Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 109

Weekly Course Corrections

I sat at one end of the chapel bench and Howard sat at the other with our children in between. We were singing the opening hymn, all of us with books open in our laps. The requirement that the kids sing along for the opening hymn was a new one for our family, but through it the kids are learning that music can bring a special spirit to us. The song concluded and the heads of three kids bent back over their drawings. Supposedly they were also listening while they drew. I'm sure Kiki listened. Gleek listened sometimes. Patch listened if the speaker was telling an interesting story. Link did not draw. He sat quietly, which did not guarantee that he was listening. Whether or not they were paying attention, we were all there together for the first time in weeks. I look down the row at them, I can see the contentment in their bodies. Church is a good place for all of us and we are glad to be there together.

I closed my eyes and asked the same silent question I ask every week. It is a prayer of sorts, almost wordless as I reach out. It comprises several things from "any messages for me?" to "What should I be focused on this week?" to "What next?" or even occasionally a petulant "what now?" I don't remember how long it has been that I've been making this overt weekly request. I think it began last year when I was pounded with unexpected inspiration several weeks in a row. I finally figured it might be better to just ask instead of waiting to be shouted at. I ask, and answers always come. It is a little frightening this receiving of answers. Sometimes I want to wrap myself in a little cloak of sameness. I don't always want answers which may ask me to change or do some other difficult thing. But lately I have been glad of the answers, they help me set a path for the week to follow. I can't see much beyond a week right now. However if I can get the week aimed right on Sunday, I can follow through long enough to get me to the next Sunday when I can adjust, change, or continue.

So I sat with my eyes closed and asked "What new thing shall I undertake this week? What am I to do with my time and energy?" Sometimes the answers are loud and clear, almost like being spoken to. Other times it is like I have to sort them from my own thoughts and it takes most of the meeting. Today the answer was so quiet I almost missed it, rather like a hand waving gesture which indicates "carry on." I opened my eyes and looked down the row of my people. We've set a good course and it is time for us to do some calm sailing.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Tasks Like Beads on a String

I want to knock down a wall in my office. It would combine my office with a small pantry area, thus making my office bigger. It is a lovely plan, and now that I've thought of it I can hardly wait. Unfortunately on the office side of the wall are two book cases full of books. These would have to be boxed before the smashing could begin. On the other side of the wall are shelves full of canned food. There is also a freezer. The canned food and freezer need to be relocated to the garage before the smashing can begin.

The garage is something of a wreck. I know exactly where the canned food and the freezer will go, but it requires me to move some shelving, relocate an old drawing table, reorganize the bikes, and generally clean up the garage. One of the things currently filling the garage are left over shipping supplies from the shipping day we had last July. There are also boxes of displays and merchandise which we brought home from the summer conventions. Some of these things are bound for our storage unit. The rest really need to find a home downstairs in my shipping room, which is next to my office on the other side. Before I can begin moving the food and freezer this must all be moved.

My storage room is a complete wreck. It is filled with boxes of merchandise, boxes for shipping merchandise, boxes left over from conventions, and random things which got stacked in there to "be out of the way." As I need things, I shift the things that are on top of them until nothing is neat and I'm having to wend my way through piles of boxes in order to grab things for shipping. The whole mess needs to be reorganized before I can put anything else in that room, including shipping supplies. Behind the place I stand to do shipping is an under-the-stairs cupboard. It would be an ideal place to stack shipping boxes so that I can grab them easily. Before I can fill it with the shipping boxes from the garage, I have to find a new home for the school supplies and random junk.

My office has a set of cubby cubes. They are poorly organized, half full of games and other random stuff which I shoved in them to be out of the way. These cubbys would be a good place for the school supplies and random junk from the under-the-stairs cupboard. The games in them really belong upstairs in the toy cupboards where the children can find them and play with them.

The upstairs toy cupboards are a jumble. There is no space in them, but there will be once they've been organized. Finally I found a task which did not have a "but first I must" in front of it. So that is where I will start. It will probably be a month of Saturdays before I finally manage to get to the task I really wanted to do in the first place. In the mean time I am looking around my house and wondering what idiot organized it so poorly in the first place.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Busy week

I have spent most of the last two days shipping packages. This is good because it means people have been buying our merchandise. However it means that I've fallen behind on almost everything else. Perhaps tomorrow I can catch up.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Notes on Having Dental Work Done

It helps to have a personable dentist who is willing to explain alarming noises and devices.

That shot of Novocaine may also contain epinephrin. This can trigger an increased heart rate and tremors, which feel quite like the beginning stages of an anxiety/panic attack. That part was not useful or helpful when I was attempting to relax. The numbing was critical though.

The fact that they are miniature does not make me less nervous about the power tools in my mouth.

There is a special light which is used to make fillings set. It shone blue and sounded like a hair dryer.

They can make a piece to fit into a tooth in mere minutes. Then they fit it into the hole they carved out.

Expect to find bits left in the mouth after returning home.

Ibuprofen is my friend, but the post-dental-work ache is much better than the intermittent stabbing pain of decaying tooth.

Hopefully tomorrow my chewing will be back to normal.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Picking up the Pieces

Here at Chez Tayler life shifts rhythm pretty often. We have the over lapping cycles of school and summer; book preparation and book release; and convention preparations and clean up. These various cycles interact with each other and wreak havoc on my attempts to create helpful life patterns. When our lives shift problems are both created and solved. Sometimes good things get dropped from the schedule and I'm left wondering how we fell out of the habit of family dinner, family home evening, or regular reading. It is normal for good things to accidentally get dropped from the schedule. This is because creating an ideal schedule is impossible to achieve. All I can do is cobble together the best possible schedule for whatever mix of circumstances in which we currently reside. That, and I promise myself to pick up those important pieces and put them back as soon as I possibly can.

We've finally reached a point where most of our over-lapping life cycles are in a lull phase. I'm also leaning on the cycles to try to slow them down (or speed them up) and keep things that way for awhile. It is finally time for me to look around and figure out which important pieces need to fit back into the schedule. As usual I have some shiny new pieces that I also want to make fit. On Sunday we had a proper Sunday dinner for the first time in months. This included requiring kids to help cook the meal. On Monday we had family home evening which included a lesson and an activity. The kid chore charts are gathering dust, but the homework board is working well for the younger two. I haven't been out to do any of the gardening projects I have planned, but the lawn is getting mowed weekly. I haven't written anything other than blog entries for months, but I did open up my file of agents and begin prepping some queries. I have all these important pieces and some of them don't fit yet. Shuffling things to make them fit will make some other piece fall out.

Howard came home yesterday. He left when we were barely two weeks into the new school year. Then he was gone for 10 days while we all tried to settle in to a rhythm. Now he is back and things are shifting again. Many business thoughts were on hiatus while he was gone. I have to find space for them again. However having him home is a weight lifted from my shoulders. There is an Us again instead of just me. It makes everything different, even the things which are still my job. Us is stronger than Me.

I just wish I wasn't stubbing my toes on all these pieces scattered on the floor. At least I can fit in the piece that is this blog entry. It fits here at 10 pm when I meant to have it done at 2.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Toddlers in Tiaras and Parenting

In between all the cleaning I did yesterday, I watched some episodes of Toddlers in Tiaras a documentary/reality show that was filmed for TLC about child beauty pageants. Documentary film interests me not only for the stated subject matter of the show, but also because of the semi-invisible hand of the film crews and the editor. Sometimes the film crews blatantly bait people to do things which show them in a bad light. That didn't seem to be the case with Toddlers and Tiaras. The film crews attempted to record rather than provoke. This strategy seemed wise since there was plenty of provocative material to go around. Parents were shown coaching, cajoling, and coercing their children into extensive beauty preparations and stage routines. Some of the children really did seem cheerful and happy about the experience. Other times it was obviously the passion of the parent driving all the effort. The children were obviously trying to please and the parents were living out a dream through the child.

I have philosophical issues with the idea of child beauty pageants. I have issues with young children under the age of twelve in any sort of high pressure competition, but even more so with one that teaches young girls that beauty is in paint and hairpieces. My distaste would have led me to turn off the show quickly except that I was fascinated by the psychology on display. These families spent thousands of dollars setting up their kids for pageant appearances, when most of the prizes were much smaller. Some pageants had no cash prizes at all, just crowns. So I watched, trying to figure out where the rewards were that made up for all the costs in time, effort, and money. The only one I could consistently see was the same sorts of parental pride I see at your average playground when a mom watches her son dribble better than his peers.

As I watched, I began to be subtly disturbed, not by the priorities on display, but by the similarities I could see to things that I have done. I watched a mother talk her daughter into doing another pageant by counting her Eighty-seven crowns. Another mother used implications of shame to get her son to practice walking and looking at the judges. A third mother told her daughter that sometimes pain is necessary to be beautiful. I've never tried to deliver those particular messages, but I've had moments that were shaped exactly the same when I needed to talk a child into going to school, to get a vaccination, or to clean up after herself. I've used the same sorts of words, body language, and facial expressions. These pageant parents love their children and honestly believe that they are doing something good. From where I stand it looks like most of them are instead being driven by some internal need which is other than the good of the child. Then I must wonder and pay attention to my own choices, knowing that some of my choices will look values-skewed to someone viewing them from outside. It is my responsibility to double check myself, and make sure that the paths I am leading myself and my child along are good ones.

Predictably, this is television after all, the parents get more demanding as the series goes along. This is in part because the show moves to the higher-prize, higher-pressure pageants. I suspect it is also due to editing choices. The show sets out to expose a subculture, not to explain it. There is no second season, I suspect after the first one no one else would consent to be filmed.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

I Think I Need a Cookie to go with This Milk

It began with the pencil drawer. Through attrition it had turned into a "why can I never find a pencil in this" drawer. So I dumped the thing out and sorted it. Then the drawer was lovely and neat, but the kitchen counter had piles of all the things I had taken out of it. As I took the piles to various locations in the house, I discovered that the reason all the junk had ended up in the drawer was because the places they belonged were also messy. Before I was done I helped organize both kids rooms, sorted the linen closet, vacuumed four rooms, helped my boys trade bunks, tightened all the bolts on the bunks so they wouldn't wobble, did dishes, wiped counters, de-junked cubbies, and put away games. And just like the mouse in that book* I also took a nap in the middle, because I got really tired. At the end of the day the house looked much nicer than at the start, and I was still full of restless energy. Hopefully tomorrow I can rest.

*The book is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and if you haven't read it, the title of this post will not make sense.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Multiple Choice Parenting

1. Gleek lays on the couch with tears in the corners of her eyes. "I don't want to go to New School anymore. I want to go back to Old School!"

A. I feel guilty and worried about what I have done to her, and wonder if I have made the right choice.

B. I quiz her about what is wrong with New School so that I can offer reasonable counter arguments and examples.

C. I remind her of the reasons we felt like this shift was the right thing to do.

D. I suppress any sympathy I may feel and simply order her to get ready.

E. I listen to her feelings and validate them while trying to find rewards which will cajole her toward attending school.

2. Kiki has to sort out a relationship with a friend at school which suddenly became much more emotionally complicated and tangled.

A. Listen to her feelings and then offer advice.

B. Listen to her feelings and then keep my advice to myself because she needs to sort this out for herself.

C. Tell her she is borrowing trouble or making a big deal out of nothing.

D. Tell her how to solve the problem and then make her do it instead of wallowing in indecision.

3. Patch comes down to Writer's Group coughing and lolls on the floor like a limp fish after he has already been tucked into bed twice.

A. Scowl at him and order him back to bed.

B. Get up and get him some cough medicine then walk him back to bed.

C. Recognize that the real issue is not the cough, but some emotional need. Excuse myself from Writer's Group and spend 20 minutes wearing my psychologist hat to sort it out.

D. Ask Link to help him so that I can focus on the critique I am supposed to be giving.

4. Link decides that he wants to go to the store and spend his own money on a game. He wants to go right now and when asking me produces a "not right now" answer, proceeds to hover where he can see me change activities. This way he can ambush me with "Can we go now?" every time I walk past.

A. Continue to answer "not right now" because he keeps interrupting my thought processes at moments when I can't think through what would be a good time to go.

B. Sit down to explain that a trip to the store rearranges my already-tight afternoon schedule. Then have to witness his sadness and disappointment.

C. Take time to schedule exactly when we can go. Then witness his disappointment when the answer is to go some other day.

D. Tell him to stop it, because he is being annoying.

E. Sigh and say "fine" then take him to the store.

Answers:

Any of the above answers can be right for any of the above questions depending upon context, fatigue levels, ancillary circumstances, and the number of people nearby to observe the interaction.

What? You thought parenting had clear answers? Not in my experience.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Up Keep

I went to the dentist today for the first time in *mumble* years. I'm not trying to be coy about how long. I honestly don't remember. It was probably about the time that our dental insurance ceased to exist and that was at least six years ago. I am fortunate to have pretty good teeth. Howard has super teeth. Our kids haven't complained about their teeth, so we've kept going without maintenance visits. The thing is, I know that skipping maintenance increases our risk of emergency. I also know that there are incentives present for dentists to recommend more work than actually needs to be done. I still believed that dental check ups have value, even though we haven't been doing them. Howard went to the dentist right before WorldCon. His major issues were to whiten or not to whiten. I went today and I'll get to go again in two weeks because two of my teeth have holes that need plugged. After that, I'm going to take a deep breath and take my kids one by one. Once we've managed those bills, the dentist tells me that attention needs to be paid to the 30 year old fillings in my mouth. It is time to pay attention to maintenance again.

Our deck and redwood play set are almost bare wood these days. All of the stain has faded, peeled away, or been scraped off by paper wasps. This is not a new problem. We've watched it happen slowly over the course of years. Every summer someone will say "We really need to re-stain the deck and play set." Unfortunately our summers are notoriously busy and no one took any steps beyond saying the words. I have decided that before September is through I will rent a pressure washer and a paint sprayer. I will perform this small maintenance task which will make us feel better about our back garden and which will defend our structures from the elements.

Our roof has begun shedding. After rain storms we can find a scattering of roof gravel on our driveway. Sometimes there are also pieces of shingle. The roof has held up well since the house was constructed, but it is showing age. I need to call and get an estimate on a new roof.

Things require up keep or they will fall apart. During the Novell years we were on the dot with all sorts of up keep. It was easy because the money was available. Then money was less available and we coasted along only managing maintenance issues when they reach crisis level. I am trying to push that back so that we're keeping things up when they're only urgent. Perhaps after that we can venture into the realm of just keeping things up because they need done. All of this maintenance will have to be done carefully and balanced against our budget. Our money is not plentiful, but it is time for me to stop living in crisis mode. I just wish that up keep wasn't so expensive.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

I Fear the Day When Internet Drama Lands in My Lap

Most days I come to my office and quietly browse through my regular rounds of internet stops. I check email. I post to twitter or Google+. Often I write a blog entry. I've built a nice little space on the internet which I inhabit and from which I can venture and sample the other things that are available. But I have a creeping fear that some morning I will come to my computer and discover that someone with a soapbox has decided to stand me on it. This will happen without my permission and in my absence. Soapbox Owner will either stand me there to pelt me with abuse or to demand explanations from me. Sometimes Soapbox Owner's tone is reasonable and discussion oriented, other times abusive. Either way, I'll find myself on the box, expected to speak, instead of beginning my work day settling in. Most likely I'll be dragged to the soapbox for something I am, rather than an opinion I stated. I am blonde and wear braids (Soapbox Owner saw a picture of it on my blog) so I must explain why this is the one right way for blonde people to wear their hair or, alternately, to explain how I dare to wear braids when such things should be reserved for those with red hair. The fans of Soapbox Owner will yammer at me like a pack of dogs, also demanding answers. I must explain my blonde-ness and my braid-y-ness right away. In the tumult I know that if I give the wrong answer they will attempt to rip me to shreds. If I don't answer that too will be taken as an answer, and the rending will continue on schedule. Either way, my entire day and possibly my week (month? year? some soapboxes are huge) has been derailed. Instead of doing the things I deem important, I have to figure out how to extract myself from internet drama.

This has not happened to me yet. It may never happen to me. I hope it doesn't, but I have friends who have been through it. It is one of the risks of having a portion of my life take place on the internet. I am more afraid of this than the drive-by hateful comments or emails. Fortunately at my current level of internet exposure, this is extremely unlikely to happen to me. But I hope to be a commercially published author some day. I will become more visible, a more attractive target. It is one of the costs that I must weigh when choosing the path to pursue.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.