Michelle L. Rusk's Blog, page 41

Chelle Summer

I was sitting in the Target parking lot when I realized I’d had a phone call I missed. I was already a little cranky because the evening before I had sliced off part of my thumb cutting potatoes with a mandoline. I wasn’t in pain, I just didn’t have the full use of my left thumb.

It was the lawyer letting me know that the probability of getting Michelle L. trademarked was very low because of Fossil. The watch/handbag/accessory company had trademarked Michele- yes, that’s Michele with one L, and the larger my company got (that’s the point, to build an empire, of course), the more likely Fossil would come after me.

It took me several days to digest my annoyance. I was so excited use Michelle L. for a variety of reasons. And everyone was excited for me. But I reminded myself that when a door closes, a bigger one opens. And I often think of what one of the priests at my church used to say– sometimes we have to give up something for something bigger. I reminded myself that meant there was something bigger waiting for me.

After I had accepted the fact that I would need a new name, a new one popped into my head.

Chelle Summer

Something bigger, something better. And away we go.

Two Peas in a Pod

Three weeks ago I cut off the top of my thumb while I was slicing potatoes with the mandoline (if you read my Chef Chelle blog I was cutting them for the hash brown waffles and why Greg was in the photos making them and not me). Greg had warned me multiple times to be careful and, really, I thought I was being careful.

As I stood over the sink, watching what seemed like endless blood, I kept hoping it would stop so I wouldn’t have to tell him what I had done. But after I soaked a wet washcloth, I knew that wasn’t going to be the case and called him in from the next room.

He cleaned it up, bandaged it, and sent me on my way. Three weeks later, it’s mostly healed and I’m resuming life with my left thumb again. I knew as it was happening that it was a reminder to me that I can rely on Greg to help me. I got so used to not having someone there for help and just trying to do things on my own that it’s been a challenge for me to remember that he wants to be there. And help.

I got a taste of my own medicine yesterday with Chaco, my oldest dog (and, yes, he’s laying on insulation in the photo– it was from the house remodel ten years ago). It was just a normal work day at the house when in the afternoon he developed difficulty with his back legs. This had happened with Nestle, the yellow lab, about a year and a half ago, sending me into a panic and off to the vet. She was fine by the next day so I tried not to panic with Chaco.

Yet Chaco is a somewhat different story. With just a few weeks until he turns fifteen, over the last few weeks his body has been deteriorating and in the present moment he’s still struggling to walk and I don’t know what his future holds. We see the vet tomorrow.

But as he stood on the living room rug yesterday, trying to walk, me wanting to help him, it was a disaster. He didn’t want my help to move him, to give him water, to bring him dinner. He’s always been that way with me– Mr. Independent. I finally walked away and went back to my office (where he could see me from where he stood) and gave up. It was hard to do because I wanted to help him become more comfortable, to do what I could for him, and yet he rejected me.

Hmmm, yes, that was me doing the same thing in the past.

While being independent is important, it’s also important that we balance that when someone wants to help us. They want to be part of our lives, to be there for us. And we’re lucky if we have someone who cares enough about us to do that.

This morning Chaco is laying on the floor on a little rug right here next to my desk. 

Seeking Perfection

It’s hard to want to produce the perfect bucket bag each time.

I know that people are spending money they could use on something else and I also know that when I buy something, I want it to last. During the summer I bought my most recent Kate Spade bag and was disappointed when, after a few weeks of using it, the color started to wear off. We all want a quality product and I want to make sure I produce something that keeps people coming back.

However, the reality is that I’m not a robot or a machine. And I always remember from my quilting days when my friend Bonnie (who taught me much of what I know about quilting), told me that the “big girls”­– as she always called the quilting experts– said that only God could make a perfect quilt so they purposely made a mistake in each of their quilts.

I don’t need to make a mistake– sometimes something happens although most of the mistakes are ones that no one will ever notice or see, just me.

Creating a handmade product is just that­­– it’s handmade which means it’s unique and something I put my time into. Each time I sit down at the sewing machine, I ask for the patience to create the bag I’m working on because long ago I learned that I had to take my time and not rush through anything. The more I rush, the more errors there are.

Yet things happen and those mistakes– or let’s call them idiosyncracies– are part of what make the bags unique. And special. A factory-made item can’t do that. 

Combining Christmas Past with Christmas Present

It’s hard to believe that this will be my second Christmas without my mom. As I began to unpack the Christmas decorations over the weekend– hers and mine combined because she had moved back to New Mexico with me– I was quickly taken back to my childhood.

My birthday is December 12 and while I’m really a warm-weather person, the holiday season is always special to me. A lot of that is because Mom was the kind of person who made sure birthdays and holidays were special events. Which is also probably the reason that I’m happy to bake a cake and host a party for just about anyone’s birthday.

The first weekend of December was always exciting because that’s the weekend that the boxes filled with Christmas decorations came down from a spot that seemed way up high in the garage. And the oversized white box that was filled with the Christmas tree parts, the paint worn off on the ends so you never quite knew if you were putting them in the right spot or not.

It always felt like it took forever to get the house decorated, probably because Mom was a perfectionist about the tree lights. My sister Karen and I still joke about her “Shit Damn Crap” that would ensue when she couldn’t get them the way she wanted. And it’s probably the reason she asked Greg to put them on the tree her last Christmas, saving her the stress (I reminded her it meant she couldn’t complain if she didn’t like them).

My father’s father made a slew of Christmas villages in his basement workshop (along with a choirs and churches). I’m not sure how many sets I have no but if I had a bigger house (and no Gidget to knock them over with her long tail like she did with a small metal Christmas tree off the coffee table in the living room this morning) I would put them all out.

The house in the photo is what Mom called a “Snow White House” because of the roof and she had a set of those, too. Mom is all over the decorations because of the memories associated with them and how special she made the holiday season. Because we only saw these items for a short time each year, it reminded us to enjoy them even more.

While we spent last Christmas in Los Angeles, this year my new in-laws will join us. Greg and I spent yesterday evening decorating the tree and putting up all the decorations, only the outside lights left for him to do. For me, I am combining Christmas past with Christmas present. And that will lead to Christmas future.

 

All Is Well

There are probably few moments in our lives– especially our adult lives– when we aren't worried or concerned about something (or someone). Much of life is coping with the constant change and the peaks and valleys that we come across as we travel through it.

I could make a list of situations various friends are coping with right now– some of them very challenging in a negative way– but all of them challenging because they involve letting go of someone or something in their lives to go forward. This could be moving on from a marriage that is dead or making a move across the country. And for some people, they are nervous but they embrace the change as much as they can and move forward with it. For others, they feel as if they have to wait for some time to pass for a variety of reasons before they can make movement in changing the situation.

No matter what's happening to us though, we must find ways of coping with it because the reality is that we're always faced with something. For me, I remind myself that "all is well." This comes from a prayer from St. Theresa of Avila that sits on my bathroom counter. It's a reminder that we are never alone and because we are never alone, we won't be left to wither in the darkness.

We might think we are in the darkness by ourselves but when we look back on past situations we've been through, we can see we felt the same way then. And guess what? Everything worked out.

So no matter what you're faced with, no matter how big or small the challenge, keep telling yourself all is well. The more you say it, the more you'll believe it. And you know life is short– you don't want to miss any of it because you were too busy worried about something.

The Meaningful Season

I was sick over the weekend with a stomach bug, a huge disappointment because I love Thanksgiving weekend. It's several days I can get some things done: decorate the house, get ahead on some craft projects, maybe some writing.

Instead, I was miserable for several days of it– the part following Thanksgiving.

But Saturday evening when we went to Mass, mostly because I didn't want to miss the first weekend of Advent because it means we start singing Christmas songs, when I went up to light my weekly candle and pray, I realized how caught up I was in everything but Christmas. While Christmas is about getting together with people and not really about gifts in my world, all I could think about were all the items on my list I needed to do– like bake cookies, send out cards– but none of those are about reflection of what is a very special time of year. All I kept thinking was that the month is going to go to fast.

I'm glad I caught myself early because, remembering before I have stepped too far into the season, to spend time in reflection, in silence as I heard the other day, about why we really celebrate Christmas.

It always goes too fast, but that's because it's a special time of year and one filled with meaning if we choose it to be. 

While it's easy to get caught up in the frenzy of shopping, don't forget to take the time for yourself to enjoy the lights in the darkness and remember what it's really about: a celebration of why we are here.

The Bittersweetness of Thanksgiving

Thanksgivings are always a big deal. It’s about the turkey and all the trimmings, some of which we only have once a year (I admit I like the jellied cranberries but you won’t see me eating them year round). For some people, it’s the one chance a year they get to see certain people in their lives. It’s also a day off and the kick off for the holiday season.

As tomorrow draws near, I also know people in the midst of big life changes: someone who is in the midst of a cross-country move, someone who is bringing his wife homefrom a foreign country for the first time, people who have endured relationship endings this year and their Thanksgivings will look much different, and yet others who are experiencing the first, second, third– or even twentieth– Thanksgiving without a loved one who has died. For those going through it the first time, there is pain in knowing someone will be missing from the dinner table.

For many, Thanksgiving doesn’t look like the commercial on television where the entire family is gathering and everyone looks happy to be together. There is sadness, especially on that first Thanksgiving without someone, not knowing what emotions the day will bring.

While I have a long list of what to be thankful for (probably longer than I have sticky notes for– and I have quite a few of those), Thanksgiving is always bittersweet for me. Facebook posted yet another photo reminder of my dog Daisy this morning, on what ended up being a week before her death six years ago.

Then there is the photo of my mom and my sister taken three years ago, our last Thanksgiving in Illinois, again a Facebook reminder a few days ago. I don’t remember what they were laughing about (my post says something about a “surly beer”) but they couldn’t stop. That’s the happiness of Thanksgiving and what we should cling to as we move through life transitions.

It’s not the first Thanksgiving Greg and I will spend together but it is our first as a married couple. And while it’ll be a happy day for me (even in my sadness of missing some family members), my thoughts are never far from those whose day is more challenging.

Remember what you’re thankful for and present with those with whom you are spending it. Life is too short to get caught anywhere else.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

Resting in Prayer

There are many definitions of what prayer means, usually defined by what we are taught and then the life experiences that continue to shape that meaning. While I grew up believing prayer was a time to recite a prayer that I had been given, it also was a time to be thankful for what I have and to ask for protection of those that I care about.

But as I've gotten older, I've begun to understand that prayer is also a time to ask for whatever it is that we want. I have talked about before how often people are afraid to do this– to ask for anything. 

My prayers are jumbled with sentences– despite the fact that life is always a roller coaster of ups and down, there is always much to be thankful for– and being a person who wants to keep opening doors and moving through them, there is also much that I ask for.

What I am not good at is taking the time during prayer to listen. Finally I realized it was much more than that though, I discovered that for me prayer is a time of rest.

In many ways this feels counterintuitive to what I have been taught, about always seeming to be speaking during prayer. However, for someone like me who is constantly in motion, there is that need to rest. And in that time of rest, it turns into a time of listening. Even if I don't hear anything.

I know that often prayer can feel barren, it can feel empty, but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening. The beauty of life is that we never know what will unfold in front of us.

But if we don't rest during prayer, we won't give the unfolding a chance to happen as it should.

Letting go...even when we don't want to

For six months, I couldn't send from one of my email addresses. I tried to deal with it but the guy at my hosting company reached a point where he said it wasn't a problem on their end, but instead one in my mail account. With the wedding on the horizon, I gave up and spent six months changing the address on the emails I was sending.

Saturday, however, I realized I needed to fix it and with a phone call– to tech support again– another tech guy and I managed to fix it. But in that process I lost about 3,000 emails.

I know what you're thinking, "Why did you have so many emails?!" While I had been good about deleting them, at some point I had stopped. So even though I wasn't excited about letting them go, I realized that it meant I could let something new into my life. One day I'm sure I'll be annoyed when I realize that one of the deleted emails holds information that I need, but I'll deal with it. And I know that I lost some emails from my mom and some other people who have since died.

It's not about the emails though– it's what we hold inside of us. And the more I can loosen the grasp, the more that comes back to me. 

Ms. Resilient

Because I have written recently about Chaco, Hattie, and Gidget, I realized that I was leaving someone out: Nestle.

Perhaps the reason I have left her out– while not doing it on purpose– is because of her resiliency. Nestle is one of the happiest dogs ever. In two weeks she will turn thirteen although she doesn't act like such an old dog. Except for her face turning white and her fur not so sleek as it used to be, you'd never know she's as old as she is. 

I joke that Nestle was the kid who got Cs in school and who could run a 100 meters but would feign exhaustion for the mile. Yet when we got home from the park– where she would make it look like I was dragging her– she'd immediately start running around. Currently, she barks when we get inside the house because she wants her breakfast. And apparently I have nothing else to do but serve her.

Nestle's wold revolves around food. After she eats dinner, I always say, "Your day is over. There's no more food. You might as well go to sleep until tomorrow." Little makes her mad unless it's related to food (or going to the vet– even though Dr. Salas saved her life multiple times, she growls at him now).

In the moment, I can see her tail as she sleeps on the living floor although she was just barking at the garbage truck (however, this time, Gidget started it– Nestle was kind enough to teach Gidget all her bad habits).

For all she has been through– nearly dying after being attacked by Chaco, hit by a car, eating a turkey on Thanksgiving when we left the house– she still has a zest for life that some humans never have in their entire lives. And while she might annoy me with her excessive barking, my mom always used to say, "Nestle is the squeaky wheel."

And that wheel is reminding me that life is short and to enjoy every minute of it.