Family

Sorting My Recipes

By / November 2, 2014 / 6 Comments

I have a recipe box. I got it when Howard and I were first married and I carefully collected recipes to fill it. Collecting and trying out recipes was part of how I learned to manage my own kitchen and was helpful for Howard and I to define our shared identity as a couple. We liked this one, we didn’t like that one, this one needs adjusting, we’ll never try that again. When we moved to our first house, the recipe box came with us. In our current house it first took up residence on the counter next to our library of cookbooks. Over the years it moved to a corner of the counter and then to on top of the fridge. We still cook, but I reach for the books more than I do the box. Half the time I’m reaching for one of a dozen pieces of loose paper, recipes that I’ve printed off the internet and stuck in the row of cookbooks because I make them again and again. The size of this stack of loose paper has begun to be ridiculous. Today I realized that loose paper is the reason that recipe boxes were invented. It is a place to collect the recipes.

So I pulled out my little box and I sorted through it. I got rid of all the recipes that I grabbed because I might make them one day. I kept all the things for which I have fond memories. I definitely kept the ones that we continue to make. It was like a walk down memory lane touching all the cards of odd things I collected over the years. There were card given me by people I don’t remember. I vaguely remember that giving me recipes was part of my bridal shower. Some of them came from there. Others were clipped from a cooking magazine that was given to us as a wedding present. But there is no sense in cluttering my life with little pieces of paper because they provoke a vague nostalgia. I cleared it out and made space for things to come.

Now I need to find a program that will let me transcribe recipes so that I can print them on cards, but which will also let me easily duplicate them for other people. My children are going to be heading out into the world to cook for themselves and I’m certain that some of them will be asking for copies of some of the recipes I’ve used. It would be nice to just be able to print those out instead of copying by hand. Except, I did keep one recipe that I’ve never made, because it was in Great Uncle Blake’s shaky handwriting. So perhaps there is value in handwritten cards.

Mostly I like knowing that I have space for things that are useful to me instead of it being occupied by things that are lingering without purpose.

Changing and Growing

By / October 29, 2014 / 2 Comments

It used to be that the church Halloween carnival was the biggest event of the year for my kids. It was planned for and anticipated. This year Patch decided he didn’t care to go. Link has opted out for the last several years. Kiki is off at college. Howard is up against a deadline. That left Gleek and I. She dressed up and spent all her energy to run games for younger kids. This is Gleek in her element. It had been my intention to dress up. Last year I’d decided I was tired of being the boring Mom, so I acquired pieces to make a costume.

Yet when this week arrived, I didn’t have the energy to care about being boring. I spent all of my energy helping Patch troubleshoot his stress and Link troubleshoot his only marginally functional homework system. Both were problems this week. We think we’ve figured them out, but the solutions for Patch require ongoing work from me in the form of enforced bedtimes and additional meals. (He grew half an inch in the last two weeks. Four inches since February. He’s stressed because his body is using all of his resources to add height.) The solutions for Link may involve the acquisition of a cell phone for him. This requires much thinking and budget calculation. There was also the issue of replacement coats before the freeze which is due this weekend. Library materials needed to be returned. Packages needed to be mailed. Basically I spent half the day driving from place to place in my car and making decisions at every stop, until my brain ran out of decision-making energy.

I sometimes teach a class on structuring life to support creativity and one of the points I always make is that changes work best, and are most likely to stick, when they are made only one or two at a time. On one level I’m applying that. I’m only making one or two changes for each kid, but the cumulative effect for me is a pile of things that I have to remember and haven’t yet turned into habits. When I was a kid I remember life having long stretches of sameness and I longed for something different to arrive. These days I just wish that life would hold onto a pattern long enough for me to become accustomed to it.

The Orchestra Mom

By / October 24, 2014 / 2 Comments

About once per week I get an email from The Orchestra Mom. I don’t know if she single-handedly put together my son’s before school elementary orchestra program, but it feels that way. Her emails are long and detailed. They tell me exactly how orchestra went, how the director taught, and then there are the lesson instructions. I should have my son practice with a metronome set to exactly 60 beats per minute, but don’t worry if he doesn’t get it right away. My son should practice singing the scales and I should sing them with him, and I should persevere even if my child doesn’t want to, because learning the scales and note names is really important. The music should be memorized through bar twelve and practiced at least three times per day. But don’t worry too much if my kid is still struggling because orchestra is supposed to be fun. The instructions go on for paragraphs.

All of her emails are like that. They are a mix of very precise instructions on exactly how everything should be done with small reassurances at the end of each paragraph that perfection is not expected. I read these emails with bemusement and I know that this mother is coming to orchestra from a very different place than I am. All her communications assume that parents put their kids in orchestra because it is good for the kids and that the kids will naturally resist until they finally get good enough that they’re able to realize that maybe they enjoy music after all.

I didn’t pick cello for my son, he picked it for himself. Out of all the things he could do in his out of school hours, he chose music. The worst thing I could do is to take that interest and turn it into a chore. So, if he doesn’t feel like practicing, I don’t make him. If we have a string of days without practice then he and I have a conversation where we talk about whether he still wants to do music. He always does, and then we rearrange his schedule so the practices fit better. He has a solo lesson on Tuesdays before school and orchestra on Friday before school. Some weeks those morning sessions are the only times he touches his cello. I’m okay with that, because he comes home smiling. I want him to enjoy the process of learning music. It is the process that matters to me, not him arriving at some imagined proficiency goal.

I feel empathy for the orchestra mom, because in other times and areas of my life, I’ve been her. I’ve been the one who cares passionately about a project, who knows exactly how it should be done, but who has to rely on others to follow through. I’ve had to dial back my intensity so that I don’t drive others away from a project. I’ve been (and sometimes still am) the mom who requires my kids to do things because it is good for them, not because they enjoy it. Sometimes I push in the hope that someday my kids will see the value in what I required them to do. I know that for some things they may never thank me. This is why I am so glad to not have to push for my son’s music. Instead I quietly file the emails as they come in and let my son practice, or not, as he chooses. I also send a quiet, sympathetic thought to the orchestra mom. I’m learning, slowly, how to push less and trust more. I hope that she can too, because her emails make me feel tired for her.

Shed Build Day 4, Grapes, and Letting a Project Rest

By / October 4, 2014 / 3 Comments

Last night Link and I were enthusiastic about getting back to the build site and finishing the shed. Unfortunately there were several things which made the experience less than ideal. First Link bought himself Super Smash Bros last night. When I went to bed the house was dark and I thought he’d already gone to sleep. Nope. He played that game all night. No sleep at all. He freely admits that this was not wise and it meant that instead of him being focused on the project, he was barely ambulatory. Then I got on a ladder and realized that while applying shingles is not difficult, I’m not able to climb on a roof to do them. I’m too scared and too aware of the terrible costs should I fall. So I could only do the lower half of the roof. Then of course we had the ongoing saga of air compressors which work fine at my house, but refuse to work properly at the work site. Four work days, two air compressors, each time they won’t function because the internal fuse keeps tripping. Next time I’m just bringing hammers.

So it was hot. Link was exhausted. Gleek really wanted to help, and would probably have climbed on the roof for me, but I’m not thrilled about handing her power tools. This meant we had the equivalent of 1.5 workers. I was focused, no one else was. So I sat with Link and we talked about what to do. I was concerned about volunteer fatigue, because some of Link’s friends have come to help five or six different times. I knew I was tired of endlessly organizing work days, surely they had to be tired of helping. Link decided that our fatigue and crankiness meant that we should let it go for the day. We’ll try to have one more work day next week.

At least it looks like a shed now.
Shed

Link fell asleep in the car on the way home. He tipped forward against the seat belt in the way that babies and toddlers do when they fall fast asleep in their car seats. At home, he stumbled into the house and has been asleep ever since. I sat for a time, listening to General Conference and pondering all the many things which I’ve sacrificed for building this shed. The hours of physical work haven’t been as much an issue as the stress which prevented me from contemplating other things. I’m not stressed about the shed anymore. I can see exactly how to get it done and it is close. So I was able to walk out to my grape vines and pick a load of grapes. As I plucked them from their vines and into the juicer, I listened to a talk on charity. I thought about the woman who lives next door to the shed we are building. She was out tending her yard this morning and we spoke briefly. In lovely, accented English, she told me that she’s glad for the work that is being done in the community garden. She smiled at me, her teeth brilliant against her dark face. She has loaned us electricity for our tools and been very kind. I thought of her as my hands were wet with grapes and my ears were full of scripture on giving to the poor.

This shed my son has undertaken to build is a gift, an act of charity. We’ve been so focused on the logistics, on the costs in time and money, on getting it done. The impetus of this project was my son’s goal to earn and eagle scout award from the Boy Scouts of America. Yet the value of the project is in the shed which will stand and be useful for people who need a place to store garden tools. This shed enriches a neighborhood that often struggles. I wish it were a better shed. I wish that our inexperience with building were not so very obvious. That is part of the frustration I feel with this project. I know it could be done better and more efficiently by someone else. Yet we are giving what we have, which is all anyone can do. Spiritually, it is all that we are asked to do.

The nice thing about my grape project is that within only a few hours, I had a result I could admire.
Grape Juice

It is a lovely pink grape juice which comes from our super sweet Reliance variety grapes. We got them long ago from the owner of bunchgrapes.com. My next batch will be more grape juice color because I’ll use the Muscat and Swensen Red grapes. This evening I can sit and admire the pretty juice in jars and listen for that little pop which lets me know the lids have sealed. I have to remember that somewhere ahead of us is the day when Link and I will be able to stand and look at a completed shed. I hope in that moment we can be glad, not just to be done, but also for the work itself, for the opportunity we had to do this project.

Shed Build Day Part 3

By / October 3, 2014

As is the trend lately, it looks like the last part of the trilogy is going to be split in two. We’ll have Shed Build Day Part 4 tomorrow. It’ll be sandwiched in between conference sessions. The good news is that we only need a very small work crew because the roof is up. All that remains is shingles, trim, and hanging the door.

I didn’t get a picture of the completed roof. It was dark by then. But this was how it looked when it began to rise.
Roof ascending

I’ll take a be-roofed picture tomorrow when we have daylight.

Shed Build Day Part 2

By / October 1, 2014

We had a much smaller crew, only six people instead of twelve. In one way that was nicer, because it felt less chaotic. It also meant that less work got done. But we got the walls vertical. Walls up

That was quite tricky with only two of us to keep one wall steady while the other four attempted to maneuver the next wall. To add to the fun difficulty, the concrete pad has bolts sticking up, so we had to maneuver the walls with pre-drilled holes onto the bolts. Three hours of work to finish the walls and put them up.

The next thing is putting rafters on the roof, and I’m kind of dreading that part. We need at least six strong guys and four ladders, plus additional people to steady the ladders. We’re trying to put that circus together for Friday afternoon, which will be Shed Build Day part 3. Maybe it will go fast and we can start on the shingles too. That would be nice. Roof, shingles, trim, paint, done. I’m not getting my hopes up for done on Friday. I’ll be happy with a completed roof.

Between now and Friday I will remind myself that this project is not actually endless. It just feels that way. I will also attempt to make my brain stop thinking about all the ways that putting up the rafters could go wrong.

At least the sky put on a pretty show, which I was able to appreciate for long enough to take this picture.
Sunset

Sibling Rivalry

By / September 30, 2014 / 1 Comment

Sibling rivalry is rough. It is tough on the kids who love each other, but who are struggling to differentiate themselves from another person whose life context and skills are roughly equivalent. Or whose skills are wildly different, but whose interest areas are very similar. None of them has yet acquired the life experience necessary to recognize that two people who are engaging in the same activity are not necessarily in competition with each other. Nor have they really internalized their own strengths. So Gleek cries when Patch bests her at a video game which she’s been playing for hours and he only picks up in five minutes. Patch watches Gleek excel at drawing and feels inadequate. Or he watches her excel at any number of things which come easily to Gleek. When they ache inside, they aren’t nice to each other. Then I ache inside because I have to watch them be mean to each other. Thus only increasing the amount of hurting going around.

The best I can do is to separate them and then listen. I don’t argue when they say things that would be hurtful if heard by the other. In a private space they can feel what they feel. After I’ve been listening long enough there comes a moment where I have the chance to place an idea or a morsel of compassion. I don’t get to lecture. I don’t get to fix it and make everyone feel better. I just get one moment to say “have you considered…” or “Did you know…” Usually I end with expressing that life is not fair. Because it isn’t. What comes easily to one person comes hard to another. In the end the one who puts in the practice is the one who will shine in the years to come. But that is hard to believe when you’re eleven and thirteen. It is also hard to believe that one person’s shining achievement does not reduce nor demean any achievements made by another person. I know adults who struggle with that. I still struggle with it some days.

The good news is that they love each other and they laugh together far more often than they argue.

Things My Son’s Eagle Project is Teaching Me

By / September 27, 2014 / 5 Comments

I’m a bit project obsessive. This is a huge asset to me when I am fully in charge of a project. It means that I keep coming back to projects as soon as I am rested enough to think about them again. When I’m only sort-of in charge of a project, either I’m driven crazy by the schedules of others, or they’re driven crazy because I keep coming at them and saying “What about this? Do you think this would work? I’ve thought of a solution for that, let’s go take care of it now.”

Learning experiences work best when there is no deadline, unless one of the things-to-learn is how to work to a deadline. In that case, the deadline is best if it applies only to the learner and not to the helper/teacher. Or else the helper/teacher tends to over-help in order to make sure the deadline is met.

Eagle projects always have external deadlines because it has to be in service of some other organization. That organization can’t wait around forever while the scout figures things out slowly. As a parent, I feel that obligation and it weighs on me.

Eagle projects take longer than you think they will take, because an inexperienced person is supposed to be in charge. I have to let it take however long it takes, no matter how frustrated I am at having the project continue to reside in my brain. Stress is created because of the gap between the speed the scout figures things out and the deadline hopes of the other organization.

I am good at figuring out where a project will have a problem far before that problem becomes apparent to others and before it impacts the project. I am not good at waiting for others to discover and solve the problem. Instead my brain rushes ahead and figures out solutions. Once I have figured out a solution to a problem, I am not good at keeping my mouth shut so that others can find their own solutions. Instead I end up pointing out problems and sharing my solutions one right after the other. Then I remember we’re supposed to be having a learning experience and I realize that I’ve over-helped and I feel bad about it. Repeat many times. If I’m fully not-in-charge then I can go into a minion mode where this does not happen and I can just wait for instructions.

When rain starts to fall and it becomes obvious that we need to call off work for the day, I will be the last one to admit that it is time to quit. I’d rather work in cold, miserable, wet than have to arrange for tools and people to arrive again on another day. This is particularly true when some of the tools are rented. Even more particularly when those rentals were donated by the rental place and we’ll have to go to them again to ask for a second donation of tool time. This is when my son stands up to me and re-iterates that conditions are miserable and unsafe. No we can’t just keep working until the walls are vertical, we must throw tarps over everything and call it quits for the day. I did not give in gracefully.

It is important to admit to my child that he was right and I was wrong when that is the case. I did so as soon as I was calm enough to be able to see it.

Dry clothes, food, and a nap are helpful to restore perspective. Of course my brain spent some of my half-awake time picturing how the walls of the shed go together and picturing how we need to measure the top boards and make marks for the rafters. We really should do that before we make the walls vertical so that we don’t have to stand on ladders while measuring. We really do need a working nail gun. The one we had today was being problematic, which was probably because I was distracted and never checked the pressure setting on that air compressor. I was aware that they were trying to troubleshoot it, but was distracted by other work and now I don’t have sufficient information to try to solve the problem, but my brain keeps chewing on it anyway because we have to have a nail gun. …and my brain runs onward from there, which points up what I said up there in the first paragraph about being project obsessive.

I do better at letting other people encounter project problems and learn from them when I clearly define the limits of my role. For example: I will remind once and no more. If I don’t have a clearly defined limit, I will accidentally take over and my take over can last quite a while before I remember I’m only supposed to be helping.

I have a hard time staying within my self-defined limits. This is one of the reasons that my kids always make leaps forward in self-reliance and adult behavior when I go away on a trip. I’ve removed myself so that they really have to learn things and I won’t fall in to my plethora of management habits which incidentally make their lives easier and remove responsibility from their shoulders.

These tendencies of mine which have manifested in this project also show up in every day. I over manage school work, house work, etc. Seeing that makes me feel like a failure. Can being too competent and prepared be a failing? It sure feels like one sometimes. Particularly when I’m bothering others with reminders they’d rather not have. Even more so when I spend piles of energy preparing for an eventuality that never arrives. Definitely when my project brain pops me awake at 2am and I spend an hour pacing with anxiety that the project will not come together. Then I’m unable to sleep again until I’ve made lists and plans. Then the lists and plans are done and my son does not get to learn from thinking things through and making them. My anxiety drove me there first. It definitely feels like a failing during those moments when my son says “Mom, I’m supposed to be in charge.” and I know that he is right. So I apologize for taking over. Again.

I’ve heard the jokes so often, about how there should be an award for parents who have survived a son’s eagle project. I’ve also heard the jokes about how it is really the moms who earn the eagle award. I didn’t want to be that mom, the one who drives her son to the completion of an eagle project. Link could have begun his a year and half ago, but I waited until getting it was important to him. I certainly have no emotional need for him to earn this award. But earning this matters to Link. A lot. I see him persevering, stepping up, and trying to take ownership of this overwhelming endeavor. He’s doing so with only a minimal understanding of construction and an active fear of power tools. He’s organizing groups of people and trying to be in charge when he routinely avoids talking in front of groups in every other social situation in his life. Link wants this project enough that he’s stretching his own capabilities. I can’t help feeling that he would stretch even more if I could stop trying to push him into my schedules and my solutions. I wish he could learn more about other things and less about how to deal with Mom when she’s project stressed.

Link and I are both learning from this, but I really wanted today to be the point where we could be done organizing big groups of people and objects. Instead we’ll be building again on Wednesday. I don’t know that we’ll have time to finish with only a few hours to work. So there will probably be yet another day scheduled after that. Most people have told me that the paperwork on an eagle project is almost harder than doing the project. Right now, doing paperwork sounds heavenly in comparison. Especially since I don’t think it will trigger my project brain at all. Instead I’ll be able to step fully into a helper/teacher role and let Link do it all by himself. Which is how this whole thing should be.

Link, His Eagle Project, and Growing Up

By / September 23, 2014

You’d think that being self-aware about the teenage process of separation from parents would make the process easier. I guess it does in some ways. Link and I talk and laugh. We like each other. Ultimately we’re going through cycles. I get frustrated that he’s not manifesting the sorts of independence that I want to see. He gets mad at me and tries to make me back off so he can do things his own way and not mine. These are the same cycles that most parents of teens experience.

Today’s realization for me: When I know how to do a project and I’m confident that there is enough time to get it done, then I can allow a kid to muddle through and have a learning experience. If I am not confident, then my brain worries at the project, plans the project, makes lists about the project, and I end up accidentally doing more work than I ought to do because it is the only way to relieve my uncertainty and stress. This afternoon we finally hit the point where my brain backed off of the eagle project and let Link be more in charge.

Today’s realization for Link: He really does not like having to focus on more than one work thing in a single day. He wants to go full-bore on eagle project, but school stuff keeps getting in the way.

If nothing else, the pressure and work of the eagle project are forcing Link and I to have a host of conversations about trust, responsibility, and impending adulthood. Half of them have been arguments, but even that is new. Link is standing his ground with words rather than fleeing or dodging. He is learning that sometimes I’m wrong. Hopefully he’ll spend some time during the next six months learning the many ways in which I’m right. Though six months is probably an optimistic hope. (It was only last week that Kiki, in her second year of college, emailed me to let me know I was right about something we fought over when she was Link’s age.) We’re learning how to navigate conflict through practice, which is not pleasant, but an invaluable skill for my son to have for the rest of his life. So the project is not all about sawing boards and assembling a shed. Though it kind of felt like the sawing would never end there for awhile. So many boards…

Tomorrow is a break day. Link is going to the temple with his youth group. I’ll be doing all the things which normally fill my week when I’m not spending most of it stacking lumber, making lumber shorter, or arguing with my son. Thursday we pre-assemble some pieces. Friday we haul everything to the build site. Saturday we build until it is a shed.

Eagle Project Week

By / September 21, 2014

I didn’t want to learn how to construct a garden shed. Yet that is the project for this week. It is Link’s eagle scout project. In the early stages I hoped that some construction-experienced scout leader would take him in tow and help him wrap his head around the project. Instead Link and I have had to feel our way through and figure it out step-by-step. We’ve now reached the stage where all the lumber is sitting in my garage. Tomorrow we’ll be sorting, measuring, and cutting. I expect to hit many snags and frustrations as we prep for the build day on Saturday. As we do, Link and I will figure them out. It is going to be a long week for both of us, but it will be a huge learning experience for Link and that is the point.

One thing I’ve observed is the value of the name recognition for BSA Eagle Project. Every time we had a question or request, those words elicited all sorts of friendly and willing help. This is true from people who happily donated funds to folks who stopped in the parking lot of Home Depot to help load up a pile of lumber and supplies. When we added the name Habitat for Humanity, then hardware stores gave all sorts of donations of materials and discounts. Everyone has been helpful. The project is still big, overwhelming, and expensive. Yet soon it will be done. Link and I are both looking forward to that. Then we can pick up and do all the things which have been put on hold because the project was fully occupying our brains and our hours.

Yet I watch Link as people tell him what a cool project he is doing. The approval makes him stand taller. Link doesn’t like talking to people in stores, but he does it for this project. I watch the respect and kindness that gets aimed his direction. Then I think I begin to understand why an eagle project is worth all the work and the paperwork. I’m not sure I got it before.