Flying Solo

A is away for the first time since we've moved. I forgot this feeling: going to bed alone at night, trying to conjure up motivation to make meals without another adult in the house, locking the doors at night (A's job) and feeling slightly nervous, sleeping all wacky because he isn't here with his strong opinions on bedtimes and rising. Its hard to be the one behind, but its especially hard at certain times of the month. Heh.

Remember this post? Yeah, that issue is still with me. But PMS is better, I have found with a few tricks that bring some sanity.

1. Trick 1: Track my cycle. Knowing why I feel totally hopeless helps. I know I'm on drugs which means that I know a lot of this is high reactivity and not actual massive dysfunction. 
2. Trick 2: Skullcap tea helps me tremendously. If I start to feel blue or ragey or kind of hopeless sobbish, I make myself a mug and then a thermos and just nurse it for a few days. This is the one I buy. 
3. Trick 3: The third thing that helps is wearing the tracker I talked about here. Monitoring my heart rate and breathing means that it can vibrate to remind me if I'm getting too worked up which is surprisingly effective. I listen when an objective device tells me that I'm getting too wound up and maybe I should take a break. 

So, anyhow...its that time and I'm trying my tricks and they help...but its still a dark week with a lot of low energy. I don't really know how to get to the place where I understand and appreciate my cycle and hormones. They are so disruptive to me. Frustrating.

Today was beautiful, the rain took a break and the boys were fooling around in the yard, fussing about on the edges of the vegetable garden "weeding things" to help it all along. The radishes are starting to show their second leaves and we can see little arugula and bachelor's buttons too. Its an amazing thought that we can have a garden now. I could have had one before now if I had jumped on things and just begun as soon as the rain came. Next year I will know a little bit about the rhythm of things here. Everything is so topsy-turvy in my mind. The rhododendron are blooming and the peach trees but the plum trees finished a while ago and so did the cherries. Everything seems like a muddle. Its beautiful and its so fresh and I'm utterly grateful in this alien place, but it is alien. 

I had a couple of really filling connections with girlfriends right before A left town and that is carrying me. I may be stressed out and tired but I am not alone and I am loved.  I am also glad that it is only 4 days. Bit sized business trips help. But why, why, why do the kids always get sick when he leaves? Stress? Heartbreak? Sheesh. So frustrating. 

We are going to meet him downstate in Bakersfield and then drive over and see the incredible, historic superbloom happening on the desert floor in Death Valley. Never been there, and stoked to see botanical history. Botanical history + My Man = Life Saved.

Chickens and Togetherness

This week it is spring, edging into summer. The roses are opening...the lawn needs constant babysitting and we wake up every morning to birdsong and open windows. Its beautiful and chaotic and relieving and its smells amazing outdoors.

A is finally back home after nearly a month away from us on the other side of the country. Its been both ridiculously hard to have him gone (we're staying very connected emotionally) and also so amazing to find our stride and realize that we as a family can actually hack insane things like living on two coasts periodically. Pom misses his Daddy more than he ever has before when A travels and he during this trip he did things like breakdown sobbing inconsolably at the sound of his voice over the phone. Its touching to see him getting more verbal and also more clear about his own feelings and about intangible things like missing someone who isn't present: 3 years old approaches.

The chickens are laying well and may be driving the neighbors crazy with their egg calls which thankfully happen when people are mostly at work and houses in the neighborhood are empty. We have to remember to check the coop twice a day to make sure that we don't end up with any silly broody hens or egg eating, because there are always 6 a day now. I have started bringing the girls a cabbage a week to entertain them and give extra summer vitamins. I am also tossing any weeds from the garden into their pen for eating and am impressed with how much them do actually seem to be able to tear off and consume. Chickens are funny because they don't have any teeth or sharp cutting tools and are mostly adapted for eating loose seeds and small bugs that can be gulped whole or else ripping off bits of leaves attached to rooted plants. When I toss in whole weeds I think a lot of them just get trampled since when they pluck on them the whole plant comes along, but if they get into a tug-of-war everyone can actually pull off pieces and sometimes I see a hen use her foot for a tool to hold down the food and help tear it apart.

My sister Lockbox is engaged! That's the other bit of really exciting news around our house. Lots of our idle talk these days is diamond admiring, dress discussion and flower arrangement planning. So much ethereal planning to savor and witness. A wedding is a pretty deliciously cheery occasion, and more importantly I am so pleased for my sister and her man. They're so happy together and the new brother is infinitely approved of.

I have taken a season off of doing a lot of personal watercolor painting this past semester because I was teaching a middle and high school class for our homeschool co-op but now that the school year has ended...I'm free to paint by myself again! I'm so glad I taught, it was empowering (never taught art before!) and fun. I'm hoping to start back to my artist group that meets on Tuesdays this week and cannot wait to get back to the brushes. I might need a trip to the art store for more fresh paper!Yum!

Loving The Hard Work Of Things

Whoops! Its tomorrow. I truly didn't mean to stay up quite that late.

When A is gone time becomes strangely plastic for me. I am astounded, even embarrassed by how much his existence keeps me on a schedule. Somehow, knowing that he is coming home at a certain time or that he is trying to get to the gym in the morning or that he will want to eat at such and such an hour is a major motivator for me. I'm glad that I care about him and notice what he wants and needs, I'm a little concerned (hence the embarrassment) that as much as I thrive on a schedule and feel that I own my own use of routine and timing....its rather quick to fall away and become a mangled mess as soon as A is out of the house. I am finding it terribly hard to do most any of the usual things with my former vigor: getting up on time, having proper meals, making sure the kids clear the table, getting the animals fed bright and early, etc. Someone tell me this does not equate to a complete lack of moral fiber and starch on my part. Anyone?

We did manage to get the chicken coop totally finished! I forgot to take a nice shot of the finished coop....I'll have to add one later in the week. Its incredibly nice, almost absurdly nice, really. The six hens seem to have settled right in and made themselves at home. They are laying without interruption and no longer having riots at the fence and trying to all moshpit themselves out the door everytime I open the pen. I'm glad to see them so occupied and happy. They're now stationed right next to the compost pile which is giving them lots of good material to scratch about in and for a chicken....life couldn't be sweeter than living in a redwood mansion over a pile of kitchen waste. Good times abound.

The boys are doing all kinds of little handicraft projects lately. Ru has been dabbling in woodcarving after one of our recent readalouds featured a Swiss woodcarver, Dee has discovered detailed paper cutting and paper chains and Nib is really into coloring books and has started some of his first clearly representational art lately. Even Pom has begun drawing his own little crayon scribble storms on paper....and only once in Sharpie on a dining room chair which I think is a pretty good score. I would love to get all of them to do a little bit of some kind of art to use for Christmas presents this year. Have to mull over how to work it all in. So many wonderful things to make and do in the world.

Off to bed now before the gremlins get me! I've got a full day tomorrow and brand new towels that I bought myself for a treat which require a hot shower during some mama alone-time early in the morning. Somebody remind me to let go of my insane need to procrastinate and actually stay on track with my schedule tomorrow. My guitar teacher wisely quipped this past week....."one of the great keys to life is to learn to find real motivation and personal pleasure in the practice and work of life because that is most of life." I feel the need. Have to figure out how that works and what you do to switch your inner switch.

The Flip Side of Weakness

Its Single Mama Week at our house. A is pulling 9 to 5's in California and I am here, manning our urban homestead. Been reading Gladwell's, David and Goliath which is not a sacred book about the Sunday School story but a super readable social commentary on underdogs and cultural giants, power and clever thinking outside of the box. I'm really enjoying it a lot and its making me think that I should spend some time brainstorming. I'd like to through the things that I think are my shortcomings and the places where we as a family are odd or can't quite measure up and see what hidden strengths are there and also what fresh thinking can do to help me/us accomplish things that seem otherwise difficult or impossible. (Also, I now want to learn more about my Mennonite spiritual roots, the Huguenots and the Quakers. I'm a pacifist in my soul.)

Been thinking about Single Mama Week like this a bit today and yesterday. Its hard to be apart but in some ways, if we're optimistic and energetic...it can be a chance to connect more deeply. If we do what we plan we will have real conversations twice a day in special, private, kids are asleep kinds of settings. We mean to talk and hang like that in normal life but I think we actually end up being more scattered than that. A business trip is also a good chance to reboot our texting, photo sharing, spur of the moment phone calls and short love note emails. More contact in some ways means more connection, even though we aren't in the same place physically.

The other strength to being apart for a week like this is that A can get caught up on sleep and kid-free space and I can get caught up on projects. The evening time after the kids go to bed is free...I can read, I can paint, I can work on the house, I can deep clean the cellar....whatever is nagging me on my list can actually get my full attention because there's no call drop everything and watch Game of Thrones episodes with my husband. God knows I love watching Game of Thrones with my husband...I'm not complaining...I'm just saying.... Looking at the flip side of the loss means seeing what can be gained and there's always something to be gained. I am determined to think that way normally anyhow but this book is pushing me to be resourceful about how to strategize and visualize the hidden goodness of my own "losses."

Am also reading Eating On The Wild Side, which is SUPER INTERESTING nutritional data all about which foods are the most nutrient dense, which varieties are the best to grow for nutrition and even how to prepare them for the best dose of nutrients. Fascinating stuff. There's all kinds of little nuggets of info:  carrots are best eaten cooked....and its best to cook them whole and then cut them up for serving, shallots and scallions are the most nutrient dense onions and outpace bulb onions by fathoms, tomatoes release more nutrients the longer they are cooked....tomato paste is out of sight! Some of this stuff connects to the stuff in the other book. Its amazing what foods are popular and are cultural giants and yet have so little nutrition. Some of the least known and loved or the marginalized and not trendy (cabbage anyone?) are the best picks. 

Breaking my routine and reading, are my latest reminders to examine my life, my habits and my assumptions.