yard disasters and an owl recovery.

Monday was rather adventurous. 

Upon returning home from the gym, I decided I would take care of a few small tasks that had been lingering about since before Husband's departure, and since the neighbor boy flaked on me, again.  I felt there was no choice but to take matters into my own hands.

You see, Husband made it quite clear in our early stages of marriage that he did not care for yard work. In fact, I've had to haul many a things out of the yard that were not meant to be "yard ornaments."  I'm just not that type.  Heavens, my Father earned himself a Vancouver Sparkles Award for his yard manicuring skills,  {Dad, where's your t-shirt?} so anything that doesn't grow with soil should not. be. in. the. yard.

period. period. PERIOD!!

Besides the attempted yard ornaments, i.e. the old toilet from the remodel, my creme brulee torch, and various tools that I've since removed and stowed away in the appropriate vicinity.  Husband is not much into mowing the lawn, either.  He blames it on his allergies. 

You see Husband is quite smart. 

{Point A} The minute he received the yard maintenance flier earlier this year, he picked up his phone and hired out our 1/48th of an acre worth of grass to the neighbor boy.  It takes the boy six minutes to compete the task, including picking up all of rocks that Asher has launched from the rock bed into the grass.  Although our lawn rates a one for simplicity, I believe the easy task has become a waste of time for the boy, because he has left me hanging for his services a handful of times recently. 

Hence, me saying, I took matters into my own hands.

{Point B} There was logic when Husband bought a $10 mower, I know it.  Something like...the older you buy, the sooner you can quit mowing.  During the summer, our lawn went almost completely dead.  I was embarrassed and hurt for our neighbors.  I finally talked Husband into buying fertilizer and a portable sprinkler to water.  "Don't you want green grass?" I asked him.  "No. Cause then I have to mow it!" 

It was then that I realized that we may never see eye to eye on yard maintenance. 

Throwing out all excuses, I decided to take care of business myself.  After waiting for all the neighbors outside to leave the neighborhood and/or go back into their homes, I attempted to start up the $10 mower, with Asher looking on.  Of course, I did so on the concrete between the garage and the car, so no one could see me attempt to start the piece.  Maybe it didn't start for me because I was on the concrete and it would have killed me, I don't know?  But I pulled and pulled to no avail.  Then I did a quick double-pull with no success.  After a few more tries, I gave up feeling like a fool, feeling insecure that even one person may have seen me trying to mow my lawn for the first time...with no avail. 

Then my kind neighbor pulled up.  She is a lawn-mowing maniac.  That woman works her yard to the max.  I knew she'd have a decent lawn-mower for me to borrow, and would probably jump at the chance to help me help my yard.  And she did.  I had to call her over to find out why it wasn't starting, but I quickly learned that you even have to pull start the new mowers.  I felt like an idiot.  C'mon.  We can push a button for just about everything else nowadays.  I think she knew I felt like an idiot.  She was kind and let me mow our small patch of grass, and now I feel like I'm keeping up with the Jones' {yard crew}.

Once I had the grass taken care of, I opened the scary garage.  Husband informed me before he left to hunt, that he saw a large mouse in the garage.  Feeling overwhelmingly determined, I lost all train of mouse- thoughts and opened the garage to let the sun shine in, and {hopefully} the mouse creep out.

I then found myself the latter, and settled it up against the shelves to begin my search.  To my surprise, one of the first boxes I laid eyes on was exactly what I was looking for. 

Remember that fine owl collection?  Here is what I recovered:

a mini owl family

 A few kooks



this sweet yellow owl

and a couple more.

I am so happy to have found this bunch!

I'm especially excited to have a collection!

And after the baby shower that I attended last Sunday,

you'll see why I think collecting owls is so darn fun!

{Look for the cutest owl shower post on Friday.}

As for the yard dilemma, for now it is solved and mowed.

We are all thrilled,

and can't wait to show Dad.

go get it.

My meeting yesterday was a success.

It is a wonderful feeling to know that wherein your life has led you,

there is purpose.

The principal who I met with yesterday,

wants to implement the program.

His being on board with the cause--

{bully prevention}

instills in me confirmation

and confidence.

To know that I can give on a community level

instills a reward

that is priceless.

When I injured my back five months ago,

my plans to run the Portland Marathon

were tossed out.

At first, it was only an annoyance,

I figured my back would heal in under a week,

and that I'd hit the pavement again.

But it wasn't that easy.

Each time I thought I'd had adequate rest,

and the strains had healed,

I'd go out to run

and find my back pulling and straining again.

I paid visits to my chiropractor regularly,

and

underwent serious therapeutic massage.

When I say therapeutic, I mean

fist-clenching pain.

During this time, I was also doing quite a bit of writing.

My mission was to put the painful past onto the page;

to write it out;

to have it written in effort to sort, to understand,

and to heal;

to help others heal.

Then my back issues flared up.

How do you focus in two drastically different areas

when each feels like it requires

WHOLE HEART?

 I recall being in the shower one day,

when I thought,

I wonder why I haven't thought to pray about my back issues?

I am the praying type, so for a moment, this boggled my mind.

My mind moved along to my next thought,

tucked far behind the obligations, stresses, and daily redundance that consumes--

because you know there is a lesson in this back pain.

Then the following dawned on me--
You can't run two marathons at once.

I am not capable of writing a book proposal,

advocating for the broken,

running a marathon,

let alone a household,

while raising two toddlers.

My life is not meant to happen this way.

I am a passionate woman, but passion can only

be spread so thin before it moves into insanity.

It took some time--a few more runs that threw my back into further strain,

before I really began to let up.

The lessons I'm learning aren't only

FOCUS,

but

DISCIPLINE

OBEDIENCE

and

FAITH--

faith that when something is off--

when you are moving against the grain

in one way, shape or form--

there is a lesson which needs acknowledgement

or greater attention.

Next month is the Portland Marathon.

A smidge of envy may fall upon me as I rise that morning

of 10/10/10,

but then I'll consider my current whereabouts,

and think of the steps that I've made toward my advocacy

and see that they are big steps--

steps that I wouldn't have made

had I been researching gels, sweat-wicking clothes and

speed strategies.

Then I'll consider the future,

and the reality that the Portland Marathon isn't going anywhere,

that it will return again in 2011,

and quite possibly,

I'll be able to give her a shot.

Until then,

the focus and the discipline is paying off--

in the most magnificent way.

"You Got a Dream... You Gotta Protect It. People Can't Do Somethin' Themselves, They Wanna Tell You You Can't Do It. If You Want Somethin', Go Get It." ~ Chris Gardner

(The Pursuit of Happiness)

a poetic visit

Maya Angelou is coming to Portland on June 2, 2010

and I'll be sitting in the audience,

fascinated.

Do you have a favorite book of hers?

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

“I’ve learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life.”

“I can be changed by what happens to me.

But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."

"My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return."

"The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes

straight to the heart."

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."

"While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation."

If only every girl could hear this...

credit
This morning with a couple free moments to spare before the day began its snowball effect of children, meals, and cleaning, and as much writing as I can possibly squeeze in, I looked to my Glamour magazine for some eye candy to help wake my tired eyes. Free moments for such guilty pleasures are rare, and to prove this, I'll just tell you that I am on day three of even getting through the magazine!

During my escape, I came across the short editorial titled "The Most Important 433 Words to Read This Month." Enraptured with the title I continued to delve. Just three words in and she had me.

"Dear Emotional Creature,

I believe in you. I believe in your authenticity, your uniqueness, your intensity, your wilderness. I love the way you dye your hair purple, or hike up your short skirt, or blare your music while you lip-sync every memorized lyric. I love your restlessness and your hunger. You possess the energy that, if unleashed, could transform, inspire, and heal the world.

Everyone seems to have a certain way they want you to be — your mother, father, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, boyfriends, fashion gurus, celebrities, girlfriends. In reporting my new book, I learned a very disturbing statistic: 74% of young women say they are under pressure to please everyone.

I have done a lot of thinking about what it means to please: to be the wish or will of somebody other than yourself. To please the fashion setters, we starve ourselves. To please men, we push ourselves when we aren’t ready. To please our parents, we become insane over-achievers. If you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? The act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. We stop uttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We forget what we know. We make everything OK rather than real.

I have had the good fortune to travel around the world. Everywhere I meet teenage girls and women giggling, laughing as they walk country roads or hang out on city streets. Electric girls. I see how their lives get hijacked, how their opinions and desires get denied and undone. So many of the women I have met are still struggling late into their lives to know their desires, to find their way.

Instead of trying to please, this is a challenge to provoke, to dare, to satisfy your own imagination and appetite. To take responsibility for who you are, to engage. Listen to the voice inside you that might want something different. It’s a call to your original self, to move at your own speed, to walk with your step, to wear your color.

It has taken me so many years to be OK with being different, with being this alive, this intense. I just don’t want you to have to wait that long.

Love,
Eve Ensler. "

If only Eve Ensler's encouragement, praise, understanding and advice could be heard by every girl, I believe there could be a re-awakening--for every girl and woman who is struggling in some way, small or big to live life deeply and richly AUTHENTIC.

For the last year, I've been attempting to peel back the layers of my own authenticity in the fullness that I know it exists, and try and examine where there are gaps and blank spaces. It is a daunting task to try and recover where along my path I may have been disrupted or deterred in living a FULL and authentic life. Because the truth is, I am still working to claim this sort of life for my self.

My teenage years were quite rough. School bullying and immense pressure to adhere to religious views that didn't necessarily line up with my spiritual beliefs are just two reasons that had me overcome. The pressure to-be or to not-be and to please others was consuming and devastating for me as a teenager. I felt like I had to grow up fast as I was challenged to ask myself BIG questions of WHO AM I? and WHO AM I NOT? (even when they say I am), while other kids appeared to be relishing in the moments of school sports and boy crushes. It caused many a storms and numerous gray clouds continued to hang their dreary loom over my life for many years.

Over those years, I attempted to confront the struggle that was happening inside me, and understand where I let myself down and how my vulnerability made me susceptible to an enormous lack of confidence, depression and unhealthy relationships. Grappling with the situation felt like a battle that I may never win nor understand. I remember thinking...I'll get to it all one day. I know it all has to be sorted out, but, right now, I am too tired. I'll do it when I have the energy. Eventually, it was through a series of people, life-altering events and a new-found faith that I began to heal and was able to begin to create my authentic life.

I was both surprised and not at Ensler's statistic that "74 percent of young women say they are under pressure to please everyone."

One day when I was living in Utah during my first two years of college, I went to the scrapbook store. I was big into scrap booking at the time and spent much of my free time creating memory books for the years gone by. While I waited in line to make my purchases, my eyes could hardly ignore the fact that behind the cash register on a tall shelf were twelve or so glass canisters of different flavored home-made suckers--and beautiful I might add. I deliberated for a few moments, scanning over their flavor names, but as with many other instances in life, I struggled to make a decision. So instead of asking the kind employee to add a sucker to my bag of goodies, I decided I didn't care anyway and headed for home.

When I returned back to my apartment and found my roommate, Heather, whom I've known since second grade, I began to explain the sucker saga. It wasn't because I was suckerless that I was upset. It was the sheer fact that I felt so frazzled and indecisive when trying to choose a flavor that I could hardly believe that it stressed me out the way it did. Actually, it stressed me out so much, that I opted to ditch the whole idea and deprive myself of the sweet indulgence!

Silly sucker story, I know, but it was then that I realized that something was seriously wrong with my ability to make decisions for myself, and do so decisively...and when appropriate--quickly.

The reason that I share this sucker story is that I've been in that place when I wanted to please the masses. I wanted to be this, that and more, and the results were devastating to my contentment. I was frazzled, frustrated, living life less-than authentic. I was gaping in places that needed fulfillment. I tuned out of my own life and was living elsewhere, listening to others, contributing to their life, while failing my own. I did so until it all became too painful and I began unraveling even further than I thought possible, and began to see that the living and breathing I'm doing is for my SELF. I realized, as much as it seemed that others' happiness meant my happiness, I was wrong. I had been living a false belief that needed a quick overhaul.

My roommate, Heather found my sucker story silly, too, but she caught wind of the fact that I was teetering on the edge of some big changes. A couple of days later, with all of the love and kindness in her heart, Heather came to me with not one, but THREE suckers! "Now you don't have to choose just one!" she said. She was right! Who said I could only have one?

I'll never forget Heather's thoughtfulness and kindness that day, or the support she gave me when I packed my bags and moved back to Washington the following summer without her. She's been just one of the many who have watched me struggle and fall and climb back up time and time again. She's a gem of a friend and I will attest that she is an AUTHENTIC soul, who encourages others to be the same.

Becoming more each and every day,
~C

FYI: I wrote most of this post over two weeks ago--sorry for the delay.

Have you jumped in any puddles lately?

My daughter, Brooklynn is three and a half and has the best kind of advice. The other day while driving, she freely offered,

"Everyone needs to grow up so they can jump in puddles."

The best part about her advice is that most times it is given without relativeness, and is tossed before me as a glimpse into the simple life; a child's outlook on the way things are and possibly the way things should remain.

Here's to a simple weekend full of r & r, some writing, reading, crafting--and maybe some puddle stomping.

How about you?

-cbm

Day 7--A Much Anticipated Message

I have so much gratitude for those who put into words the things that I feel but can't describe, and for those who share their gifts which are to be shared, as they are gifts from God.

Elizabeth Gilbert is amazing. Every woman should read Eat, Pray, Love. I was moved during my entire reading of that book, and was so excited to find her in a conference sharing bits from her life as a writer and a creative spirit. The things she says shook me, and I feel more than ever that my mind associates with the very sort of people that she talks about. It's nice to hear someone say that the complex and often unneccesary mental exaustion that I put myself through as I wade through life in my mind, is the very essence of me. The trick is to find how to invite this part of myself in and embrace the journey.

Sometimes I feel...

~Overwhelmed

~Worry

~I over-analyze

~So much to say

~That I may be odd

~Self-pressure to do it perfect

~Not enough time to delve fully

Here's to all you creative spirits out there:

Day 4--Contemplative Seeking

Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s. –Anaïs Nin

... I suddenly woke up to the fact that if I accepted anybody’s definition of what there was in the world, I would be limited. –Shirley Brice Heath


Painting by Gustav Klimpt

Another Life Lesson

Last night as I was winding down--blogging, writing emails, and planning an upcoming party, I turned to our local online newspaper for my final reading for the night. I guess I will NEVER do this again, as my night ended with reading the most harrowing & heart-wrenching story. You've heard of the two-year-old who was saved during the terrorist attack in Mumbai, right? When I clicked on the latest update on the story, it showed a picture of the boy crying in the arms of a man. The article went on to describe in detail the Nanny's account of the attack that killed the mother and father (the rabbi and his wife). When the boy was found he was at the bodies of his parents, soaked up to his knees in blood, crying. Immediately upon reading this, I held my face and began to cry. The tears came down, and I found myself trying to control the sadness that had taken over my body.

So why do I tell you this? I tell you this because I realized after that moment of sadness that normally I wouldn't react this way. Because of this, there is something enormous to be said about how desensitized, on a human level, we've become to the violence and terror that our world is enduring. The fact that 99% of the time that I read such stories, (which I do often, because I read a lot,) and that I hardly flinch and then move on, is a critical issue. The issue of one becoming desensitized has been compounding and plaguing our country for decades and decades, and is an issue that is sure to continue.

As I said, the reaction of mine during this reading is sadly out of character. This leads me to my next concern: how will our children feel, or will they feel at all? Will they understand or see the world without the violence, or is it so gravely attached to the understanding of what world means? How can a child, who is known for his or her fresh innocence and whose immediate response is to speak truth, have a chance or one at all when most everything surrounding him or her is polluted and ravaged with violence and sadness? It's hardly seems fair to me that this makes up a huge portion of the world that we bring our babies into?

Although these thoughts run rampant inside me, gratefully I have my faith to turn to, and I am comforted to know that there is a plan in all this. Although there are no answers or promises for tomorrow, there is reason, and it is His reason. Having that faith and to be sure enough that the worries for today are not for tomorrow, but are for Him to address in the right timing, is key thought-process for me. I will never understand all this or begin to understand how I should react or how to exactly address these issues with my children. I just know that tough times lay ahead, and the world will continue to unravel and there will be many more trying times and people who will endure such times. The most I can confirm for myself is that I will do the very best I can to do, for my family and my children, today, so that tomorrow might be better.

I realize that recanting this to you, will do no more for you than what it did for me. It is both tragic and disturbing. I wrote this because I was touched, and it's moments like these that are pivotal in the growth of my spirit, and are important moments for me to reflect on. God is always trying to teach us.

Enlightenment 10/17/2007

As I was reading from The Alchemist tonight an underlined sentence from a previous reading gleamed from the page. It reads, “every blessing ignored becomes a curse.” Each time I tried to continue reading, my eye caught the sentence above with much attraction, and it was after a few failed attempts to move on that I closed the book and began pondering. I knew God was really trying to teach me.

There are various blessings that I have been given that I don’t believe I have lived out fully. In fact, I am not sure there is even one that I have pursued enough to fine-tune, master, or feel so comfortable to freely share with others. I have dealt with a great amount of insecurity and many false beliefs that have led me to believe that who I am and what I have to offer is just average and nothing so important that I ought to spend my days perfecting, or sadly, even enjoying.

The realization that I’ve been living under a false regime while shrugging off the gifts God has blessed me with to be nothing more than mini-talents, saddens me and causes me a bit of embarrassment for how ungrateful I’ve been in receiving these unconditional gifts. I know that God blesses each of us with gifts and talents that He personally chooses to enrich our lives and those around us. And I see how clear it is now, that these blessings are the color that He brings to our lives; the painting and filling in of that beautifully marked canvas.

Annie Dillard sums up what could be the end of some of us when she wrote, “how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” The idea that my life could be full of just that--ideas, and not action, is haunting. How many people are truly living like the merchant in The Alchemist wishing that they could seek their personal legend or their treasure but instead opt to dream and go on living average lives because they're afraid of failure? Too many. I’ve been living like the merchant for a few years now. Instead of embracing the gifts I’ve been blessed with, I’ve avoided them and been unwilling to claim them as my own or enjoy them to the fullest.

Fall is My Personal New Year 10/2/07

Fall is my personal New Year. With the landscape dawning it’s blessed rich color and sighing it’s crisp northwest air, I stumble towards personal reconciliation. It’s quite possible that the weather forced wardrobe changes and the conversion from outdoor to indoor activities run parallel to my inner being. As everything turns to the inside, so does my heart searching, and there I find, as with any other year, bits of myself that require revisiting. What thing better to do on a cool autumn day with a chance of rain?