Tag: family

Blather · Life

The Last Thing I Emptied

Sally4 Comments

That’s the prompt — the last thing I emptied.

Well, it wasn’t the plastic container under the kitchen sink, although I’ve been emptying it fairly often.

The kitchen sink has been dripping. I watched a Youtube video on how to fix it and bought the parts I needed. I was almost successful, but needed a little help.

But then it got worse.

A lot worse.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Now I turn the water off completely to the sink when I don’t need to use it. When I do need it, I turn it on and hear the dripping.

When I turn it off again, I empty the container.

[sigh]

My two youngest daughters were home on spring break this week. I hardly saw them, though. Full-time job, you know, plus I had something every day after work:

  • Monday: appointment
  • Tuesday: church meeting
  • Wednesday: Gave a talk to one of the local historical societies
  • Thursday: Sign language class at the library
  • Friday: Different sign language class via Zoom

I still fit in several walks with one daughter.

I made some favorite dinners: baked ziti, broccoli cavatelli, and a chili-like dish called Turkey Taco Quinoa Skillet.

When I was making that last one, I found that I had run out of quinoa. I told the girls that I was doing a slight variation on that dish.

“What are you doing?” one asked.

“Skipping the quinoa,” I replied. I threw in handful of barley and hoped for the best. It was fine.

This morning, I said good-bye to one daughter who was driving herself back to school. Then I drove the other daughter to stay with her oldest sister before she flies back to college tomorrow. It was another long day for me.

The last thing I’ve emptied is me. My energy is gone.

I tip my hat to all you working women who for years and years have been working 40 hours a week outside the home. I’ve been a mostly stay-at-home mom. I know, I know — that’s work, too.

There’s something to be said, though, about getting up and dressed in the morning, and leaving the house every day.

There’s something to be said for working 8-9 hours away from home.

There’s something to be said for coming home to a dripping faucet.

On Friday when I got home, my daughters said, “The microwave is broken.” Sure enough, it wasn’t working.

I looked to see if the GFI had tripped on the outlet for the microwave. No GFI on that outlet.

I went to the basement to look at the breaker box. Everything looked okay. I flipped some switches back and forth, hoping that would do the trick. It didn’t.

I called the electrician.

Mind you, the last time I had called him it was because of a flickering light. I live in an old farm house and was sure something had nibbled the wires. He changed the lightbulb and solved the problem. He explained to me the likely cause for the flickering. I was embarrassed.

You can understand why I was reluctant to call, but I did. Our wi-fi was also on the same circuit as the microwave.

“Hi, this is Sally,” I said to his voicemail. After leaving him my phone number and address, I continued, “I don’t need you to change a light bulb today, but I’ve lost electricity to some things in my house –”

He picked up and cut me off. “I’m going to tell you what to do and I want you to follow these instructions. If it doesn’t work, you can call me back and I’ll come tomorrow.” He gave me some specific instructions and told me to call him back either way.

Suffice it to say, it worked. The microwave worked. The wifi worked. Everything worked.

I called the electrician back.

“Good job,” he said. “I’ll be sending your Junior Electrician certificate in the mail.”

“You really need to send me a bill,” I said. He wouldn’t let me pay him when he changed the lightbulb either.

He laughed. “No, I’m glad you got it. Call me, though, if you have more problems.”

I guess I’m really not empty. I’m full — with family and kind people in my life.

Do you think the plumber will be this nice if I call him?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family · Homeschool · Life

You Do You

Sally2 Comments

OR: A Letter to My Children

Dear Kids,

I am so proud of you. Each of you has pursued something that you love. Some of you have found a career. Some of you are still searching, but I feel like you are on the right path and that’s the biggest part of the struggle.

Remember when you were growing up and I was doing a pretty crappy job of homeschooling? Sometimes I look back on that and am amazed at how far you’ve gone in spite of me.

Did I check your workbooks? Once in a blue moon.

Did I make sure that you wrote those book reports? Not nearly often enough.

Did I follow through on those papers you were supposed to write? Sometimes. (Epic fail in that department was that time I bet one of you that some contestant would not win on Survivor. “If they win,” I said, “you don’t have to do finish that paper.” What an idiot bet. Of course, they won.)

When you complained that something was too hard or that you couldn’t do it because you thought you weren’t smart enough, did I tell you that it’s not how smart you are, it’s how you’re smart? Yes — often enough that it elicited eye-rolls whenever I said it.

But I truly believe that with all my heart. Each one of you has a unique set of gifts and talents. If you can learn to put those to work, you will feel fulfilled with whatever your career choice is.

The first time I heard the expression “You do you” I didn’t like it. I thought it was said in a condescending way, with a hint of a sneer.

Of course that was years ago and I don’t remember the exact words leading up to that expression, but here’s the gist of what I remember — That thing that you’re talking about doing is the kind of thing I can’t picture any sane or normal person even dreaming about. It’s absolutely nuts. But, you do you.

Yesterday, I sat in the lobby of the gym and was telling someone about you. “I’m so proud of them all,” I told her. You’ve started your own business, pursued higher education, settled in new areas, changed career focus a few times as you hone what you really want to pursue, studied and studied some more, overcome difficult life circumstances, found delight in new areas, and followed your dreams.

I am so very very proud of you. You’ve all done a really good job being you.

Love,

Mom

We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?

Advent sidenote: The ultimate you-do-you is seen at Christmas and at Easter. Jesus’ life is bookended with chapters that don’t make sense. I know this didn’t actually happen, but can you picture the eye-rolls in heaven when the plan was revealed — a virgin mother, traveling near her due-date, turned away from the inn, and the Son of God bing born in a stable. That thing that You’re talking about doing is the kind of thing I can’t picture any sane Son of God even dreaming about. It’s absolutely nuts. But, You do You. And He did.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Life

eXamination

Sally2 Comments

(I feel like I’m cheating for the letter “X” by using a word that really begins with E. Please forgive me. I had a scathingly brilliant idea for a new series of posts. Okay, maybe not scathingly brilliant — I had an idea for something I wanted to write about, but I want to finish what I started first — An A-to-Z of things I like and don’t like.)

X is for eXamination — something I both like and dislike.

Let me start with the dislike part. I don’t really like going to the dentist or the doctor or the optometrist –anyone who is going to examine me physically. Even haircuts are a thing I put off until it’s an absolute necessity and I’m at the point of seriously considering asking the woman to shave my head so I can go longer without another visit. Weigh myself? I think not.

My youngest daughter is in her first semester of dental hygiene school. Next semester she begins working on real patients.

Life with a dental hygiene student

“Will you be my first patient?” she asked me.

I didn’t even hesitate. “Of course, I will,” I said.

Some things outweigh my dislikes — like the love I have for my child.

I brush my teeth at least twice a day, floss regularly, and generally attend to my oral health. Yet, as January draws nearer, I’m more and more anxious about what she will see when she looks in my mouth. Will I have bad breath? Are there places I’ve missed with my brushing? Is she going to find something terrible that will require another visit?

Pitiful, isn’t it?

I have a strong family history of breast cancer. Do I do breast self-examination? Partly — but that standing shirtless in front of a mirror part, nope.

When I reached colonoscopy age, I dragged my feet and bargained with my primary care provider. I managed to put it off for a good 6 years until she played a better card than I did.

Reading the eye chart at the optometrist is one thing, but when they invade my personal space to peer deeply into my actual eyeball — I hate it.

Gosh, I’m telling you all my quirks here. Why is this so much easier than that way-too-close one-on-one?

Exams I like are knowledge based. I’ve always been a fairly good test-taker. I think it has to do with being factual and logical.

Logical, that is, until it comes to something like the physician palpating my abdomen. Logically, I know why she needs to do it. I just don’t like it.

Now on to Y and Z.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

Family Feud

Sally6 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter F.

I love my family. I may have already mentioned that half a zillion times.

I like them.

I love them.

I think they’re amazing.

I’m proud of them.

I love spending time with them.

Since the wedding, a number of people have stopped at the front desk and asked to see photographs. I have a few on my phone, but my favorite one is this:

Those are all my children! Aren’t they wonderful?!

I was showing this photo to a woman who comes in to swim every day and she called her husband over to see it. “Look!” she said, “These are all Sally’s children!”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Eight of them!”

“Look at this photo,” she said again. “That’s a great family!”

He looked at me and shook his head again. “I just can’t wrap my mind around it. You gave birth to all those children?”

I smiled and nodded. “Having those kids was the most fun thing ever,” I said. Then added — “well, maybe not the giving-birth part, but raising eight children was fun. We played games together, read together, ate together nearly every night. It was a lot of work, but it was all good.”

He just shook his head a third time. “I don’t know,” he said.

But I do. I KNOW every minute was worth it.

Lest you think that every minute was perfect, let me assure it was not.

There was one time that two boys were playing medieval times and one almost jousted the other’s eye out.

And there was the time when one boy almost removed another one’s ear in a freak accident. (Same two boys incidentally.)

There was the time I came home of a shopping trip to find a little boy scooching along a thin bit of roof to get BACK to the open window he had come out of.

Oh — and that time we came home from a dinner out to find a boy with a broken arm.

We’ve had stitches and a knocked out tooth. Also, chicken pox, ear infections, strep throat, and stomach bugs upon stomach bugs. One round of stomach bugs was just after I had come home from the hospital with a new baby. Fun times.

At the end of the day we are family.

And yet we also feud. The middle child in me wants us all to get along. If I homeschooled my children with purpose, though, it was that they be able the think for themselves.

And they do.

Because of that, they cover not a linear spectrum, but a three-dimensional one. They are eight unique points in a universe, not lined up in a row at all, but all over the map. Some are very conservative, while others are very liberal. Some attend church every Sunday, while others search and question all of that. Some own guns. Some hate guns. Some hunt. Some are vegetarian. I could go on.

We gathered for a family wedding back in May. We laughed together, ate together, and celebrated together. We were family, not feud — and I really liked that.

Scottish Gaelic:
Tha gaol agam air mo theaghlach. I love my family.
Cha toil leam sabaid. I do not like fighting.

How about you? What do you like that begins with F? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

B things

Sally19 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter B and something you don’t like.

“What’s something I like that begins with B?” I asked Mary.

“Biscotti,” she said immediately. Ooh, I do like biscotti.

“Books,” she said.

“Bosnia.”

“Blue.”

Does this girl know me or what?

“Bugs,” she said.

“I don’t like bugs,” I replied.

“But you need a ‘don’t like,’ don’t you?” she said.

That was the problem. I had had an idea for a post, but when I sat down to write it, my words went off in a direction and I was stuck with a “don’t like” that I hadn’t expected. Sometimes that happens.

But I really do like biscotti, books, Bosnia (one of my best trips ever), and the color blue.

If you want to read what I don’t like, you’ll have to suffer through the next part. Please forgive the TMI.

I am not a shopper. Other than my frequent trips to the grocery store and occasional trips to Target, I really don’t spend much time shopping.

When my oldest daughter set the date for her wedding, my co-workers asked to take me shopping — dress shopping to be precise.

“Um… no,” I said.

“It’ll be fun,” they said.

“No,” I said.

“We’ll make a day of it,” they said.

“Really — no,” I said.

So I went shopping with my daughters. It was a painful experience — leafing through racks of frou-frouey dresses, trying on a few here and there. No, no, no. They all belonged on some other woman, not me. My daughters were great. They were encouraging and kind, but no. We all needed to face the fact that I was not a dress shopper.

In the end I bought some fabric and a pattern and sent them to a dear friend. She had helped me out of this very pinch once before by making a dress for me that I wore to two sons’ weddings.

My friend and I messaged back and forth. She sent me a mock-up of the bodice to make sure it would fit. Finally, about two weeks before the wedding, she mailed the package.

I waited.

And waited.

I messaged her that it hadn’t come. She went to the post office. The tracking number was dead. I pictured my package falling off the conveyor belt of a vast postal facility and getting kicked into some dim corner. Dead.

The wedding was in three days.

This meant another round of dreaded dress-shopping. This time I found one.

But here’s the very worst part of the whole ordeal. Because of the neckline of the dress I found, I had to go bra shopping.

I HATE bra shopping — and that’s my B.

And that’s enough said about THAT.

My new dress matched my daughters perfectly.

 In Scottish Gaelic: Is toil leam biscotti, leabhraichean, Bosnia, agus gorm. Cha toil leam ceannach airson fo-aodach.

How about you? What do you like that begins with B? What do you dislike?

family · Life

Children: the Gift I Didn’t Know I Needed

Sally11 Comments

This weekend I was getting some things ready for a bridal shower for my oldest daughter and came across a notebook in which I had written this quote: “This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be.” ~~ William Willimon

I looked up the source of the quote and read through the whole article which you can find here: From a God We Hardly Knew. In short, it is a Christmas message about Isaiah 9:6 — “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” — in which Willimon makes the point that Ahaz, in the original context, was looking for an army and instead God promised a child.

A bridal shower and Mother’s Day seem appropriate days for me to think about my children. I heard from all eight this weekend. Plus all three daughters-in-law. I am rich indeed.

And I never could have imagined this.

Ever.

There was a point in time when I had been told that I wouldn’t have children without using fertility drugs.

Okay, I thought, a family is not in my future.

One of my favorite professors in college had encouraged me more than once to pursue medical school. “I don’t usually do this,” she had said. “I’m usually trying to dissuade students who think they want to be doctors.”

But I got married two weeks after graduating college. I supported my husband while he finished his schooling and began his first job. Once he was settled in, I began thinking about medical school and figuring out which classes I still needed — Calculus and Organic Chemistry. I contacted the nearest university to find out how to enroll.

Then I found out I was pregnant.

When you’re in high school, the guidance counselor never suggests motherhood as a career track. When you’re in college, the career office doesn’t suggest it either. Honestly, it wasn’t even a blip on my life radar.

Yet here I am today to tell you that being a mother — a full-time stay-at-home mother, who decorated funny-looking birthday cakes and washed-dried-and-folded mountains of laundry, who read the same books over and over until I could “read” them with my eyes closed, who played road-sign spelling games to entertain on long road trips and refused to get an entertainment system in our minivan because I WAS the entertainment system, who shopped at yard sales and thrift stores and sorted through bags of hand-me-down clothing because living on one income isn’t easy — being a mother was, and IS, the absolute best thing in the whole world.

Children are the gift I didn’t know I needed.

In addition to all the dandelion bouquets and crayon artwork, I received from them the very best lessons in patience, kindness, forgiveness, generosity, understanding, perseverance, creativity, humor — and that list could go on and on.

There’s a part of me that feels like I need to apologize. I know that not everyone has this opportunity. Not everyone can have children. Not everyone can afford to stay home. Life happens in different ways to each of us.

But I’m not going to apologize. I’m simply going to be grateful.

From the bridal shower
Blogging Challenge · family · Life

Abundance

Sally5 Comments

Dear Kim,

I want to use this letter to tell you about some of the abundance in my life. In your most recent message to me, you asked me about my girls. Talk about abundance! I’m so proud of each one of them.

My oldest daughter has her master’s degree in nursing. She works for an organization that cares for low-income elderly, trying to keep them living independently. Her career path was inspired by both my parents. The other day, one of the other kids said something about Helen pursuing law school. That may have been just idle conversation and have absolutely no substance to it — or maybe it’s true. I could see her doing that — arguing on behalf of people who cannot. She’s strong, strong-minded, and compassionate.

And she’s getting married — to a kind, compassionate man who knows how to handle someone who is strong and strong-minded. I’m so very happy for her.

My middle daughter just finished her first semester at an all-women’s college in Virginia. I was driving her to Syracuse yesterday to catch her flight back to Roanoke when she got a text from the airlines that one of her flights was canceled. She had gotten an email the day before from the school that a water main had burst in one of the residence halls. We had been watchingbracing for news that they would go remote because of COVID but that didn’t happen. Last night, though, she heard that in-person classes are being postponed for a week. In my heart, I rejoiced. I LOVE having her home.

She has blossomed so much at school. During the fall semester, she would call or text things like, “Guess what I learned today?!” and it made me so happy. My father would have been thrilled to see someone so excited about learning. Heck, I was excited about her excitement.

My youngest daughter also finished her first semester at college — a straight A student, but she’s not going back. Instead she’s going to pursue dental hygiene. It’s an interest she has had for a long time. Maybe I didn’t encourage it enough in recent years because the thought of working in people’s mouths all day was so YUCK! It’s the right path for her, though.

Today she came to visit me at work. “What a beautiful girl!” my co-worker remarked — and she is. Absolutely lovely.

I realize as I write this that abundance may have been a better word to describe my sons since I have five of them. But I’ll save that for tomorrow when the word is generosity. I have a generosity of sons. God’s generosity.

I also have an abundance of blessing — three daughters.

Love,

Sally