Never Say Never

About a month or two before Tate was born, our next door neighbors moved.  I was hoping that a family with a stay at home mom with little kids would move into their house, because at that point I didn’t realize that there are bigger things to hope for in new neighbors when you’re in your childbearing years.  You know what’s better?  A personal trainer.

I remember talking to Nick when Tate was a few weeks old and he mentioned that he was thinking of starting a neighborhood boot camp.  I told him that if he did, either Trent or I would come.  Of course I really meant Trent would go.  He’s the “yes” person of our team.  He’s the man who once went on a sailing trip to Maine with two people he barely knew.  I’m more of the I have a previous commitment/I don’t want to drive anywhere/my stomach hurts/my mom said I couldn’t go/I just have to many things going on right now/the kids are sick/I just don’t want to person.

But when it came down to actually meeting at the park at a specific date and time, Trent refused.  His reasoning was that I was the one who committed us, so I had to go.  I was –yet again- reminded why I should never say I’ll never do something.  Saying it out loud guarantees that I will do it.  I’ll never go to a huge state school.  I’ll never work in corporate America.  I’ll never be a stay-at-home mom.  (What was my plan, exactly?)   I’ll never cut bangs for myself again.  I’ll never do a boot camp. 

And yet there I was, out at the park twice a week working out with my neighbors.  Then the time changed and it was too dark at the park, so we moved to Nicks garage and there I was, lifting weights in a garage with a group of neighborhood men and Korn blasting away in the background.  For some reason there was a brief period when I was the only female who could show up and if there were ever a glimpse of my life that I could show my younger self, it would be one of those dude-garage work-outs.  16-year-old Kelly could just sit in shock and go What. Is. Happening.

Now, a year after our first boot camp, Nick is heading off to physical therapy school and we’re all on our own.  But the good news is that we’re all on our own as the newer, better versions of ourselves.  He not only got us all into the routine of working out, but he built up a community.  I had a girls dinner with a group of neighborhood friends tonight and it was boot camp that made those friendships happen.  Nick was the neighborhood Mary Poppins, showing up when we needed him, the leaving us all with a new group of friends and gym memberships.  The analogy fits perfectly if you can also imagine Mary Poppins occasionally making fun of the Banks children for lack of coordination.

I can’t say that I’m in peak physical condition, but that’s my own fault for skipping the cardio I was assigned to do on my own twice a week. Well, the lack of cardio paired with my affinity for white wine and popcorn. But under the wine-popcorn layer, I’m a different, stronger version of myself. When my gym membership starts in June, I’ve got the experience and confidence to skip the machines and go straight for the free weights at the gym, possibly while wearing weight lifting gloves.

I spent the last few weeks of boot camp trying (at times unsuccessfully) to hold back from making Leslie Knope-esque speeches about my boot camp experience.  The twice weekly workouts over the past year have been good for me in ways that go beyond my physical well being.  Collapsing while trying to do push ups and having someone tell you “Sometimes it’s good to push yourself to the point of failure.” is a lesson about bigger things than core strength.  

It’s all a big reminder to say yes to more things, or at the very least not writing things off as nevers.

It’s Not Quite Homesteading

I still want to talk about the Little House books – anyone else interested? Trent’s past the point of even being able to listen or respond.  When we’re trying to figure out something in our yard and I respond with, “We should ask Almanzo,” Trent just shakes his head and walks away.

We have eaten a few glorious, meaty, juicy red tomatoes.  I’m the big winner because I’m the only one who wants to eat them.  When we cut into the first tomato of the season, Trent said, “Oh yeah, tastes just like a home grown tomato.  I do not like that taste.”  He’s so into a growing tomatoes, taking the boys outside every day after work to check on them, that I forget that he doesn’t like to eat them unless they’re contributing to a sauce or salsa.  So more for me.  There is nothing like a fresh tomato on a sandwich.  My favorite sandwich of the moment:  toasted wheat bread, mustard, hummus, avocado, fat tomato slice, maybe lettuce or spinach if we have it. 

I might add bell pepper to the sandwich soon.

We’ve also had three ripe blueberries.  One of our blueberry plants has produced a few berries, the other is alive but not growing.  I wasn’t expecting to see any blueberries for a few years (based on the scientific approach of reading one website and maybe remembering that – or not- where’s Almanzo???) so I’m happy with three blueberries.

The other parts of the Summer 2012 Williams Garden are jalapenos, garlic, and herbs.  Not featured are the green beans and onions that never got planted.  Our small garden continues to be a minor supplement to our groceries, but nothing beats the smell of a tomato plant. It’s worth it just to stick my face into the plant and breathe and time travel to Gran and Pop’s house.

House Blessing

My little brother Hunter, who saved every quarter our grandparents ever gave us and probably used those quarters as a down payment, recently bought a house and my whole family congregated there last weekend for his house blessing.

The house is pretty awesome, and I wanted to just blow in like a giant storm and sweep away the whole house, including its spacious floor plan and exposed brick dining room and huge backyard with established trees and relocate it for myself.  His girlfriend Caroline is a florist, so she arrived with sunflowers and made the house immediately look magazine worthy. 

We were the first weekend guests to arrive, so unfortunately Hunter wasted the clutter-free countertops on us because we do tend to arrive with a tornado of matchbox cars and phone chargers and people who start opening kitchen cabinets and emptying them onto the floor.  My sister’s family arrived the same way a few hours later and while Casey would have previously (and did again this weekend) chastised me for leaving crap everywhere, she’s a mother now too and left her share of sippy cups laying about.  Because the house blessing and party were planned for Saturday night, we all thought it was best to head to the zoo with my dad and leave my mom and Hunter to cook and get ready for the party.  

I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but I’m not ashamed to post the same things over and over after every trip to Tyler.  The Caldwell Zoo is just the best.  We headed straight for the Wild Bird Encounter.

I’m not sure what the difference was, cooler weather maybe, but the birds were the feistiest I’ve ever seen them.  They didn’t hesitate to climb onto the popsicle stick of bird food, or onto your hands or back or shoes.

My dad was the official photographer last weekend, which explains why these picture are a million times better than the pictures usually featured here.  That also explains why he’s not in any of the pictures, although that is his foot.

I love a good candid action shot, and here’s why:  What is happening just to the left of the next picture?  Trent and Chris were both watching the same thing and they don’t look to excited about it.  Mystery!

My dad bought what we call a “Norwegian lunch” for Rush – ice cream.

No trip to the Caldwell Zoo is complete without a stop in the gift shop for fifty cent (yes!  best gift shop ever!)  animal print sunglasses.

The house blessing that evening was wonderful.  There was a great crowd of people of all ages, from my 10 month old niece to some older (older like old enough to have kids in high school) people from my brother’s church.  We all gathered in the entry way of the home, then moved as a group from room to room.  In each room the priest would say a prayer relevant to the location, for example, by the front door, praying for the people who would be coming and going and that the home would be welcoming.  I think that was the gist of it.  At the time I was trying to keep Rush from escaping to the backyard, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. 

I do know that I was so proud of my brother and happy for him, not necessarily because he took the step of buying a house, but because he’s making a good life for himself.  It was hard when he was a recent college graduate, living in a seedy apartment complex in a town where he didn’t know anyone.  A few years later he has a very nice place to live (I fall asleep dreaming about how I would arrange my furniture in that house) and a community of people who obviously care about him.  Most of his friends at the party were from church and I’m so happy that he found the church and became an active part of it.  I can see how that is enriching his life.

Also, the priest’s daughter walked in and immediately declared that she and Rush were getting married.  Rush told her they should wait until they could get married in a castle. 

A house blessing is also of course a party, so we ate and celebrated and talked until everyone left, then we stayed up to play a board game.

It is very disturbing to me that a can of Sprite looks so much like a can of Miller Light.  I spent half of my evening doing double takes over that can.  Since when are lemon-lime drinks blue?

The weekend wrapped up with the perfect example of why Mother’s Day is, let’s all go ahead and admit it, the stupidest holiday.  Tate woke up at 2 AM on Sunday morning making the most horrible, can’t breathe, barking cough.  It was terrifying.  Thankfully my mom was there, so I woke her up and we stayed with Tate in the backyard until who knows what time, trying to calm him down and debating whether or not to go to the emergency room.  So Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.  I’m a grown woman and you stayed up half the night with me; here’s some granola that I made for you.  Flowers, cards, diamond tennis bracelets, a mason jar of granola, it’s pathetic to think that any of these things would be enough to thank my mother or let her know how much I love and appreciate her.  Granola.  Come on.

Tate is fine, by the way.  When I took him to the doctor on Monday morning, she did assure me that it was highly unlikely that he picked up any strange virus from licking the birdseed popsicle every few minutes. 

In the end, I just wish Tyler was closer and not hours away.

120 Years of Jim and Karen

We celebrated my parents’ 60th birthdays (April and June of this year) with a big beach party last weekend.  Beautiful weather, fried fish and shrimp and fries, a margarita machine, coolers full of cold drinks, children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews and friends and the beach – what more could anyone ask for to celebrate 60 years on the planet?

Rush summed up the essence of a good party pretty well in a conversation with the a woman at the grocery store.  Seeing multiple boxes of cupcake mix and icing, she asked Rush if we were having a party.  His response was, “The Porta Potty is coming today.”

My parents are truly great people.  I can only comment on about half of their 60 years and even then I’m limited by the sides of themselves that I’ve seen as their child.  But based on the people I know as my parents (and I avoid any stories before their 1977 marriage, because from what I can decipher they’re both Cookie Googlemans – both of them) I can label them as two of the best people in the world. 

My niece Carolena won Best Dressed for her Ester Williams inspired bathing suit complete with flowered swimming cap.  She went home with a bag of matching bonnets and dresses from my aunt’s recent shopping trip and because of the unvarying nature of boys’ clothing, Rush and Tate came home with a bag of hand-me-downs.  Levis and swim trunks and plaid shorts and hoodies are eternal for males, all ages. 

Tate does like to spice things up occasionally.

The beach is now in its full summer glory.

Trent, Hunter, Hunter’s girlfriend and I spent some quality time with pitchforks and metal rakes on Saturday morning trying to clear a path through the 2 foot deep seaweed to the water.  In the past, I could never remember from year to year that Spring Break is always cold.  I’ve finally accepted that, but replaced the confusion with the reality of seaweed.  Brain, please note:  the beautiful beaches of February are not guaranteed in hot weather.

But the overabundance of seaweed couldn’t bring us down last weekend.  Happy Birthday Mom and Dad.  Many Happy Returns.

My Favorite Apps are the Ones Before My Meal*

Last Saturday I left my phone sitting outside next to a water bottle filled with ice water.  The drink sweat enough to create a pool of water that drowned my phone, setting in motion the series of events that led to me being close to tears in the Target parking lot over what kind of case to get to protect my new phone, which, as the people in the AT&T store and Target told me fifty eight times IS GLASS ON BOTH SIDES.  Thanks, got it.  It seems to me that if you buy an expensive item that it meant to be carried in your purse or pocket, it should be durable enough to withstand a purse or a pocket, and you shouldn’t have to spend an additional $50 on a case to protect it.  Go capitalism!

My old phone was meeting my needs perfectly:  I could talk, text check my e-mail.  Now I have a world of new options and aps, which for most would be exciting but I’m apprehensive.  I’m thinking about Alan Lightman’s essay, Progress, from one of my favorite books, Dance for Two (a book sale find from a few years ago, by the way), a collection of essays.  Lightman is a physicist and many of the essays in this book draw on the connections between art and science. The overall premise is that you can’t claim to just be a math person or just be an art person, everything is so connected that you have to be both.  Progress examines the definition and responsibility of each of us in regard to technology and, well, progress.  Here are bits and pieces so you get the point:

“For at least the past two hundred years, human society has operated under the assumption that all developments in science and technology constitute progress…in the twentieth century the concept of progress changed, becoming increasingly tied to technology and large dehumanized technological systems…Today, a crucial question before us is whether developments in technology inevitably improve the quality of life.  And if not, we must ask how our society can employ some selectivity and restraint, given the enormous capitalistic forces at work.  That is a terribly difficult problem for several reasons, not the least of which is the subjective nature of progress and quality of life…I am certainly not opposed to technology as a whole; I benefit greatly from it.  But we cannot have advances in technology without an accompanying consideration of human values and quality of life…How should this examination and questioning proceed?…The problem cannot be solved from the top down.  It’s a cultural problem.  Perhaps we must regulate ourselves.  Perhaps we must think about what is truly important in our lives and decide which technologies to accept and which to resist.  This is a personal responsibility.  In the long run, we need to change our thinking, to realize that we are not only a society of production and technology but also a society of human beings.”

When the sales person at the AT&T store told me I would like my new phone, I didn’t doubt it.  I’m sure it’s great.  But when she, and many others since then, have told me how many “great apps there are for your kids!” I pulled into myself a little.  I don’t want my kids to play outside less because they’re playing an inane game on my phone.  I want to keep bringing a bag of toy tools to Discount Tire so they can “fix” all the tires on display in the waiting room while we wait, not sit zoned out to a YouTube cartoon.

I don’t like sitting in a room full of my friends watching people click away on their phones or ipads.  I’m not blameless, I’ve certainly sent or received a text in the company of others.  But I don’t want to become someone who zones out on a little screen instead of engaging the world around me.  I just have too many other things I want to do:  quilt ideas bouncing around in my head and a closet full of fabric scraps ready to make them possible, plants to water, bread to bake (Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day is technology I will lovingly embrace), cats to feed and stop from sharpening their claws on the couch.  I have family and friends who love me and I want to love them back by being present with them.

So new phone, hello, welcome to my purse and kitchen counter.  I will use you to connect to people, but I reject your calls to make me waste energy on things that add no value to my life or the lives of those around me.  I reject your zone-out-your-kids apps.  I reject your e-reader and will go chat with the librarians and work on the stacks of books overflowing from our shelves.  Although I will look up maps and directions , I reject your GPS.  (You really don’t want to get me started on the GPS, but I’ll say this:  devolution.)  I will take your music though.  Hello Pandora in the kitchen and in the car.

I’m counting on the help of my friends and family to brutally make fun of me if you see me abusing my new phone.  Brutally.  Let’s keep it real.

 

*You know who it is:  Liz Lemon