this older kid's attention that I didn't even tell my parents that my hair was being yanked. Then again, I don't think I told my parents much at all.

But one evening, as my mom was removing the rubber bands from my pigtails, she noticed that my tender young head was red and swollen, which, believe it or not, was not a normal thing. She finally got it out of me that this big kid...let me see, what was his name...Gary, I think (I feigned, knowing his name full well), had been, once in a while, accidentally tugging on my hair a little bit. She didn't say much as she finished brushing out my rat's nest.

The next day, I rode home on the bus, as usual, and Gary may or may not have pulled my pigtail, as he normally did, and the busdriver, Gib (who was my busdriver from the time I was five until I graduated from high school) made a left turn onto Lovebury Road, just like every day. But what was very NOT normal was that, when we got to eighth-grade Gary's stop, my mother was there, at the end of eighth-grade Gary's driveway, with her hands on her hips. Wow, I thought, I wonder why my mom's picking me up here? But it turned out that my mom wasn't there for me, but for my vengeance. She stomped onto that bus. She pulled big eighth-grade Gary out of his seat. She grabbed two fistfulls of eighth-grade Gary's beautiful black hair. And she yanked. Hard. Again. And again. And again. She yanked until eighth-grade Gary screeched like a little kindergarten girl. And then she stuck her finger in that big kid's face and spoke between gritted teeth.

"If you every touch my daughter again, I'll take each of your fingers off with my teeth." And then she took me by the hand, pulled me off that bus, and walked me home.

And then she took a pair of scissors from my dad's barber kit and lopped off all of my curls, cutting my hair so short that everyone thought I was a boy, including the cute older boys that I wanted to kiss.

::: i found my thrill on chili hill :::

Every year, around the third week in October, our friends Steve and Sara host a chili supper at their home and invite all of their friends (and a few people they don't even know!) to enjoy it with them. A big pot of wood-fire cooked chili, a couple of hayrides, some hot cider, and lots of friendly faces make for a delicious event that our whole family looks forward.

This year, I baked a batch of Brown Butter Toffee Blondies from a recipe I saw on one of my favorite food blogs, honey & jam. I happened to have a big bag of toffee bits that Bo had brought home from the chocolate factory and had been wondering what to do with them, so when I saw the blondie recipe that Hannah had posted, I knew that's what I'd take to Chili Hill.

This year, Steve and Sara's eldest daughter, Laura, is a senior. Because this might be the last Chili Hill Laura, who has been accepted to West Point, will attend for a while, I wanted to get lots of photos. And that I did. :-)

::: ideals :::

"Don't let your home become some terrible miniature copy of the school.  No lesson plans!  No quizzes!  No tests!  No report cards! Even leaving your child alone would be better:  at least they could figure out some things on their own." ~John Holt

I love reading John Holt, as I was reminded by this post by Tonia from Study in Brown. It sums up what I wish for in my idealistic educational fantasy-land. Why can't I make it work in my own life? Why does that kind of life tend to end up making me feel undisciplined and borderline negligent of my children's education?

And, is it just me, or does the word "ideals" connotate naive and impossible daydreams?

::: da do run run run da do run run ::

A couple of years ago, my friend Kim and I did a little bit of running together. I slacked off. That amazing woman kept going.

Tomorrow, Kim will run the Columbus Marathon.

Say a prayer for Kim today as she prepares for tomorrow's run.

Blessings and Godspeed, Kim!

::: fiction friday :::

To balance my efforts in writing non-fiction on Tuesdays, I'll be exercising (exorcising?) the fictional side of my writing with Fiction Fridays. Each will be a short story, vignette or snippet. 


Enjoy!

Marge had been beautiful once, back when she’d been Margaret. When she’d been Margaret, her cigarette had dangled seductively from her puffy lips and the black eyeliner had run smooth across the edge of her lids. But then she’d become Margie, funny and good-looking for her age, and then she’d become what she was now, just Marge, and it was almost impossible to see either Margie or Margaret through the wrinkles, and the nicotine teeth, and the black eyeliner that skipped across her lids in a jagged, broken line, and on those cracked, brittle nails the color of epoxy that hadn’t set quite right, and the spots the sun, that same sun that had once loved her so, had left behind in brown, lumpy patterns on the back of her thin, veined hand. Yes, the sun had loved her once. Everyone had loved her once, back when she’d been Margaret.

Marge stuck out the edge of her bottom lip and forced the smoke out into the chill of the December air. It wasn’t sexy now. As a matter of fact, and even she was aware of this, it hadn’t really been sexy then. It had been ugly. It had been gross and smelly and deadly. But she’d been told it was sexy, so it made her feel sexy, and that had boosted her confidence, which had made her seem sexy. Wouldn’t it have been nice, Marge thought, if we could have found that confidence without the Capris?

Before she had been Marge, or Margie, or even Margaret, she had been Maggie, a sweet little blonde darling with corkscrew curls and big brown eyes, sitting on the arm of her daddy’s easy chair watching Tom and Jerry cartoons.

“Don’t get fat,” her daddy would say. “Don’t get big and fat like Aunt Rita. God, that woman could eat a man out of house and home. I don’t know how Uncle Bob manages to work enough to feed that woman. She must go through two packs o’ hot dogs a day, that woman.”

Maggie liked Aunt Rita. She made cinnamon rolls from scratch and called her “baby.” Her house smelled like heating coal and rising bread, and when she went to visit, Aunt Rita would always take her to church where they sang “This Little Light of Mine” and “Amazing Grace” and the preacher would ask if anyone had a sin to confess, and that now was the time to make things right with God. “Ya never know,” he would say, shaking his finger straight up in the air, “if you’ll get home tonight alive. Who knows but that you’ll get into yer car and BAM! get smashed into by a big ‘ol Mack truck until there ain’t nothin’ left of ya but yer shoes on the highway, and then yer soul will go up yonder to meet yer maker, and will it be ready? Or will the Lord shake his head ever-so-sadly and say, ‘Child, I never knew ye?’” Maggie had made things right with God every Sunday and Wednesday night that she’d gone to church with Aunt Rita, but she never did feel like her soul was ready to meet her maker, so she kept her eyes open for Mack trucks every time she climbed into Aunt Rita’s green Gremlin.

“Have you made things right with God?” Maggie had asked her daddy one Wednesday night after Aunt Rita had dropped her back home.

“God knows about me,” Daddy had answered, keeping his eyes on the t.v set. “Me and God, we got ourselves an understandin’. I leave God alone and he leaves me alone. We ain’t got no problems with each other thatta way.”
“Should me and God have an understandin’ too?” Maggie had asked, picking at the nail polish that was chipping off of her thumbnail. “I don’t wanna have no problems with God neither.”

“You’re too pretty for God to have a problem with you, little girl. Just stay pretty an’ you’ll do alright with God and with everybody else. Got that?”

And, for the most part, he’d been right. When Maggie had wanted her way, all she’d had to do was stick that lower lip out in a pout, and people would just melt. “Take a look at that face,” they’d say. “How could a person ever say no to that sad little face?” And they’d hand over the candy, and the circus tickets, and the pretty dresses.

But not Aunt Rita. Aunt Rita would say, “You stick that lip back where it belongs before I lop it off,” and she’d hold up her butcher’s knife in her pudgy fist and scowl until Maggie’s eyes widened and her pout disappeared. “That’s more like it,” Aunt Rita would purr, and hand her a cloverleaf roll, warm and smothered with half-melted sweet cream butter.

“Look at that tan!” Maggie’s daddy would say. “Look how brown you get! You’re like a little colored girl, all browned up! ‘Cept you’re so pretty and blonde.” The words thrilled and embarrassed her, but she couldn’t put her tiny finger on why.

“You do what you can to keep that little figure,” her daddy would say, puffing on his Camel. “That’s the only thing a woman’s really got is her looks. Ain’t nobody gonna hire ya or marry ya or give ya any mind unless you got the good looks. Look atcher mother and Aunt Rita. Your mother was pretty oncet. Wouldn’t know it to look at her now, but she had herself a figure. Aunt Rita, though. She’s always been a fatty. She’s always done looked like somebody beat her with the ugly stick.”

When her mama and daddy would go out for the night, Aunt Rita would keep her, would tuck her into bed, put a hand on her forehead, close her eyes tight and pray to God for Maggie’s safety. Maggie would lay there, open-eyed, and watch Aunt Rita, would see how her face shone from a scrubbing and how she smelled of Noxzema and Listerine. Aunt Rita would always tell God how much she loved him, how thankful she was for every little thing he gave to her, how she knew that she was worth more than that little sparrow at the feeder and how God wouldn’t let her fall without his knowing about it. And then she’d kiss Maggie goodnight, tuck the sheets tight around her body, and leave her in the dark guest bedroom wondering if God was still there or if he had left the room with Aunt Rita.

Marge tossed the cigarette, only half-spent, onto the ground, crushed it with the black toe of her pointed shoe and stepped away from her daddy’s grave. It would be a long walk back to Aunt Rita’s house in the December cold.