Little Moment in the Manic Rush

We just had a crazy, wild, we're-certifiably-insane kind of high speed visit to Michigan over the weekend. Baby arriving in the middle of the year will mean that we would have had a rather long time between visits with our parents this year. Not quite winter to winter but close. SO, we decided to do the ridiculous and improbable and drive madly back over the course of a weekend, across 14 hours of roads with the boosting of a four day weekend and have a quick hello.

Grandpa, helping zip up Dee's coat before we leave.

A little glance at Mom.

And a little smack for Grandpa. A well-loved man.

Sometimes you have to do crazy things. And sometimes you don't have to but it sure can be fun! I had to share my favorite photographic moment of the weekend, to share a little of the spontaneous fun. Family is a good deal.

The Not-So-Scary Relatives

My in-laws came and they went. I didn't keel right over from anticipation stress and the visit went very well. I'm not sure exactly why but I sure am able to make a whole lot of panic out of a friendly visit. I'm so intimidated by other people sometimes, so scared of sharing my space (lest it be sneered at), so afraid of criticism and so unsure of my ability to get "included." I think a lot of it stems from not being a very strong feeling person inside, I'm not confident in my ability to hold my own, impress, blow away the competition or be what I am supposed to be.

A's parents, in the flesh.

It was just a little weekend visit, they flew all the way out from the Midwest, just to spend the weekend with us, belnieve it or not. On that weekend visit they sent A and I on a highly relaxing overnight with no kids (Oh, baby-free, king-sized, sleep-number-bed...you were heaven!), they re-stocked our kids with books, brought us sheet-music for children's songs, did all the laundry in the house, ironed anything within a 1 mile radius, took all our trash out, shined our every dish, treated us to pizza, and even maaged to hang a curtain for me on the sly that I had been battling with.... What exactly was I so scared of? I sometimes wish I was less of a ridiculously cagey bird and more placidly trusting and smoothly optimistic. But yeah, I'm still me.
 Image via Wikipedia

So, now that they're gone and all is well after all, I'm handing out the homemade cookies my mother-in-law whipped up for snack time and we're all reciting the lines from, How The Grinch Stole Christmas (which we can now recite in chorus thanks to Grandpa's astounding patience with "one more time" requests from Ru.) I feel soundly on my feet, heading into the holidays with my cap tightened down and my kitchen counters shining. I am determined to manufacture more goodwill for my fellow man, more cookies for the Christmas tins and as much good cheer as can be reasonably obtained. Morning sickness be darned!

Processing Central

We rolled back into town last night at a record-early time for us, we made the drive from Michigan, leaving at 7 something AM and pulled across the border into Connecticut again by 9 PM. We were psyched. We are just insane enough that it sounded like a good idea after all of that rigamarole to reward ourselves by whirling through a grocery store trip before we actually made landfall at the old homing pad. I know it sounds five levels of lost wits but actually was somewhat helpful. Here we are, Monday, first day of our untried homeschooling season and we have a full larder, even if the washing is teetering tall and I can hardly keep my eyes open. (Am doing mad penance for all those early morning chats with my dad PLUS late night discussions and card games and family jam sessions...but OH WELL...it is worth it.)

Today I am printed off menus for the next two weeks, listened to all the new words Nib learned over vacation tumble merrily out of him, took a nap (Hi ho! Sleep, you old acquaintance you!) and generally indulged in the massive, indulgent and very important job of over-processing every single little bit of the vacation. Somehow, I feel like this sort of thing is important after a holiday...but it really seems especially rampant with me when I've been to visit the natal homes of myself and A. I feel like life and my own personal experience and the thoughts of our siblings and the food of our mothers and the hobbies of our fathers and every other little tidbit id a small clue about "what it all means" and "how it all works" and my marriage and my parenthood and any number of other small and un-thought-of connections.

So, I'm running through the grand mass of experiences we had this past week and trying to synthesize. Am I the only one who does this? Tell me that I am somehow normal or sane or ideal or maybe even part of an elite club of special thinkers who are more sentient than the rest of the world. It isn't madness, right? Poor A thinks it is madness. I drive him bonkers with my effervescent desire to wade in the past and the minutiae and my starvation-level search for meaning in the center of it all. A is a raw experience person. He likes to do and then move on. His life is a storage wall of honeycombed cells. Mine is a mass of moving, sticky web strands, woven into a gigantic, sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre sculpture that is meant to stay on the wall but has ended up being a room-filling, experiential art-piece-cum-costume for anyone who attempts to come appreciate it. I know that my own personal brain-spill after trips can be a bit um...shall we say...suffocating? I also know that for me it is important and healthful and for those in my life it can contain bits of helpful information and the occasional brilliant insight but it has to be admitted that the mechanism is a bit over-the-top.

This is my attempt at taming The Beast that is my own processing machine. I tried to talk less during the drive home...at least less about all the little things that ran between my ears, and more about the weather and concrete plans for homeschooling and the book we're reading out loud together. And now that I am home, and able to be alone more...or at least buffered from A a bit...I am buzzing through all the things that make my brain whir about what I just experienced.

I am hoping to do a lot of writing, some phone calls with sympathetic/similarly demented pals, and maybe even a little talking to myself out-loud. I don't want to drive my partner insane, I don't actually want to make him allergic to my inner self and I don't want to suppress the very helpful digesting I enjoy doing, and find key to really shelving experiences I've had and also to genuine growth. I am hoping a little distance and self-reliance will be the answer. We shall see. We shall see.

In the meantime, if you need me, and you call me...when I don't get to the phone in time, you'll understand that it is a bit hard to be speedy when wading through a living nest, all plaited with endless strands of thought-tenacles. I will be out again and answering phones and emails and carrier pigeons more handily soon.

September Time

 We are making our annual tomato sauce. First time in the new house, last summer I just didn't have it in me. I'm experimenting with a new method, no skinning, no seeding which means less finger work and less boiling, just a lot more slow simmering over the stove and the use of my food processor. The house smells amazing, ripe luscious tomatoes, top to bottom. We sat there, snuggled on my bed, reading for our Story Hour and it was incredibly cozy with the bright sunshine, the cool fall breeze coming through the open window and the warm, round scent of tomatoes drifting into every nook and cranny.

 Part of why I am making sauce today is because I need to use up our current tomato harvest. I only had to buy one box of tomatoes this year, half of my normal purchase, because I had so many tomatoes ready from my own garden. That felt like a great coup! We have been eating every which way but we're leaving town for a week in Michigan and we can't take tomatoes along since they don't exactly make good traveling companions and they sure won't wait quietly for us at home, at least not in a solid state. Heh.

 My biggest sauce helper this year was Nib...he was always in the kitchen and pottering around picking things up and poking holes in tomatoes and helping me make sticky orange footprints on the tile floor. Fun to have him becoming such a little boy and independent person.

 Otherwise we have been enjoying quite a bit of outdoor time, the weather is exactly my very favorite right now. 75 degrees, slight breeze, sunny. You can wear whatever you want and do anything from swimming to wood-stacking in weather like that. We're soaking it in.

 We've been doing a lot of painting around the house which I am am beyond excited about!We started by finishing the white walls in the playroom. Such a relief! I got really bogged down there. I painted the corner cupboards with a pretty terracotta inside and a smooth, new layer of gloss white on the outside. I am so pleased with the way they turned out and am so thankful to the friend who brilliantly guided me to this color idea. Gotta love it when people come over and you leave five inches taller and stuffed with great inspiration!

We've also finally painted the stairwell to the second floor which was all layered in retro, faux wood paneling. It is now a smooth, light taupe/grey with the beginnings of fresh, gloss white trim. I hope to finish the trim sometime very soon (I am working on it a little bit at a time in stolen moments) and continue the taupe on up into the upstairs hallway. I am somewhat addicted to the smell of fresh paint.

 This beautiful Siamese kitty has been slinking around our property from time to time, sometimes even slipping into the garage. I have always been rather taken by Siamese cats, I know that Disney painted them as villains in Lady and the Tramp but it didn't take for me. I think they're gorgeous. Is it okay to admit that I am considering leaving some bits of fish or a little dish of milk out for this kitty in hopes that I could lure it to stay around and curl up in the sunshine on our back porch? *wince* Don't tell my asthmatic husband who does not want a pet.

September is a good month and I'm excited to make a pilgrimage to my childhood home this time of year. I plan to swim in The Big Lake no matter how cold it is, roast a marshmallow, catch a fish and stay up way too late playing guitar. I am hoping to get the chance to take some pictures and maybe even log a few posts from way up north...I'd love to share my roots with you all. 

Related articles

• Tomato Water: What to Do With the Rest of the Tomatoes (dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Gallery: Squashed tomato battle paints Spanish town red (calgaryherald.com)
• Sundried Tomatoes, Sans-Sun (twinklingalong.blogspot.com)
• The Enchanting Aroma of Tomato Sauce (viewfrombippus.wordpress.com)
• Tomato Recipes (thehappyhousewife.com)
• garden fresh tomato soup (backtoherroots.com)

Afterglow

Our dining room, here in our rehab-project colonial is in exactly the right spot to receive somewhat mystical evening sunshine, exactly as dinner is being served. It's a wonderful thing, as thought some thoughtful someone has zoomed in on your table and is spotlighting each dish as you serve it. Makes me look forward to cooking, and have a boost of energy and goodwill on nights when I drag myself to the kitchen.

In other news, we are back home from our family reunion with A's extended relations in Yellowstone National Park, and our family is one pair of cowboy boots richer. Ru and Dee picked them out together since they'll be hand-me-down treasures after our biggest boy is done wearing them. Was secretly very pleased that they wanted the viney stiching ones. :)

The trip was one of our personal best as a nuclear family, only one small interpersonal melt-down which was pretty briskly mended and overall low stress/high enjoyment. The extended cousiney, relative type interaction was well above par and left everyone with a much fonder regard at the end of it all.

We all were somewhat frantically counting the years until the next big get-together and thinking "Three years??? Too long....how else can we see these people?" You know you have a cool family if???? A has cool family. I feel lucky to be along for the ride. And I do hope that we end up getting at least one round of house guests out of the week together. There is also talk of a wild, bluegrass tour with the rels, sometime in 2013. Am dreaming about that!