Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 122

Visualizing My Schedule as it Flows

We are now six and a half years into our adventures in creative self-employment. The first eighteen months were all about scrambling to find ways to bring in more money and to spend less. The two years after that were all about growing the business and figuring out how things work. We succeed at business growth until we spent a year and a half so insanely busy that we had to learn how to turn down opportunities. The past 18 months have been one long effort to balance work and life in ways that allow both to prosper.

At each stage I had to re-conceptualize how I managed my life and the lives of our family. Last year I struck upon thinking of our schedule as a fluid river with a few fixed points rather than trying in December to plan the following April, May, June. Things always change in between and if I picture them already set, I have to re-set them. If they flow, then changes in the fixed points alter the flow without me having to panic. Conventions and appearances are fixed business points. Book creation and releases are fluid. Kid concerts and school schedules are fixed. Family outings and housework are fluid.

Most of the big fixed points for this year were placed on the calendar last Fall. One of the most important ones was a family vacation. I put it on Spring Break and I made reservations for a place we could go. I expected to arrive stressed and worried about work. I particularly expected it after the addition of a convention right before it and right after it. I'm not stressed. I can see how things will flow. It is all going to be fine. I'm looking forward to our departure.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Today in Three Scenes

Howard staggered in the door looking gray and exhausted. A massive, slow-moving customs line made him miss his flight home from Canada yesterday. "You really need to be here 3 hours ahead of your flight." The customs man said. The next morning, after an additional hotel night and an o'dark-thirty cab ride, less irritable customs agents greeted Howard with "Wow, you're here early."

That was all in the past. He was home and I hugged him tight. He smelled of airports. I sat in the kitchen while he fixed himself french toast and bacon to go with the Canadian Maple Syrup he bought in the duty free store. He was too tired to tell me stories, so I was the one talking. I picked my words carefully. Nothing could hint of things-for-Howard-to-do, that would merely depress him. I spoke of tasks I'd completed and quiet things which had happened at home while he was gone.

Food consumed, Howard headed up to bed. I swiped my finger in the maple syrup as I watched him go. Amazing flavor, it had aromatics and connotations. I'm pretty sure it was the cheap stuff which gets pawned off on tourists. I wonder what the premium would taste like. Howard slept and I finished my work for the day. Life is better with him in the house.

***

I was headed down the stairs for a restroom break, when I heard the lawnmower start in the front yard. I about faced and dashed back up. Gleek was out there with the mower, apparently a little too excited for her first lawn mowing job. At 10 and completely untrained in lawn mower safety, I was not ready to leave Gleek and a running mower unsupervised.

The mower sputtered to a stop before I got half way up the stairs. Gleek came dashing into the house.

"I started it!" Her grin took up her whole face.

Scolding withered in the face of her joyful triumph. "Yes, but don't start the mower until I'm with you."

"Okay!" she answered and bounced bak out the door.

I mowed the edges for her. I intend to do that all summer. I like the flowers in my beds to grow more than two inches tall. Then it was Gleek's turn. I walked right behind her for the first time round the lawn. Then I sat on the steps and watched my little girl manage the big mower. She was handling it like a pro before she was done. She did have to give a little jump in order to put enough weight on the handle to turn the thing. Straight. Jump. Turn. Straight. Jump. Turn. It made me smile, particularly as the circles got smaller.

When she was done, Gleek was ready to do the back yard too. That was Link's job. Before the end of summer, she'll probably be tired of mowing, but for now she loves it.

***

"Look on the front, see there's a button which says stop/eject. Push that." Kiki said.

Patch peered at the front of the VCR, a video tape held uncertainly in his other hand. He found the button and reacted with delight when a tape emerged from the machine.

"We'll have to rewind that one later, but for now put in the other tape."

Patch put down the first tape and looked at the second, turning it left then right.

"Bring it here." Said Kiki. She reached over the sleeping cat on her lap. The cat was the reason that Patch was being given verbal instructions on this strange technology. I was too amused at the process to interfere. At eight years old, he had only known DVDs. The idea that a movie could be contained in this clunky box called a tape felt strange to him.

"See this arrow? Put that end in first."

Patch complied and grinned when the VCR pulled the tape from his fingers. Then Kiki talked him through fast forwarding through the interviews at the beginning. They didn't want to watch George Lucas talk about his movies, they wanted to see the movie.

The tape was as old as Kiki. We bought the set when the movies were advertised in their original format for the last time, before things were digitally tinkered with. Han shoots first, and the Death Star explosion is small. Perhaps someday our VCR would break, or one of the tapes would break. Then we would buy the films again.

Patch pushed play and bounced over to the couch to sit next to Kiki. The opening strains of music swelled a deep nostalgia inside me. I stood and watched too. Just for a minute, before going back downstairs to finish my accounting.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Updates when poised upon the edge of Spring Break

Canada has decided to keep Howard for another day. Or rather, the massive line for US customs prevented him from boarding his plane on schedule. The Ad Astra folks were marvelous. They retrieved him from the airport and offered to pay for his extra night's hotel stay. I'm glad he is in a place where there is a chance he can relax and visit with good people. I'm sad it will take him that much longer to get home.

On the home front we successfully navigated our second Sunday dinner where the kids were required to assist in the cooking. Link was in charge and I had ample opportunities to teach him how to read a recipe. It is not as intuitive as I would have previously assumed. The resulting meal was a big pan of lasagna. We've still got 3/4 of it. I'll have to see if it freezes well. I think the next time we do lasagna, I'd like to find a recipe which is lighter on the meat and includes vegetables. Next week Gleek will be our chef.

The non-chef kids have assignments as well. One is tasked with helping clean up. One sets the table. The last one has to sit down and plan the food for the next week. I'm well aware that this schedule is only the tiniest of baby steps toward teaching my kids self-sufficiency in the kitchen, but at least we're shuffling in a good direction. I don't have the energy or focus to require anything more rigorous. Hopefully this plan will prove to be one that settles in rather than disappears.

This week is our Spring break. For the first time in 3 years I am actually looking forward to having my kids home for the week. I managed to clear the business calendar so that I have time to calmly plan fun things to do. Howard's life is a bit crazy this month, but mine is not. I think that because mine is not, Howard's will be simply busy instead of crazy-stressful. I'm doing what I can on that front.

I think it is going to be a good week.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Social Media and Me

A couple of years ago my extended family and I all discovered facebook more-or-less simultaneously. For me it was a natural extension of my online existence. I'd already had a blog for years. For most of them it was a somewhat scary adventure into the wilds of the internet. I quickly found ways to be comfortable and was updating my facebook status regularly.

Then I got an email from my sister. "Are you doing okay?" she asked "You seem stressed." Well, I was stressed. I was also pretty happy with my life. The trouble was that all my complaints were facebook sized and all my happy things were blog sized. My sister didn't read my blog, so she got a rather narrow slice of what my life was really like and I looked rather unhappy.

I set out to fix the imbalance. I decided that I would deliberately use facebook as a place for small happy things. That worked pretty well, and life felt a little more balanced. Enter twitter, with it's immediacy and propensity for clever conversations. My family stayed firmly entrenched in facebook. They were comfortable. I linked my twitter feed to my facebook feed so I could post in a single place. My family was confused. The dialect of twitter is different from that of facebook. They didn't get half of what I was saying. I unlinked the feeds so that I could participate in the communities differently. (Actually a technological glitch unlinked them for me, but I decided it was best to leave them that way.)

Then came the day when I wanted to rant about my broken lawnmower. I was furious, unreasonably so. I wrote a blog entry, which I didn't post because I knew it made me look unreasonable. I composed a facebook note, which I deleted for the same reason. I did not tweet it either. I was trying to not annoy people with my whining on the internet. The feelings pounded around inside my head until I finally went to a writer's forum to which I belong and posted in the "venting" thread. The whole point of the thread is to provide a place for people to be grouchy or upset over random life things. Within an hour, two people had posted sympathetic responses. I felt validated, and my angry feelings dissipated almost entirely. I was able to move along in finding rational solutions.

Only later did I think that, maybe, I should have given my family the opportunity to share in my lawnmower frustrations. Keeping facebook cheerful is over all a good thing, but if it is unremittingly cheerful, then it is just as false as when it was the repository of all things whiny. Somehow, I need to find a balance between letting people share in both the downs and ups, without being all-whiny or all-chipper. This social media thing is not so easy as it looks even when one manages to avoid the major faux pas. (so far. fingers crossed. Do not want the internet to fall on my head ever.)

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Patch's Birthday Party in Tweet form

My house is full of sword wielding boys. twas not supposed to rain on party day, else I'd not have put 'bring a sword' on the invites.

It turns out that 10 boys with padded swords do not need a party plan. They just need melee room. Will intervene with pizza before tears.

Serving soda to 10 boys is surprisingly similar to bar tending as seen in films. "two orange/root beer blends and a 7up!"

All boys will be disarmed before presents and cake. No exceptions.

Bugs Bunny is always a great way to end a party.

Once again I discover that my favorite part of kid birthday parties is the quiet afterward.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Convention and staying home

Howard is away at a convention this weekend. He is visiting with familiar friends and meeting new people. He will have fun conversations and eat out at restaurants. I am here at home with the kids. This arrangement is normal for us. It is a division of labor. One of us to go be public, the other to provide stability for the kids. Sometimes I feel sad about being the one to stay home. I often have conflicted feelings about being unseen, and I wish I could be present for the fun events and conversations. Today I am so very glad not to be going anywhere.

Public events are filled with excitement, interest, and fun. I love being at conventions and presenting at them. However they are also inherently stressful. Just now I'm glad to skip the emotional roller coaster of guilt over leaving the kids, anticipation, nervousness, and fatigue. Instead I've had a lovely quiet afternoon, where I made a meal more elaborate than strictly necessary and watched a movie. Tomorrow we'll finally have Patch's long-overdue birthday party and then I plan to sit down with my kids and watch West Side Story. None of them have seen it. I'll clean up the house and make plans for our family vacation next week. All of it will be done at a sane pace instead of in a frenzy. Then when Howard comes home, exhausted, all here will be calm and orderly.

It is very old fashioned of us I guess, husband ventures in the wide world while wife stays home to tend house. It works though. Our lives are more balanced and happy when someone is tending to home. Some time in the future it may be me heading out while Howard stays home. For this weekend, I'm glad of the current arrangement.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Pondering Dinner

It is 4:30 pm and I am once again faced with the challenge of figuring out what to feed the kids for dinner. I don't like this challenge. I particularly don't like that it arrives multiple times per day. It is not that making food is difficult. Deciding what to make uses creative sectors of my brain that I don't want to spend on food. Also I must always balance food choices against the likelihood that the kids will argue about eating the food. Do I fix that thing child #1 loves, but that will require a 20 minute argument with child #4? There are some foods that everyone eats without complaining, but odds are I fixed them yesterday and the day before.

I know I should meal plan in advance. Our diets are better when I do. Not to mention I can skip the step of standing in the kitchen for 30 minutes staring at the stuff in my cupboard and weighing complaint/healthiness ratios. I really should meal plan. It would be nice if I'd done it three days or a week ago. I didn't. And now it is 4:40 pm. Time to begin the daily staring into the cupboard and pondering. Perhaps later tonight I will give a gift to my tomorrow self and actually plan in advance.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Folk art

I took a class on Folklore at college. We focused primarily on modern or recent history folklore, so classes were filled with discussion about choking dobermans, spider-filled hairdos, and hook handed men menacing teenagers in cars. We examined where these stories originated and what purposes the retelling of them served. I was particularly fascinated by what folklore said about the society that created it. This was pre-internet, so our researches involved archives and librarians. The key element of folklore is that it is passed from person to person rather than through official informational paths. That batman song to the tune of Jingle Bells is classic folklore. Each generation of kids teaches it to the ones just younger, much to the chagrin of parents everywhere.

The class barely touched upon folk art. I suspect this is because the words "Folk Art" are generally used to describe the creations of pre-industrial people. My professor implied that folk art was dead and not worth studying. I knew he was wrong. I know people who make chain mail, leather work, baskets, and paper. Their methods are a mix of ancient and modern. They do this work, not because it is required, but because it brings them joy and decorates their lives. Then I thought further about people who make crafts which are less historical. These too are folk art. They are things created because the making of them adds joy to the life of the creator. Then sometimes to the lives of others as well.

This is a card that was given to me by a good friend. It is hand made using several pieces of paper, silk flowers, a stamp, faux jewels, and glitter. My friend could have just bought a card at the store, that's what I do for notes. Instead she took the idea of an ordinary note card and spent an extraordinary amount of time making it beautiful.

Here is another one:



That flower is hand folded origami. This was given to me for my birthday last year. I've kept it primarily for the words written inside, but the outside is also a gift.

This one uses lots of embellishments:



I'm told that there is a group of women in my neighborhood who gather for card making nights. They buy supplies and instructions from a company, but the work is all done by their hands. While they create small beautiful things, they talk. I see no difference between this and the quilting bees of long ago. People have just streamlined the methods for teaching each other.

Look closely at this one:



The flower was stamped, then cut out. It was glued to another piece of paper with leaves stamped on it. That was in turn glued to a piece of paper and another. In all, this card has five layers of paper. The maker of this card would assure me that it was easy, no trouble at all. The difficulty is not the point, there is something wonderful about the way that people make things needlessly beautiful.

Some kind of a press was used to make the raised patterns on this card. The little circle dangles freely from the ribbon:

This card expresses the whole point:



These creations may not qualify as art by most definitions, but they each succeeded wonderfully at bringing joy to me and to the women who made them before they came into my hands. Adding beauty to the world is a good use of hands and time. I see these cards everywhere, being given woman to woman. They connect the ladies of my neighborhood and my town. I love it.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

A Brief Thought on Managing Systems

I have run out of brain today due to extreme effectiveness in tackling my To Do list. So I offer a thought I crafted last month when I was helping Kiki wrestle with her school's registration system to set up classes for next year:

Among the things my kids are learning by participating in public school: Bureaucratic systems are often stupid, but if you are clever, the system can be made to dance.

The system danced and Kiki now has a solid plan for classes through the end of high school. As a side note, I once read an article talking about the economic differences between people who believe that systems must be endured and the people who believe that systems are to be managed. People in the second category tended to be more financially prosperous. I wish I could remember where I read about it, but that goes with the lack of remaining brain I guess.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

The Semi Annual Festival of Yarn

Every six months our church broadcasts a General Conference. Over a weekend there are 10 hours of prepared talks on various doctrinal subjects. The leaders of the church prepare these talks on a variety of subjects some encouraging, some admonishing. The membership of the church are invited to listen either in person, on TV, on Radio, or over the internet. For the Saturday sessions Howard and I listen on the Radio. On Sunday we hook a computer up to our big TV and gather the family for Conference. This is when the Festival of Yarn begins.

The kids rejoiced when I plunked the tub full of yarn, scissors, and crochet hooks down on the floor. "You got new yarn!" someone cried. Yes I got new yarn. I remember last Conference when we had to argue about yarn colors. The kids each grabbed a skein and as the choir began the opening hymn, we began our crafts.

Sitting still for two hours at a stretch is a challenge for young children, even in their own home. I always tried to plan activities for them to do while they were listening. We bounced from one choice to another until I dusted off my old crochet hooks and yarn. I made all sorts of creations using crochet when I was young. None of them were particularly useful, but I liked making them. My rhythmic motions and the growing granny square drew the attention of my kids. Soon they wanted to make things with yarn too. I handed out what yarn I had and the creativity began.

This year both Link and Patch tried their hands at crochet, but defaulted to making long finger knitted ropes. Gleek made several small crocheted pieces, none of any particular shape. She also made yarn flowers, yarn dolls, and a finger knitted rope. Kiki worked a little on the knitting project which she's had since she was 11. After awhile she switched to a school painting project. Patch took a break from finger knitting to make yarn constructions using knots. I made granny squares. Howard worked on assembling miniatures at the table behind us. Our hands were busy and our ears were open.

"I like Conference." Patch said.

"Me too." Said Gleek.

I looked around the room. I knew what Patch and Gleek were not able to articulate. The atmosphere in the room was calm and cozy. We were all together in a way that seldom happens in our crazy scattered lives. For two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon we were together listening to words which helped us think about how to be better people. It was lovely.

I made five granny squares in those four hours. We already have a dozen from conferences past. They're made of random colors, because I use which ever colors the kids don't want at the moment. Some day I will have enough squares to crochet together into a blanket. It will be a crazy patchwork of mismatching sizes and colors. It will be perfect, a representation of all those conferences together, when we stitched together things far more important than yarn. At the end of the final conference session, everyone tossed their yarn projects– finished or not–into the tub. I'll put it away downstairs until next Conference when we will have another festival of yarn.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.