Wearing Two Hats At Once

This week I playing professional mommy and home mommy at once. I'll be in San Francisco for two whole days for a training conference for a homeschool public speaking gig that I started last summer. I am super stoked and enjoying the whole adventure of an outlet, a chance to put on a little polish and step into some different shoes. Its also so incredibly empowering to go have get-togethers with organizer go-getters who have all self-selected into a room full of energy driven, life loving, spur each other on power. I love the buzz in the room. I love that no question is too wordy or obscure or intellectual. I love that everyone wants to be there and is invested. Also, nobody follows me into my bathroom stall or puts Legos on my plate while I am eating, which is kind of novel and fantastic. I was even thinking happily of the 5 hours I will spend commuting back and forth (I am driving back and forth in the mornings and evenings) and realizing that I in no way dread that time either. I have audio books, sisters to call, mental space that is just waiting for me and all of that time will be a gift.

I was talking to another mom today and mulling over why in the world I would be making the crazy choice to drive back and forth when there will be hotel accommodations provided. It sounds massively inefficient and kind of illogical at surface value but, as a mama I have to say that it seems quite worth it to drive all that way so that I can tuck my kids in at night after they have been playing their friend's house all day. Its worth it to be able to kiss them goodbye in the morning and zip their hoodies myself, after I put all their yogurt dishes in the sink. Even a tiny amount of contact and continuity will carry us and will keep the kids feeling loved and seen in a small measure. I have also learned that I need all the hugs that we share, I need to be with my husband when he gets home from work and to savor the delicious letdown of the quiet house and slipping into bed together for a little pillow talk before sleep. It feels good to be known and seen and connected to those who love you. I also love little things like watering my own houseplants, making space to be barefoot in the backyard for five minutes alone, and putting a roast in the oven for dinner later that night.

 I am also imagining that contact with my normal life and with my kids will keep me grounded in my training. I have a tendency to live utterly in what I am currently learning....in good and bad ways. I see all the trees and forget the forest even exists. I get excited about the ideas and plans I am learning and don't keep planning, home life and self-care in the viewfinder, I also get overwhelmed and intimidated by the grandness of what I encountering and have trouble chunking, right-sizing and staying in the moment. Kids are amazing at keeping you right where you have to be. You learn to spend far more time than you would ever imagine sitting patiently waiting for a shoe to be tied, you learn how very many steps there are to washing hands and how easy it is to forget any of the parts and you learn exactly how pungent a hug is and very much it matters when you make eye contact with an earnest question. These things keep me learning, they keep me stable and they keep me tethered. Its not all some kind of delirious dulcet cocktail though, sometimes these are bitter lessons that I grind through...remembering with some embarrassment and a bit of honest failure exactly where I am. Lest I get to grandiose about my speaker self, the boys and my husband are there with needs like runny noses and fresh underwear to keep me realizing that no matter what intellectual things I offer or achieve, I have to keep myself strung into the action of community and connection, even in the small humble ways and build my character alongside my brain. So here we go!
Speaker Me + Homemaker Me = Real Me

Designing to Distraction

I cannot seem to bring myself to have the gumption to sit down and blog regularly this week. Am forever dashing off on wild tangential projects or slumping down into a chair with a book, a snuggly kid and no ambition. There is no steady, responsible in between at the moment. I am sans equilibrium. I think part of the issue is that although far from my own due date, my sisters-in-laws are all delivering their three babies like a string of dominoes...or at least we all expect them to. Only one baby has been sighted so far! It puts me in a very distracted frame of mind. I check and re-check my email and decide not to make the bed and feel overwhelmed by the idea of coming up with a lunch and then check my email again. Useful, eh?

Image via Wikipedia

To shake things up, I enrolled in an interior design class. Ahhh!!!!! I spent the days leading up to my first class meeting alternately freaking out (Why did I sign up for this thing? I am going to be the class dunce!!!!) and pretending that it wasn't really happening (What supplies I'm supposed to have by tomorrow?). And then I really went and it was good. Better than good. It was fantastic and inspiring and I didn't want to go home. I spent the next hour buzzed, standing electrified in Barnes and Noble flipping through home decor magazines and design books and then drove home with the window open listening to electronica in the wired night air. Am feeling like I may figure out how to crack design after all. I have a feeling this class could lead to others. So exciting to feel empowered and hopeful about such a luminous and baffling subject. Am rubber cementing together mood boards for all the rooms in the house.......fabric swatches, paint chips and magazine bits abound!

Interior Design Magazine (Photo credit: Associated Fabrication)

 On the heels of my interior arts class I am starting to feel the first stirrings of spring, the first magnetic pull towards my garden and there is suddenly design spillover from my class to the yard! Huzzah! May I conquer all things....(unless all things means the dishes or the laundry...now hindered by our broken washer). I am not feeling so starched about the seams that I feel up to tackling the front yard which I basically blank of all design at this point and needs major visionary help. I still feel like I need my landscape designer friend's handholding to pull that off but I feel up to tweaking and filling beds that already exist in the back and simply need some polish. So far I've done two of them in rather slopping, kindergarden style but hey....they're done and I've feeling excited about watching for annual season at my local nursery in a couple of months.

 So, that's what I'm doing this week, designing things in a somewhat frenetic manner. Hope your week is going well and that you are managing the balance between dejected apathy and pulsing mania better than I. Happy Thursday!