Family

New Things I am Learning

By / June 8, 2011 / 2 Comments

1. How to research and query agents. I’m starting by asking my friends about their agents, once I’ve dried up that source of information I’ll resort to the internet.

2. How to set up our online store for a pre-order. This is one of those things which I expected to learn once, but instead I have to re-learn every time I do it. The software keeps updating and changing in between pre-orders. Also our needs shift and change from book to book. On the list of things to research for the store: how to set it up to deliver electronic only files and if it can track orders based upon how a customer arrived at the site. (It would be useful to be able to figure out if a tweet or a blog post is more effective in driving sales.)

3. Graphic design. I have text books sitting on my desk and gathering dust. I fully intend to study them and get better at this job I’ve been doing for four years now. I want to know how to purposefully create rather than just muddling through.

4. How to manage four kids at home all day and still get my work done. Again, it seems I should know how to do this, but the kids change from one year to the next making hard things easy and introducing new hard things. Also the summers have different demands, different camps, different scheduled items. Last year there were swim lessons, this year I haven’t scheduled any. This year there will be a summer drama camp if I can ever get in touch with the teacher long enough to get the kids registered. Generally I get it figured out just in time for everything to shift around again.

5. Marketing. There are always marketing things to learn. If I learn and apply marketing skills then (in theory) we will have more money. More money means less immediate stress. I like being less stressed, but I still don’t like marketing.

6. Freelance non-fiction writing. I’m just on the front edge of this, beginning by emailing some people I know who do it. I have enough writing skill that I could be earning money this way. But before I can earn money I have to figure out how to find people who are willing to pay for my words. Then I have to figure out what kinds of words I am willing to sell. Ideally I’d be able to sell some of my essays with only minor revision. Getting paid is not the only aspect of this which interests me. I like being able to say things which are useful to others.

7. How to make over a dress. I already know a lot of sewing, but a make-over project is inherently dictated by what already exists. I have to figure out each step as I go. I’m also doing researches on acquiring discounted materials.

8. How to pick up and start writing a new project after completing a large project. This one is harder than I would have thought.

It would be so lovely to be able to focus on learning one new thing and be really excited by it. That is not my life. I’m not sure that luxury comes to very many people in this world. At least most of these things do not have fear attached. I like it when I can learn without being driven by terror of failure.

First day of Summer Break

By / June 6, 2011

It is now 4pm and I have accomplished exactly none of my usual Monday Morning business tasks. A small piece of my brain is ready to panic since this is obviously evidence that I will never get any work done all summer long and we are dooomed. Except we aren’t. The first day of a new schedule is always rough. I’ll see how it goes again tomorrow. If the problem persists for more than a couple of days, I’ll make adjustments. We’ll make kids and business co-exist in the house during the same hours one way or another.

For now, I’m tired and done trying to work.

Snippets from the Weekend

By / June 5, 2011

Our friend Mike got baptized yesterday morning. It was one of many decisions he has made to change his life from drifting and unhappy, into focused and goal-oriented. Mike has taken control of his life and is choosing who he wants to be. The fact that he picked our church brings us joy, but even more joyful is seeing how he chooses every day to do hard things because they take him where he wants to go. Most adults are not willing to dare to change so much about who they are. It inspires me to look at my own life and see if there are things that I am afraid to change.

***

Yesterday evening Howard was grouchy and decided to get out of the house. He wandered his way down to the Provo Festival of Books where several of our published author friends were presenting. Within an hour he called me because he’d arranged for a whole group to head out for dinner. I set Kiki and Link to babysitting the younger two and then drove myself down to join them. The world is a wonderful place when we can gather a group of friends for dinner and then later realize that 4 of them are New York Times bestselling authors and one was a Nebula award winner. All that authorial importance at the table and somehow the evening was completely lacking in ego. I love being at the table with high-energy creative people. They work really hard and that is why they have succeeded. Just as inspiring to me were the other people at the table, the ones who have not yet earned banner success, but who are also high-energy creative people. Dinners like that one are one of the rewards for the fretting and work we do much of the rest of the time.

***

The snowball bush is finally in bloom. Usually the blooms arrive in mid-May, but they were delayed by the cool weather. This means it is time for the annual snowball bush flower fight. This is where the kids pick snowball-shaped clusters of white flowers and throw them at each other or fling them into the air like confetti. Also in full bloom are my irises. They’re swirling their petals like Spanish dancers and filling the air with a spicy floral scent. These things thrive despite my neglect of them in recent years. I hope that this summer I can spend more time with them.

***

The thought arrived during the closing hymn. We were on the second verse of “Be Thou Humble” when I knew that though my currently-in-query-process book and all my future writings will bring me criticisms, the good accomplished by them will far outweigh the negative criticism. It was a calming thought. I have been much worried about how bad reviews and hateful comments would injure me. My book is based in my life and it will be very hard to remain objective. I have some of the same concerns in my blog. I often have an impulse to leave things unsaid and thus shield myself. But the good will outweigh the difficulty. I can hold on to that.

***

The chore lists have been updated and placed on our bulletin board in the kitchen. Each child has a grid. Seven days of the week across and ten weeks down. Each day that they complete their list of chores they fill in a square. At the end of the week, each filled square represents allowance money. Each completely filled week adds to the bonus which they can earn at the end of the summer. It is a new iteration of an old system, and thus more easily understood by the kids than explained in words. They all contemplated their charts, running calculations in their heads about money they could earn and what they could buy. I look at the charts and hope that they will help tame the household chaos and teach my kids the value of daily effort. Howard and I also have daily household chore lists. We could learn the same daily effort lesson in regards to household maintenance. The system will probably fall apart. I just hope it is tight enough to last through 10 weeks of summer.

***

I sat on a stool in my kitchen reading out loud from a manuscript page. Kiki was rolling out biscuits as she listened. Link and Patch just sat in chairs, listening with bright eyes and smiles. Mom reading aloud is fairly common, but this story was about them. One of the rules I set myself for my book was that the kids would get ultimate approval about what I say about them. This was their chance to hear my words and tell me what they thought. They loved hearing the stories, even when the stories were about their mis-behaviors and childishness. We still have more to read, but thus far only Link has requested a change. It is a minor wording change which will leave the heart of the story intact. It is a small thing to do to acknowledge to my kids that their opinions matter to me.

The Gateway to Summer

By / June 3, 2011

It is the last day of school. Two of my kids are at their elementary school for an hour and a half. My junior high and high schoolers are both at home since no one takes role on the last day and they don’t see much point in wandering around in the halls carrying yearbooks. In 30 minutes I’ll retrieve the younger pair and the school year will be officially over.

The end of a school year is usually an event of high emotion to me. I’m either eagerly ready to be done with a year that is hard, or dreading the end of a year that was good. Often I feel both ways about different children, or even the same child, if the year has been particularly… interesting. For the past few years I looked toward the onset of summer schedule with dread. I panicked about organizing 6 people in one house all day long so that work was maximized and squabbling was minimized. I also tend to dread the influx of lunches. Fixing meals is not my favorite activity and with the kids at home I have three per day instead of just two. The end of the school year also carries with it much angst about what the following year will be. No matter how hard the current year was, it was at least a known quality. The year to come could be so much worse.

If you pay attention to tenses in the previous paragraph (but not too close, my tenses probably don’t hold up to intense scrutiny) you will notice that I talked about all that high emotion in past tense. It has all been absent this year. Today is the end of school and my entire emotional reaction has been to shrug and dust off the summer chore lists from last year. It is possible that I simply used up all my end-of-year hand wringing back in April when I helped my older two register for classes and filled out paperwork for my younger two to be transferred to a different school. All the choices are made and my psyche seems inclined to let them lay until (probably) sometime in August. Also there doesn’t seem to be much point in panicking about having all the kids home while I’m trying to work. I’ve done it before and sorted it out. We’ll figure it out again.

What I’m feeling is not apathy. It’s not that I don’t care. It is that I don’t feel stress. The calmness is nice. I can save all my panic for the upcoming book pre-order, book shipping, and three major conventions in six weeks. Perhaps it is simply that Conservation of Anxiety means that I’ve already met my anxiety quota for the summer and I don’t have any left to spill over onto the end of school. Except that I don’t feel particularly anxious right now. I feel like we’re going to move calmly and seamlessly into a nice summer routine.

Tune in next week for : Sandra finds her stress, a blog in four parts about how bored kids can squabble over anything.

Packing for the weekend

By / May 26, 2011 / 2 Comments

When Howard goes on a trip, packing is always a source of worry for him. This is not because packing is complicated. Packing just ends up as the focal point for all the various stresses ahead. When Howard gets within a day of departure and his bag is not yet packed, he gets anxious and cranky. He needs the physical representation of being prepared.

Last night I sat in my chair after writer’s group and stress descended upon me. Howard saw it and asked if I was all right.
“You know that feeling you have when you’re leaving on a trip and you’re not packed yet?” I answered. “I feel that right now and I think it is focused on the childcare situation.”
My statement was a tightly controlled response, deliberately calm in opposition to how I actually felt. Odd that I can feel that everything will be fine and also want to jitter in panic at the same time.
“Sounds like making childcare arrangements is first on tomorrow’s list.” Howard said.

And so it was. I now know where the kids will be while I am in California and Howard is at CONduit in Salt Lake. I have the framework upon which I can build meal plans and instructions for the kids. I will arrange things and then I will let go.

I am not the only one planning for this weekend. Several weeks ago we pondered the logistics of Howard managing a dealer’s table by himself and determined that he needed a minion. We mentioned the job to Kiki along with the possibility that this might be a paid gig. There was a road block in that she would have to miss school on Friday. I set the problem aside to think about a different day, but Kiki did not. She talked to all of her teachers. She made arrangements to take a final exam early and to turn in homework assignments. She calmly and responsibly cleared Friday from any conflicts. She is going to CONduit with Howard and is quite excited about it.

Working a table is not the only source of excitement for Kiki. She is also putting some of her work into the art show. Yesterday included a last-minute scramble to select pieces and matte them. There were difficulties, matting is a skill which neither Kiki nor I possess at expert levels. But the job got done and the show is prepared. Whether or not her pieces sell, the experience of preparing for a show is a good learning experience for her.

Other preparations for this weekend involve Patch and Gleek. I have been working with them so that they are more independent at bedtime. For years our bedtime routines have been heavily dependent upon me being present. The structures were rigid. First snack, then reading with snack, then reading in bed after snack, then talking with mom, then a dozen excuses and delays, eventually sleep. A week ago I declared that they needed to practice putting themselves to bed. It was their job to track the time and get everything done. The results have been mixed. I’m still heavily involved in keeping them focused, but bedtime has been more fluid and they are beginning to step up and take responsibility rather than shouting at me if I try to skip steps due to the late hour. I don’t know how well bedtime will go when I am removed from the equation, but they have better ground work for success than they did a week ago.

The preparations are coming together. The pieces are starting to line up. My clothes are not yet in a suitcase, but I am beginning to feel packed.

Taking Apart a Computer Monitor

By / May 24, 2011 / 6 Comments

A few years ago Gleek’s school class sent notes home advertising a “Take Apart” day. They wanted old appliances or technology which was broken so that the kids could take things apart and see how these familiar objects looked inside. We happened to have a broken laptop to send with Gleek, which thrilled her. She had the coolest take apart item in the class. Since that day, Gleek often requests broken things so that she can take them apart. I figure there is no difference between recycling the thing whole or in pieces, so when I have something I let her.

On Sunday Gleek and Patch took screwdrivers to my broken flat screen monitor. It was fascinating to see all the layers that go into making a monitor run. The kids loved unplugging the circuit boards and pulling loose the screws. We were fascinated to discover that the monitor screen had five layers. There were three thin sheets of various refractive qualities, one liquid crystal board which had electronic inputs, then a thick polycarbonate sheet which also refracted light in interesting ways. We examined the tiny florescent light bars before recycling them as possibly toxic when broken. Bits of metal and plastic went into the bin as well. I must admit I was as fascinated by the process as the kids were. I have a better idea of what makes monitors work. We kept the circuit boards and the interesting refractive sheets. I’ve got my eyes open to figure out what broken thing we can take apart next.

Preparation for Challenges

By / May 22, 2011

Yesterday I wrote a lovely post about how I’m going on a trip because I need to challenge myself and my children. So naturally I am going to spend the remainder of the week deliberately setting out to make sure that everything is as easy as possible for the folks at home. I will do all the laundry, make meal plans, stock the fridge, and a dozen other pre-planning things. Am I undermining what I hoped to achieve. Maybe. But I would like us all to experience a bit of a challenge not a major trauma. I don’t want to set anyone up for a stressful mess. Also, if I do everything I possibly can in advance, I hope to be able to shut down the guilt circuits in my brain. Then I will be able to focus on the other purpose of the trip, which is me getting to do something I’ve always wanted to do, but never dared to allow. I’ll have three days during which my primary factor in minute to minute decisions is “what do I feel like doing?”

So hypocritical or not, I’m off to make lists and get everyone prepared.

Removing the Invisible Help

By / May 22, 2011 / 2 Comments

“Next weekend is going to be really different.” I said to the kids gathered around the table for Sunday dinner. “I’m going to be gone all weekend.” They accepted the news almost without comment. After only a short discussion of likely ways that things would be arranged, the kids moved on to talk of other things. I wanted very much to plan specific details, call people, get commitments. Instead I let the conversation drift elsewhere. The whole point of my going is to force me to stop trying to manage everything and to let them step up and sort challenges without me jumping into the middle. It is very hard for me to stop helping.

Everyone has assignments around Sunday dinner. I called Link into the kitchen to clean and set the table. He came slowly and worked at the project with many moments of distraction. Three different times I found myself picking up garbage or dirty dishes from the table. I was right there. I wanted the job done. I was only helping a little. Three times I carefully put the thing back down. I am fully capable of “helping a little” so much that I do 90% of the work. Learning to work is important. Learning to tackle challenges and over come them is important. These are things my children must fight for and struggle with. The more I help, the less task completion will feel like a victory. I know all this logically, and yet I pick up dirty socks instead of making the kids come get them. I put away back packs. I mop up water on the bathroom floors. I sit next to a child and help with homework. All of this is so habitual that I don’t even realize how much help I’m providing and my kids have no idea how much work they do not do for themselves.

Helping and serving are good things. I know that they are, which is why so much of my energy goes into them. Children need to be helped and taken care of. They need to be nurtured. They also need to be challenged. At some point the mother bird has to stop bringing worms and start shoving the baby bird out so it can learn to fly. Humans are far more complicated than birds. There are hundreds or thousands of aspects of growth. Kids need their financial costs covered until their late teens (or longer), but they need to start cleaning up after themselves when their ages are still in single digits. The trick for a parent is figuring out where to challenge and where to nurture. I am really good at making life easier for those around me. I have a hard time making things challenging.

So I will be providing a challenge by removing all the invisible helping I do on a daily basis. I’ll be away for three days. I’ll also be challenging myself by going someplace new which will only have a few familiar people. I expect there will be fun. I also expect that it will be hard for all of us. Yet we’ll come out of the experience having learned new things. It will be good. More importantly it will show us all the hidden assumptions we carry. From this new knowledge we can craft new patterns in our family structure so that I am not overburdened and so that the kids are learning to fly.

Making and Wearing Hats

By / May 19, 2011 / 3 Comments

I went to a tea party yesterday. It was a mother daughter event which included no actual tea, but the lemonade was served in tea cups and there were scones. “Come dressed in your finest.” The invitation said. I did not actually pick my finest, formal wear is not quite right for afternoon tea. I did put on dressy clothes. Gleek did too. Then she got quite upset when she had no pretty shoes to wear. I’m not quite certain how we ended up with no nice shoes in her size. I guess she outgrew them during the past 9 months when she refused to wear anything but tennis shoes to church.
“I’ll be the only girl there with ugly shoes!” Gleek lamented as we got into the car.

By the time we arrived at the church building two minutes later, shoes were completely forgotten. Gleek found us seats at one of the tables. The first activity was hat decorating. The organizers had purchased and array of straw hats and hat trimmings. A long table was covered in faux flowers, ribbons, feather boas, feathers, tulle, glittery stickers, and pom pons. Gleek approached the project with high enthusiasm. My first reaction was more reluctant than hers, but as I arranged ribbon and flowers on my hat, I found myself enjoying the process of making something beautiful. We wore the hats for the tea.

Gleek’s hat was either a complete wreck or an absolutely brilliant expression of individuality and creativity. I loved it. I loved even more that she wore the hat to school today. As she disappeared into the school building I had a momentary fear that someone would make fun of her for her hat. Then I realized that Gleek’s absolute fearlessness meant that her peers were much more likely to decide she was cool than that she was weird. She was still wearing the hat at the end of the school day, so all went well. Now I just have to figure out when and where I am brave enough to wear mine.

Gleek Present and Future

By / May 17, 2011 / 2 Comments

I am more vigilant of Gleek than the other kids. When she gets in an argument with other kids, I intervene. When she’s wandered off my radar then I go find her. It occurred to me today that this is not fair to her. True she is more quick to anger than my other kids, but she keeps it in bounds. True I often have to figure out where she has disappeared to, but I always find her in a place that she is allowed to be. I keep reacting as if she is unpredictable and this is manifestly untrue. Gleek is awesome. Even in the midst of fury she chooses her words and actions. She sometimes says mean things, but she thinks even meaner things and chooses not to say them. That level of self control in a ten year old is amazing. When I look at who she is, I am always impressed. Unfortunately I often view her through a lens called “fears for the future.” Wearing this lens gives me the false belief that today’s behavior will be carried into the future. It is not true. Kids develop and change. I need to address the Gleek of today with kindness, love, and appreciation. If I can do that every day, then the Gleek of the future and I will have a good relationship. It will all be fine.