Tonight Joanne and her family are coming over for dinner. Partially because my back is still sore and partially because it is 101 out, I was not super motivated to do a lot of cooking today. I came up with a pretty simple summer dinner menu and everything has been ready to go since about 2 this afternoon. The ease of today got me thinking to how I use to prepare for guests. There is only one word for it - scary. I don't know why, but for the first 5-7 years of Pete and I's marriage, I became completely insane when people came over for dinner. The menu was planned out in extreme. There had to be 2-3 appetizers. Some huge hunk of meat, like a lamb roast or a prime rib. Of course the meat needed 3-4 sides to go with it as well as a homemade dessert worthy of a Martha Stewart magazine cover. ( I tried today to find a picture of this pumpkin cake I used to make each October - it's pretty insane.)
Well after all that planning, and cooking and of course cleaning, I rarely had a good time. Pete and I would fight in the hours (or sometimes days) leading up to the party. I would be exhusted when people arrived and after everyone left, Pete would swear we were NEVER having guests over again. I created so much pressure on Pete and I. It was ridulous.
The sad part was, that I really enjoy having people over. Having a meal at home is so much more relaxing and enjoyable than going out. With kids now in the mix, resturants are always a sad disaster and babysitters get expensive.
Sometime in the last 2 years, I finally realized that my friends don't want to come over to my house to have a four course meal of fancy food. They want to come over and hang out. They want to let the kids run wild in the backyard while we eat stinky cheese on crusty bread. (Because what is better than stinky cheese among friends!) What a relief this realization has been. The best part has been that we actually have friends over a lot more often then before and we go over to friends houses quite frequently as well. When you set the bar at prime rib and Martha Stewart cake - who wants to try to reciprocate!
So what are we eating tonight?
Chips with mango or tomato salsa (all from the store)
Dinner: Roast chicken, green salad (Joanne's bringing that), Orzo salad, and of course a loaf of bread with some stinky cheeses.
For dessert the kids are making us ice cream in our ice cream ball and I bought a pie.
Easy, easy, and I can't wait for the Heim's to arrive.
The scary hostess
Adventures in Garage Sales part 2 - Should we call an ambulance?
Friday night I went to bed exhausted from a great first day of our garage sale. Although I was tired, I was excited about how much we had sold. I said to Pete, “I would feel that it was a successful sale, even if we didn’t sell one thing tomorrow.” Oh if only I knew what a prophet I was! Saturday morning, while I was trying to move a king size bed out of the garage, the frame came apart. I badly twisted my back. For an hour or so, I thought the pain would go away, but it only got worst. Two hours later, I couldn’t sit down, bend over or move my arms without horrible pain. Our wonderful friend Vanessa came to our rescue. She helped Pete pack up the sale and took the girls back to her house. Pete took me to the ER where we spent the next 6 hours. X-rays showed that nothing was broken, it was just a bad sprain. I was ordered to spend three days in bed and take three strong prescriptions for pain, swelling and muscle spasms.
While preparing for the garage sale, my time and thoughts were focused on all the worthless stuff that crowds our house. I kept thinking about the money I have wasted on toys, clothes and kitchen gadgets that go unused and are unappreciated. Because I am a hopelessly cerebral person, the piles of unwanted stuff made me start thinking about our family. Who are we? What do we value? I don’t think of us as being materialistic. I think of us as valuing our friends and family, not things that can be bought. I think of us as a family who stores treasures in heaven, not junk in the garage. But seeing all of our extra stuff piling up for the sale seemed to be evidence to the contrary.
But as I have watched friends come to our aid and Pete take such amazingly tender care of me the past few days, I’ve realized that we really are who I want us to be. We’re surrounded with amazingly generous friends who are willing to drop everything to help us. We’re part of a faith family who knows the power of prayer, and covers us with it. And most importantly, I’ve been freshly reminded of how truly incredible my husband is. He has juggled the roles of single dad, nurse, chef, chauffeur and Technical Product Manager (the job that actually pays him) beautifully.
I think that is the danger of having too much stuff. We get blinded by it. It absorbs our space, time, and energy. We start to think that all those things have value. We lose focus of the fact that it is indeed just stuff. So although this was not the ending I had pictured for my adventures in garage sales, it’s a perfect one for bringing my priorities back into focus.
** As for all the garage sale leftovers – they are going to Goodwill this weekend!
Adventures in garage sales part 1 – the good stuff
For the last few weeks I have been getting ready for a garage sale. It is just frightening to me to see the amount of stuff our family has amassed. I don't think of myself as a shopper. I really don't like shopping. But the amount of stuff we have must mean that I do shop (or maybe our stuff is breeding – that is very possible). As I sorted our belongings out I found enough Tupperware for 3-4 families, enough stuffed animals to open a toy store and enough Citrix (the company Pete works for) logoed shirts, backpacks and water bottles for an entire village. The bags and boxes of stuff just kept piling up. Books I'll never read again, clothes with the tags still on them, blah, blah, blah, just way too much stuff! But as the saying goes, one man's junkola is another man's treasure. After days of tedious sorting and pricing, Friday finally arrived. I love garage sale days. I love meeting and talking to complete strangers. I think it is so interesting to see what people buy and how much they offer for it. Friday's sale went great. We had crowds most of the day and sold so many things. Sarah and Emily sold donuts, juice and water. Emily was quite the forward saleswoman, walking around asking people if they wanted a donut. Sarah was mortified by her little sister's forwardness, but it paid off and they made $17. By the end of the day, I had made over $500! Who new my junk treasures could be worth so much? Interested in having a garage sale? Here are my tips and links to two sites about having garage sales. Tips for having a sucessful garage sale or tag sale.
10 tips to a wildly sucessful garage sale
Ladybugs, ladybugs, ladybugs!
As for the aphid situation, the roses actually look a lot better. I’ll admit though, of the 1750 ladybugs we let go, I would estimate that 12 are still in our garden. But we had fun!
Mother Love
My book club is reading Lisa See's Peony in Love this month. It is the story of a young girl name Peony who lives in 17th century China. While the story is mostly about romantic love, I have found myself drawn to the mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese concept of "mother love." While helping with the binding of a young cousin's feet, Peony writes, "The written character for mother love is composed of two elements: love and pain. I had always thought this emotion was felt by the daughters for their mothers, who inflict pain on us in binding our feet, but looking at Second Aunt's tears and my mother's courage I realized that this emotion was for them. A mother suffers deeply to give birth, bind feet and say goodbye to a daughter when she marries out." (Peony in Love by Lisa See, pg 44, Random House 2008) Four centuries and half a world away, this passage has affected me deeply. There has been much mother love happening in our house lately. My daughter Sarah, who is 5 ½, has been testing her boundaries in talking back, ignoring me and flat out being mean. Lately we have been fighting like never before. I have become that screaming mom I never thought I'd be and she's become the arrogant, and sometimes mean spirit girl I hoped she'd never become. I have heard the first five years of parenting are physically hard as you get little sleep and are constantly carrying a little one, but the next 10 years of parenting are emotionally hard as you fight to mold your child's character. I guess we are entering that second stage of parenting. I'll admit that it terrifies me and I don't feel ready. I think the character Peony may have been wrong, mother love is an emotion for both mothers and daughters. Whether it is forming our daughters' feet or their character, the work is hard and painful on both the mother and the daughter. Last Friday, I had planned to take the girls on their first camping trip with two other moms and their daughters. Friday turned out to be a terrible day. Sarah refused to do the four simple chores assigned to her that day. Our tempers both escalated throughout the day as I insisted she do them and she continued to refuse. Sarah told me that she wished I'd go get a job because she was sick of having me around. I told her the camping trip was off. Both of our words were like arrows to the heart. I was responsible for bringing part of dinner for camping that night. So I packed the girls in the car and drove through two hours of traffic to deliver the food. The girls had never seen a camp site. As we pulled in and they saw the tents there was much begging, pleading, and crying. I felt bad for the girls. (By the way Emmie had followed Sarah's lead all day and wouldn't do anything I asked either, so it was a fair punishment for both of them) The soft part of my heart screamed, "let them go camping!" The sensible part of my heart argued, "If you don't try to mold her now, it will only get worse." The sensible part won out and we pulled out of the campsite. They cried all the way home. My heart cried too. I realized that can no longer ease every tear with a tender embrace, a Dora sticker or a tickle fest, that's not my job. My role as mother has become much more complicated. It is time to begin in earnest the job of molding Sarah into the person God wants her to be. I guess that means there is much more painful mother love in our future. When we got home, I went and sat on our front porch. A huge lightening storm had started. The loud crashes of thunder echoed the girls' and I's mood. I sat on the porch and prayed. I prayed for wisdom, for strength and for peace. The lightening gave way to a driving rain storm. The first we have had all summer. As the rain began to fall, Emmie came outside with me. She snuggled on my lap and we quietly watched the rain. I praised God for the rain, which drove away the heat of the day and washed away my tension. Sarah soon came to find us and we finally had a productive conversation about our day. Cuddling on the porch, watching the final drops of rain fall, I was reminded that Mother Love comes from two characters - it is not just pain, the first character is love. With the grace of God, that love will get us through this new season of mothering.
Things to overload my brain … it doesn’t take much
I have a hard time grasping the world outside of about 50 miles from me. I know that is not a very flattering thing to say about myself, but it is true. The fact that life is going on right now in Venice and Cairo and Moscow all at the same time, is just totally weird to me. I don't know why. When I try to think about the fact that the planet is currently hurdling through space in a perfect path around the sun, my brain sort of freezes. I recently have been sent a number of world meters or clocks which tell you all sort of fascinating data such as how many people have been born today, how many gallons of gas were pumped and how many species went extinct. Check out Worldometer. It has great stats such as net gain of people on the planet today or how many overweight people there are compared to malnourished people (it will surprise you!) When my brain gets overloaded trying to think about the fact that there are 170,000+ more people on the planet today than there were yesterday, I check out how many hours humans have wasted on the computer waiting for websites to download. Then I turn off my computer and go back to my very small world.
World Vision Experience: Aids
After hearing amazing reviews about the World Vision Experience: AIDS exhibit, from my friend Joanne, Sarah and I went to see it Tuesday. The exhibit puts a face on the AIDS crisis in Africa. Actually, it puts four faces on it. The exhibit tells the stories of four children: Babirye, Mathabo, Kombo and Emmanuel. When you enter the exhibit, you are given an IPOD with the story of one of the four children. Sarah and I listened to Emmanuel's story. Using words like "listen" and "exhibit" do not do it justice. The word experience really describes it well. You enter and sit down in Emmanuel's home and travel from his hut, to the nearby banana forest, to the local clinic to see if Emmanuel is HIV positive. It is just incredible. The exhibit is recommended for children over age ten. Sarah is five but I felt that it was completely appropriate for her. There were no graphic images in the photography, nor graphic language on the IPOD. Without a doubt it is very sad, but Sarah and I have had great conversations about Emmanuel in the last few days. We live in a rich community, in a rich nation, and I want Sarah to see that the world is so much bigger than what she sees every day. She may not have a horse or every Webkin that she wants, but she is a very blessed little girl. I don't think children need to be 10 to start learning that lesson, and frankly, as an adult, I can't remind myself of it enough. The exhibit is traveling around the country. Check out the website to see the locations and dates. If it is coming to your hometown, take your kids and go see it, you will be so glad you did.
Fingerprint Art
Last year, my friend Susan was Sarah's classroom mom. She had the children make fingerprint art note cards for each teacher's birthday. They turned out so cute, I was inspired to borrow her design book, (Ed Emberley's Fingerprint Drawing Book) and try it with the girls. This week the girls and I made this card for Pete's grandmother's birthday. Each of the girls picked which bugs or flowers they wanted to make with their fingerprints. I added on the faces, legs and stems. (I used Pete's thumb to make the sun!) It was very easy to do and the girls loved it. I am thinking of making up some note pads or gift cards at Kinko's with fingerprint flowers along the bottom.
Ed Emberley's website has great drawing activities on it as well as fingerprint patterns. 123Child has patterns for fingerprint animals and plants which children over age 5 could do on their own.
Enjoy!
Activity Bag Swap
A few weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a Activity in a Bag swap. Each mom makes 25 sets of an assigned activity. We are all getting together in a few weeks and will each take home 25 different activities for our preschoolers. Each activity is contained in a gallon size plastic bag. The activities are self directed so preschoolers can get out an activity and do it on their own when mom is busy cooking, taking a shower or home schooling older siblings. The activities come from a book entitled Preschool Activities in a Bag which was written by two home schooling moms. Each of the 30 activities in the book has clear directions and can be assembled for around a $1 per bag.
I was assigned a beading activity. Each bag has 100 beads, two 24 inch lanyard strings and one pipe cleaner. I test ran the activity bag with Emily today while I had a doctor's appointment. She actually spent 45 minutes playing with it. I can't wait to have 24 different activity bags to use. I plan on putting aside 6-7 of the bags for an upcoming airplane trip and keeping 2-3 bags in the car for restaurants.
The group of moms I am swapping with is each making two extra bags. One extra set is going to a family whose son is undergoing chemo treatments. The family has two preschoolers who will get to play with their new activity bags during big brother's doctor appointments and hospital visits. The second extra set is going to Denver's Children's Hospital. My mother volunteers in the play room there. When I told her about the activity bags, she thought it was a great idea for patients who are in isolation. I am going to divide the activities up into some canvas bags that volunteers can bring to patients' rooms.
We are doing our swap in a few weeks. I'll let you know how Emily likes her new activities.
