In the spirit of "Common, everyone ELSE is doing it..." I am commencing my list of 103 things you may not know about me.
1. I rarely finish anything. This may be a list of 54 things you may not know about me. Or 13.
2. I am afraid of the dark. Really.
3. My secret vices are fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies (okay, that's not a secret!) and The Simpsons.
4. I know the words to virtually every Barry Manilow song ever written. And I can sing them to you upon demand. This request is not something, oddly enough, that happens often...
5. I am a professional musician. Or rather, I WAS, in a former life. (Like, when I HAD a life!) You can read about that here.
6. I read about six-eight books at a time on average. I finish about 40% of them. There's a lot of poorly written CRAP out there...
7. If I could do anything, I would find a way to become independently wealthy so we could travel the world and see all there is to see. I have a longing to travel that is unfortunately not matched by our budget.
8. I bait my own hook. I have also gutted my own fish, caught a snake, and held multiple frogs. I cannot, however, stand to clean off someone else's plate to put it in the dishwasher. GROSS.
9. I am a Trekie. Hold your laughter.
10. My husband has recently gotten me hooked on the new Battlestar Galactica. NOW you may laugh.
11. I love to watch cooking shows and read recipe books. I said once to a friend that I "read recipes like romance novels." She didn't get it. But I know some of you do!
12. I talk in my sleep. According to my husband, I am completely nonsensical.
13. I am a neat-freak, but not a clean-freak. I pick up the house daily. I dust quarterly.
14. I wanted to be the next Sandi Patti. Really. (I can't believe I'm sharing THAT one...)
15. I also wanted to be the next Amy Grant.
16. I do a pretty good imitation of both. Again, not many requests for either these days...
17. The ideal year, to me, would be for there to be spring (sunny and 75) until the beginning of June, then fall (sunny and 75) until the middle of November, and then it could snow from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day and then start all over again.
18. I drink my tea with cream. Or, at least I did until I started this new diet.
19. I abhor meatloaf, peas, lima beans, and pot roast.
20. I have been known to eat cereal three meals a day.
21. I make "happy eating noises" when I am enjoying a particularly good meal.
22. I do not like to share my food. I am worse than a dog. I have actually GROWLED at my husband. And my children, well...
23. I love baby-butts. I think they are the cutest things in the world.
24. I have peed in the woods and lived to tell about it. (And not dribbled on my shoes!)
Gotta get to work... maybe more later, maybe not!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
gains and losses
I knew better, but I did it anyway. At some point this morning the voice of reason was drowned out by the voice of immediate gratification, and I went ahead and did it. For the third time this week. And the outcome hasn’t gotten any better.
The reassurance I sought as my feet met cold metal was replaced with despair. A beep, a whir, and a blinking number. 144.0 … 144.0 … 144.0 … 144.0 I slunk down off the scale, my thoughts racing, and began to prepare for the morning ahead.
Crap, I thought, digging through my fat clothes yet another time. What the heck? I’ve been on this diet almost two weeks now—the scale is supposed to be going DOWN, not up! I tried to quiet the tirade, to no avail. Why won’t my body do what it’s supposed to? I’m following the diet perfectly—how the heck did I GAIN two pounds over the last few days? The food itself couldn’t have even weighed that much! MAN I hate this…
I laid the clothes on the bed, remembering it was a work-out morning. Hearing the kids playing peacefully below, I decided to boot up the computer and email one of my “talk me down off the ledge” friends. “Tell me I can do this,” I pleaded with her. “Tell me this is going to work. And tell me to stop getting on this stupid scale!”
Of course, she’s told me all of this before, many a time. But listening is not my forté. Being impulsive and neurotic is. Fortunately, she is not put off by my neuroticism, though I would not blame her, after seven years of listening to the same ol’ same ol’, if she finally told me to just shut the heck up and get over it. But, of course, I wouldn’t listen to that, either.
These last ten pounds have been the bane of my existence for, oh, I dunno, about two or three years now. But the weight itself, well, that has been a lifelong preoccupation. Another of my “talk me down off the ledge” friends reminds me with great regularity that it’s all about perspective. I’ve lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for several years now—who cares about the last ten pounds?
I care about the last ten pounds. Despite my best efforts, I care very much. Not because of the number on the scale, but because of how my clothes fit. Because of how my body feels when it gets there. Because of how my body looks when it gets there. And ultimately because of what that number represents.
The moment I first became aware of my body a life-long tug-of-war began internally and hasn’t let up since. I have cursed my body. I have hated my body. I have tortured, tricked, treated, and tormented my body. But I have never once, in 37 years, come to trust my body. That is, perhaps, the greatest loss of all.
I have gained strength, I have lost weight. I have lost self-control, I have gained muscle. I have gained confidence, I have lost hope. I have lost flab, I have gained perspective. My husband has weighed a steady 118 lbs since the day we met. His attitude toward his weight remains likewise unchanged. I am not as fortunate. For me, life with my body is a constant roller coaster of gains and losses. Perhaps one day I will be at peace with this fact.
Perhaps one day.
The reassurance I sought as my feet met cold metal was replaced with despair. A beep, a whir, and a blinking number. 144.0 … 144.0 … 144.0 … 144.0 I slunk down off the scale, my thoughts racing, and began to prepare for the morning ahead.
Crap, I thought, digging through my fat clothes yet another time. What the heck? I’ve been on this diet almost two weeks now—the scale is supposed to be going DOWN, not up! I tried to quiet the tirade, to no avail. Why won’t my body do what it’s supposed to? I’m following the diet perfectly—how the heck did I GAIN two pounds over the last few days? The food itself couldn’t have even weighed that much! MAN I hate this…
I laid the clothes on the bed, remembering it was a work-out morning. Hearing the kids playing peacefully below, I decided to boot up the computer and email one of my “talk me down off the ledge” friends. “Tell me I can do this,” I pleaded with her. “Tell me this is going to work. And tell me to stop getting on this stupid scale!”
Of course, she’s told me all of this before, many a time. But listening is not my forté. Being impulsive and neurotic is. Fortunately, she is not put off by my neuroticism, though I would not blame her, after seven years of listening to the same ol’ same ol’, if she finally told me to just shut the heck up and get over it. But, of course, I wouldn’t listen to that, either.
These last ten pounds have been the bane of my existence for, oh, I dunno, about two or three years now. But the weight itself, well, that has been a lifelong preoccupation. Another of my “talk me down off the ledge” friends reminds me with great regularity that it’s all about perspective. I’ve lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for several years now—who cares about the last ten pounds?
I care about the last ten pounds. Despite my best efforts, I care very much. Not because of the number on the scale, but because of how my clothes fit. Because of how my body feels when it gets there. Because of how my body looks when it gets there. And ultimately because of what that number represents.
The moment I first became aware of my body a life-long tug-of-war began internally and hasn’t let up since. I have cursed my body. I have hated my body. I have tortured, tricked, treated, and tormented my body. But I have never once, in 37 years, come to trust my body. That is, perhaps, the greatest loss of all.
I have gained strength, I have lost weight. I have lost self-control, I have gained muscle. I have gained confidence, I have lost hope. I have lost flab, I have gained perspective. My husband has weighed a steady 118 lbs since the day we met. His attitude toward his weight remains likewise unchanged. I am not as fortunate. For me, life with my body is a constant roller coaster of gains and losses. Perhaps one day I will be at peace with this fact.
Perhaps one day.
Monday, February 25, 2008
fear or trust?
I've posted this quote once before, but it strikes a chord with where I am currently, so I decided to post it again:
Writing...I've discovered, has much in common with resolving weight issues. You can proceed from the fear that unless you force yourself to do it, you won't. Or you can proceed from the belief that you want to do it, and will, but that doing it may sometimes look like not doing it. One way is as difficult as the other; both require perseverance and commitment. The way you choose depends on how you want to live. You can fear yourself or you can trust yourself.
Geneen Roth
"...doing it may sometimes look like not doing it..."
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I can't say it any better.
Writing...I've discovered, has much in common with resolving weight issues. You can proceed from the fear that unless you force yourself to do it, you won't. Or you can proceed from the belief that you want to do it, and will, but that doing it may sometimes look like not doing it. One way is as difficult as the other; both require perseverance and commitment. The way you choose depends on how you want to live. You can fear yourself or you can trust yourself.
Geneen Roth
"...doing it may sometimes look like not doing it..."
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I can't say it any better.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
stormy weather: a haiku
The surface reflects
clear blue skies and sunny smiles
to the passing glance.
But underlying
currents run deep and dark and
strong—poorly hidden
from those well-knowing,
who see the storm clouds gather,
threatening rain clouds.
clear blue skies and sunny smiles
to the passing glance.
But underlying
currents run deep and dark and
strong—poorly hidden
from those well-knowing,
who see the storm clouds gather,
threatening rain clouds.
Friday, February 22, 2008
the stats say it all...
"When are you going to post again?" he asks me. Every time he sees me. It's endearing, in a guilt-inducing sort of way. It wouldn't bother me so much, were it not for the fact that I am particularly prone to guilt.
He is the same one who innocuously asks in writer's group this week whether or not we write because we love to write or because we want to be published. I sit back in my chair, caught off gaurd by the emotion his question stirs within me. Later I return home and check out the blog of a friend I have been remiss in reading, to discover that in my absence she has joined the blog365 movement and is truckin' along at a post per day. Again this stirring. I do not care for stirring. Not here. Not now. Not ever, as of late.
As for me, well, I've been a part of the blog-once-every-few-months-movement here lately. Fourty-five whopping posts in 2007. What does that say? I don't know, other than "my husband is in grad school and I don't have a single, solitary moment to myself and it's beginning to wear on me." But it's there, every night--that same stirring, that same draw to the computer, that same guilt, that same tension. As I am not one for dealing with emotion lately, avoiding it all has been my m.o. But a handful of you, thankfully, are not content to allow me to continue in that avoidance. And so, here I am.
At some point, for me, writing and blogging became synonomous. That was a mistake. Rather than being about "I have a neat thought/quote/picture to share," it became about needing to post because I was "expected" to post. And while I don't disdain that for others, it is not working well, apparently, for me. It began to create pressure. The pressure to post, to read, to comment, to keep up, to out-do. Too much pressure in a life already stretched tight. I dealt with it by laying down my laptop.
But therein lies the tension. The desire to write is still there. And the desire to have an audience for that writing is even greater. And so, while other friends have chosen to deal with this same quandry by giving up the blog, I am uncertain that is the path for me. Because while I want to believe that I really write just for the sheer joy of writing, the truth is that the joy, for me, comes in the sharing. And at this point in my life, this is the only available outlet from which to share.
And so share I will. I've made a few minor changes to the layout because I was bored, as was my pestering friend. If they are hideous, please let me know. What this writing thing will look like as this winter season approaches an end and graduation rounds the corner is uncertain. But what I am certain of is this--this will be a writing thing, not a blogging thing. And so my promise to myself is this--I will write. I will read. I will take pictures. And as I have the time, I will share them.
Because I need to. And because my friend won't leave me alone if I don't.
He is the same one who innocuously asks in writer's group this week whether or not we write because we love to write or because we want to be published. I sit back in my chair, caught off gaurd by the emotion his question stirs within me. Later I return home and check out the blog of a friend I have been remiss in reading, to discover that in my absence she has joined the blog365 movement and is truckin' along at a post per day. Again this stirring. I do not care for stirring. Not here. Not now. Not ever, as of late.
As for me, well, I've been a part of the blog-once-every-few-months-movement here lately. Fourty-five whopping posts in 2007. What does that say? I don't know, other than "my husband is in grad school and I don't have a single, solitary moment to myself and it's beginning to wear on me." But it's there, every night--that same stirring, that same draw to the computer, that same guilt, that same tension. As I am not one for dealing with emotion lately, avoiding it all has been my m.o. But a handful of you, thankfully, are not content to allow me to continue in that avoidance. And so, here I am.
At some point, for me, writing and blogging became synonomous. That was a mistake. Rather than being about "I have a neat thought/quote/picture to share," it became about needing to post because I was "expected" to post. And while I don't disdain that for others, it is not working well, apparently, for me. It began to create pressure. The pressure to post, to read, to comment, to keep up, to out-do. Too much pressure in a life already stretched tight. I dealt with it by laying down my laptop.
But therein lies the tension. The desire to write is still there. And the desire to have an audience for that writing is even greater. And so, while other friends have chosen to deal with this same quandry by giving up the blog, I am uncertain that is the path for me. Because while I want to believe that I really write just for the sheer joy of writing, the truth is that the joy, for me, comes in the sharing. And at this point in my life, this is the only available outlet from which to share.
And so share I will. I've made a few minor changes to the layout because I was bored, as was my pestering friend. If they are hideous, please let me know. What this writing thing will look like as this winter season approaches an end and graduation rounds the corner is uncertain. But what I am certain of is this--this will be a writing thing, not a blogging thing. And so my promise to myself is this--I will write. I will read. I will take pictures. And as I have the time, I will share them.
Because I need to. And because my friend won't leave me alone if I don't.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
not writing
It has been over two months since I’ve sat down at my computer with the intention of writing. Two months since I‘ve tried to put words to that which most often goes unspoken in my life. Two months since I have last invited my creativity to come out and play, to reboot from its idle status, to come up for air and fill its lungs with life-giving oxygen. The keyboard feels foreign under my awkward fingertips. Two months is a long time.
I’ve forgotten how to balance my laptop on one knee from my perch on the couch in the living room. I’ve forgotten how it was that I used to look at the world when I was writing regularly. I’ve forgotten that it is necessary to barricade the cat in another room when planning a creative endeavor. Will it all come back to me? Will it have the opportunity?
More importantly, will I allow it?
The excuses for not writing are numerous. I have young children. I have a career. I have a hang nail. I need to get through my email. I need to deal with the kitchen. I need to eat my way through the kitchen. I need to pick up the slack that my husband used to pick up in his pre-graduate school days. I need to slack off after too much picking up the slack. They all hit the floor with a hollow “ping,” bouncing and scattering into dusty, dark corners, unable to be retrieved. As with most excuses, they don’t have much weight to them.
The truth is, I could find the time to write if I really wanted to. I would make the time to write if I really wanted to. And I would really want to, if I weren’t so damn scared by the whole thing.
I’m beyond caring what other people think of my writing. That boogey man doesn’t scare me anymore—I’ve written enough and grown enough and read enough in the last few years of writing to know that I do alright, and I’ll find an audience as long as there are other women out there who struggle with mommy guilt and spiritual angst and an addiction to chocolate chip cookies. I’m not afraid to put it out there.
I’m afraid, I believe, to look at what’s in there. That’s why I’m writing tonight about not writing—because it’s safer than writing about the fact that I lost ten pounds and gained it all right back within a month because my appetite is insatiable for all things sweet and high in carbohydrates. It is safer than writing about learning to unentangle myself emotionally from my daughter so as to avoid being the primary topic of therapy in her twenties. And it is safer than writing about the low-lying gray cloud that settled in over our house about a month before my husband started graduate school and hasn’t budged an inch in almost a full year.
When I sit down to write, I typically open up the junk drawer that is my life and rustle around inside until I determine which item to pull out and put away. Usually it’s a little angst-gadget here, a little ball of neuroticism there, and a humor-ma-bobbie or two thrown in for good measure. But not lately. Lately, my life feels less like a junk drawer and more like the proverbial monsters-lurking-within closet. Vices and habits and hang-ups and heart-breaks loom larger-than-life, and, to be frank, I don’t want to open the door.
Of course, opening the door is what I need to do. Of course. I am a counselor. I know this. I tell lots of other people, in my smug, confident, counselor-voice, “My dear, you need to open that door.” They nod, “Yes, Lorie. I need to open that door. I will open that door.” And miraculously, some of them even go off and do it. Truly. And I am forever in awe.
I have opened doors. I have closed doors. I have purged closets and junk drawers alike, and have worked to have a place for everything and everything in its place. But sometimes I get tired, just as I do within my home, of continually re-straightening that with which I thought I was already done. And so I avoid closets like the plague, and refuse to sit down at my computer, turning instead to inane tasks or pleasurable reads, trying to take my mind off that which my mind will not be taken off of.
Tonight, if only for a moment, the running stops. I have closed the bedroom door behind me, and for the next two hours, it’s just me and whatever is lurking behind that door. And after I’ve wrestled a while, if I have any bravery and energy left, I’ll write about it.
In about two more months…
Sunday, August 26, 2007
significantly confused
I didn’t know whether to stand up or not.
I sat there for a moment, listening to the pastor’s call for prayer, feeling the tears threaten but not fully understanding why. “I’m not really a stay-at-home mom,” I thought. “I work part time. The call is for stay-at-home mothers.” The tension within me grew as he continued, speaking the truth that I knew so many of my friends needed to hear—that staying home and wiping noses and packing lunches and practicing math facts is significant. That there is worth in the thousands of little sacrifices they were making every single day. That the job they were doing has infinite value. It was a tender, much-needed call for prayer—I just didn’t know if it was for me.
It was a tension I was very familiar with, having dealt with it from the time my first child was six weeks old and I returned to my part time counseling practice. I had the “best of both worlds,” my friends would say. I had three days per week home with my children, but I had two or three days each week of meaningful and significant work (translated as ADULT CONVERSATION) to “get me through.” And though it was not my choice—we needed my income to make ends meet no matter how modestly we tried to live—it did indeed seem to be ideal. The problem was I was both a stay-at-home mom and a working mother, and I didn’t fully fit in either opposing camp.
Nor did I feel I was able to do either one adequately because of the other. What others considered the “best of both worlds” was a constant struggle of having a little bit of both but not fully enough of either. Paying bills and doing laundry and playing “Super Cat” takes time—when your week is short two or three days, time is of a premium. Something has to go. Utility companies tend to want to get paid. Super Cat suffers. Guilt ensues.
Women around me were beginning to stand. I hesitated. “What if someone thinks I’m not really a stay-at-home mom because I work here at the church?” I realized, albeit much later, how ridiculous this was—as if working two or three days a week disqualified me from needing prayer for the other three days. “What if someone thinks I shouldn’t be standing?” I stood up.
Friends tell me sometimes they wish they were working, too, so that they felt they were doing something more significant. Friends who are working tell me they wish their job were more like mine, so that they felt they were doing something more significant. And the truth be told, I love my job for that very reason. What I do matters. Not everyone can say that. But there is a trap hidden within that significance, and as I was being prayed for that morning, God began to reveal it.
The tears that merely threatened earlier began to flow of their own accord. I had been convicted—of believing that what I do outside of the home is more significant than what I do within. Of wishing away my time while at one in a longing to be at the other. Of not always giving the best of myself to my children. I, too, had fallen into the trap. I, too, believed somewhere in my mind that motherhood was somehow a lesser calling. I, too, needed prayer.
I prayed that morning, as I stood in my rightful place accepting the blessing I so desperately needed, that the Lord would help me to truly see—packing lunches is significant. Answering my son’s fifty questions when I’m walking and would rather listen to my worship music is significant. Paying the bills is significant. Making jewelry with my daughter is significant. Reading an extra chapter before bedtime when I’d rather get started on my own book is significant. Play dough is significant. Sidewalk chalk is significant. Super Cat is significant.
I am a part-time stay-at-home mom, and that is significant.
I sat there for a moment, listening to the pastor’s call for prayer, feeling the tears threaten but not fully understanding why. “I’m not really a stay-at-home mom,” I thought. “I work part time. The call is for stay-at-home mothers.” The tension within me grew as he continued, speaking the truth that I knew so many of my friends needed to hear—that staying home and wiping noses and packing lunches and practicing math facts is significant. That there is worth in the thousands of little sacrifices they were making every single day. That the job they were doing has infinite value. It was a tender, much-needed call for prayer—I just didn’t know if it was for me.
It was a tension I was very familiar with, having dealt with it from the time my first child was six weeks old and I returned to my part time counseling practice. I had the “best of both worlds,” my friends would say. I had three days per week home with my children, but I had two or three days each week of meaningful and significant work (translated as ADULT CONVERSATION) to “get me through.” And though it was not my choice—we needed my income to make ends meet no matter how modestly we tried to live—it did indeed seem to be ideal. The problem was I was both a stay-at-home mom and a working mother, and I didn’t fully fit in either opposing camp.
Nor did I feel I was able to do either one adequately because of the other. What others considered the “best of both worlds” was a constant struggle of having a little bit of both but not fully enough of either. Paying bills and doing laundry and playing “Super Cat” takes time—when your week is short two or three days, time is of a premium. Something has to go. Utility companies tend to want to get paid. Super Cat suffers. Guilt ensues.
Women around me were beginning to stand. I hesitated. “What if someone thinks I’m not really a stay-at-home mom because I work here at the church?” I realized, albeit much later, how ridiculous this was—as if working two or three days a week disqualified me from needing prayer for the other three days. “What if someone thinks I shouldn’t be standing?” I stood up.
Friends tell me sometimes they wish they were working, too, so that they felt they were doing something more significant. Friends who are working tell me they wish their job were more like mine, so that they felt they were doing something more significant. And the truth be told, I love my job for that very reason. What I do matters. Not everyone can say that. But there is a trap hidden within that significance, and as I was being prayed for that morning, God began to reveal it.
The tears that merely threatened earlier began to flow of their own accord. I had been convicted—of believing that what I do outside of the home is more significant than what I do within. Of wishing away my time while at one in a longing to be at the other. Of not always giving the best of myself to my children. I, too, had fallen into the trap. I, too, believed somewhere in my mind that motherhood was somehow a lesser calling. I, too, needed prayer.
I prayed that morning, as I stood in my rightful place accepting the blessing I so desperately needed, that the Lord would help me to truly see—packing lunches is significant. Answering my son’s fifty questions when I’m walking and would rather listen to my worship music is significant. Paying the bills is significant. Making jewelry with my daughter is significant. Reading an extra chapter before bedtime when I’d rather get started on my own book is significant. Play dough is significant. Sidewalk chalk is significant. Super Cat is significant.
I am a part-time stay-at-home mom, and that is significant.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
last day of summer...
at the beach with the kaufman cousins--was sunny when we got there. within an hour it was as dark as night and STORMING! so much for the beach!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
hangin' around with buster brown
i promised my daughter some pictures of what we've been up to while she's been visiting grandma. here they are!
miss ya, bub! hope you're having a great time!
love, momma
just being artsy
i was lying on my back in the "ambulance" and this caught my eye--i like the way it turned out. i hope it translates onto other screens as well.
the spirit of life
this was created by a holocaust survivor and sits downtown by the river. check it out--it's beautiful.
a love of color
I've been saying for years I wanted to get some pictures of this thingwith the sun shining on it. Yesterday was the day!
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