I Am This Woman

I made it through this day.

Today was the last day of a job I’ve had for five years, and change is tough. It’s for the better, in that it will be different. And this change has been two and a half years in the making. But change is, as I said, tough.

What helped the most was not the delicious carnitas burrito I had for lunch, but the love and friendship of at least twelve good and decent people who care about me…

What also helped was me winning at Monopoly today after I managed to put two houses on both Park Place and Boardwalk, and nearly cornered the monopoly on railroads. At one point, I was down to my last $8, but all it took was one opponent landing on Boardwalk and forking over $600 in rent. That was teh awesome.

Never underestimate the power of good friends who know your heart and remind you when you lose the way a little. Never underestimate the sheer brilliance of a good board game.

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You know, even if we didn’t make it to all the “perfect” places in Austin, we made it TWICE to see my Knitting Guru, and that was solid gold.

She is a woman I met when I started attending the UU church and discovered that I was indeed a lifelong Unitarian but just didn’t know what to call it all those years. In 1995, I was pregnant and wanting connection, so I volunteered to teach Sunday School, after Guru J chatted me up and I discovered that we shared similar teaching philosophies.

I began to live for the days when she was able to stay after church talking and gabbling with me until we were embarrassingly the last folks to leave the parking lot, stomachs grumbling for lunch.

Eventually, I found my way to her house, which was filled with books and yarn and music and love. I soaked up the time with her, and mentioned that when I was 40 (which I regarded at the Age At Which Everything Would Be Over), I would take up knitting again. She looked at me a little askew and said, “why wait? I’ve been knitting forever since I was about 8 or 9.” Oh.

So I took up needles and tried again… and fast forward two years, and I have a baby in tow on the way to Australia on a lark, and my Make-Mistake-Snake on the needles on the plane. I completed this lovely snake toy for my child, having learned much about tension, switching from purl to knit and back again, dropping stitches, joining seams, slipping the first stitch on the row and counting each row each time to see that I did not drop a stitch.

Many thousands of conversations, games, visits, food, stories, books, yards of yarn and years later, and we were sitting around her table again tonight, talking a blue streak right up until I had to run out to dinner in order to get to sleep by 11 or so. And still we have conversations, knitting work and stories to finish and show/tell each other another time.

Tonight, I showed her my very favorite birthday present, a compilation art technique book that someone gave me thinking it wasn’t much of a gift, but it was better to pass it along than to toss it. OMG, both of us raved and drooled over it for an hour. She said, “Oh my, I LOVE THIS. It gives me SO many ideas!” EXACTLY! That’s the magic of it!

Such a treasured friendship. I am truly blessed, and to that she would say, “oh well, you know, it’s just what we do, isn’t it? No big deal. Glad to see you anytime!”

And later, my darling child said, “J is so sweet.” Why? I prompted. “Well, she just UNDERSTANDS what I’m into. She listens.”

Wow. Yes. That from a 12 year old who is priming himself for a typical but very non-conformist teenage (just like all teenagers). For both of us, we have a role model for very different (but really just the same) reasons. And that is just awesome.

Now all I can think of is what should I make her! I have a very good idea. Heh heh…

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My son has been alternatively-schooled and unschooled 11 years, and in public school for not quite one year. He was in a non-traditional daycare and kindergarten (Waldorf-inspired and Waldorf-proper) for the first six years, then in a charter school for five years that emphasized community responsibility, consensus building, theme-driven multi-year curriculum and individual responsibility.

The one lead teacher he had for the last three years of the charter school was, as it turned out, NOT a good fit for him in that last year, though I didn’t see it at the time (so much other stuff going on). I know better now. My son is what he is, and needs the kind of learning environment that he needs, and a teacher who does not make reasonable accommodations IN A SMALL CHARTER SCHOOL is a bad thing.

We unschooled for six months, exploring together what he wanted to learn, but mostly decompressing from that bad teacher. Last October, I enrolled him in a public school in a move that startled me but seemed to be the right thing at the time. The decision was twofold: as his main educator, I was failing him. I couldn’t find the right combination of approach, topic, method or structure that suited him (including NONE), motivated him. Some dedicated home educators said that I didn’t give him enough time. But the need for change was immediate. And thus as his parent also, I was failing him.

However, when I thought about more and more and more structure, I realized that I did NOT want to replicate school at home. I had a job to attend to, and as flexible as working from home is, it does require one to actually work. The much-ballyhooed “working alongside each other” was not working for us, and having me as the teacher and parent was confusing and stressful for the lad.

Unschooling was not working (at least not fast enough for my son’s well-being); I did not want to do “school-at-home” (even brief attempts at workbooks and lesson plans were met with tears and anxiety). So, why not share the responsibility with others to be the teachers? Oh, hey, there is a system for that. It’s called “school.”

I wanted to see how he would respond in addition to seeing how he would do when pitted against the mainstream school of thought, standardized testing and all that rot. Sixth grade was an ideal place for that to happen because, in reality, sixth grade is pivotal developmentally but not academically. It was a great learning lab for all sorts of reasons. If it didn’t work out, then we could also go back to Plan A, or move on to Plan C, D, E, F…

Sixth grade worked out just fine. Not great, not awful. Just fine. As it should be. He got the full experience of social mores (public school really is a funny sort of island tribe!), teacher nonsense and teacher wonderfulness (esp. librarian wonderfulness!). He learned cool stuff in math and science, and has emerged as bright and skilled in most subjects (completely “meh” in mainstream art-teacher art). He has learned the game of homework completion and the consequences of not doing it and not caring about it. And because of the ungraded foundation he had in the non-traditional schools, he is not a little trick monkey working for The Grades. The numbers on his papers were like weather reports to him, and me, and we dressed and reacted accordingly.

And now we are moving on to seventh grade, and I’m going to take the same attitude: it will be a learning lab. We’ll see what works, and what doesn’t, and if it doesn’t work on a catastrophic level, then we have Plan C, D, E …

So anyone who says, “oh, I can’t imagine homeschooling,” “homeschooling is too hard,” “I bet you got sick of it” or “kids need to socialize with other kids” will get a polite smile from me. Ditto the folks (much more rarely) who say, “public school is evil,” “I would never do that to my child,” or “You’re caught up in the establishment, man!” They really have no clue what we were and are doing, and I don’t have time to fill them in. Join us in the journey and conversation, see all the shades and colors of learning, be a supporter and a partner. But heckling, however well-meaning, will be ignored.

Memorial Day Weekend, originally uploaded by tigerwillow.

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Some days, you have to work. Some days, you need to play with Sculpey. And sometimes you just have to ride the rollercoaster.

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I lost my mama in 2003. So for her, I will try to remember the good times, even though there was thousands of bad times to try and forget. As I sit here today, I think I would withstand some bad times just to have her back for a few hours, to chat with, to giggle over stupid things with. I miss her voice and her encyclopedic knowledge of film. I would probably have to ask her about “Now, Voyager” (which I saw again yesterday, which makes me laugh and cry because it is probably the highest form of camp art EVER).

The missing her never ends. It just gets easier to live with, and even becomes comfortable after a while. My gift to her today is to remember her with love and fondness, something that was more complicated when she was alive. Something that I know was/is just as difficult for my brothers to do.

My dear child is 12, and knows full well it’s Mother’s Day… and is enjoying cartoons and getting himself breakfast.

We are ok with what our day holds, if we don’t listen to the world. In our little world, a loving gift for Mother’s Day is a hug, a joke, a plan to go see a movie together. But the world out there is screaming at us that flowers, cards, breakfast in bed, chocolates, resentment, duty, coercion and guilt are part of the day (spend money! make her blow her diet! she’ll get mad if you don’t!).

I hope I never ever become a mother who has to nag remind her son, or whine to be recognized. I can understand how it happens. But since I get a year-round appreciation, today is really just a pretty spring day which we will enjoy together. That right there is a pretty nice gift.

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms, anyone with a mom and especially those without!

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Things here at Lizard Lodge have been going along really well of late. We’re feeling a burst of creativity as the leaves pop out on trees and start loading up the chlorophyll. So many greens! I’ve been so amazed at the greens that I’d almost forgotten about the bluebonnets. But I saw some bluebonnets yesterday which reminded me that I need a wildflower fix and soon. The yards, fields, parks and highways are a riot of growth, colors, photosynthesis and life.

The boy has begun to explore iMovie and YouTube. At last. He’s been a video camera owner for a couple of years, but never showed an interest in putting it all together. But perhaps he’s been incubating. However, now, his desk, the dining room table and all available flat surfaces in his room are taken up with Bionicles who are the stars of his movies. (more…)

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I just need a small space here to grieve publically over something that has been lost to me. I thought I would get over it by now, but I haven’t. Writing might help.

Starting just after I separated from my husband, I started making a patchwork quilt for my son. I hoped to have it done for his 10th birthday. Time being what it is and all, it was shortly before his 11th bday I finally got the top and back done. Then I got a bat and pin basted the whole thing. About that time, my dad and brother had died, and I lost momentum. I was starting to pack up for a move, and lamented the quilt to some friends.

One of them made me an offer, which was most gracious. A quilter owed her a favor, and so she would just take care of the quilting. It involved sending the box across the country, and that was one of my Things To Do in the rush to pack and move.

Hoping to give it to my son for his 12th birthday, I aniticipated getting the quilt for Christmas, just after? in time for birthday? but was told that it wasn’t quite ready. So, patiently I wait. Finally, “it’s in the mail”! YAY! I make arrangements for someone to watch for its delivery while I was out of town….

No quilt. No box. No nothing. No word.

I inquire. The PO lost it? That’s all I have heard. Not sure if there was insurance or delivery confirmation. There are no good answers, no answers really. This entry is not to say anything about my friend – but to simply mourn this loss. And I’m heartbroken. All the love and energy I put into that… all the memories in the fabrics I used. Perhaps it is my fault that I loaded it up with too much memory. I am having a hard time getting over losing the thing. I have a fairly detailed tactile and sensory memory, and I can feel the fabric in my fingers still…

There are a few leftover squares, and I’m going to locate those today, and start over on something for him. Maybe that will help - replace the thing, transfer the love to a new thing. Maybe I have enough for a body pillow cover. My son understands the loss, but I think it is a greater loss for me than for him. That’s a good thing.

Here is the Flickr set for the quilt, perdu.

Using the “new” math, which is very much now like the old math, only with a lot less calculation and more relevance and “show work” prompts.

12: months of high-stress job

2: family members who died

19: days off per year

21: days taken off to bury loved ones

23: net pounds lost, plus and minus 5

5: states visited

2: states lived in

6: months lived in both Arizona and Texas

800+: photos snapped

10+: videos shot

1: videos uploaded to YouTube

1: Grand Canyons visited

1: foreign countries visited (Hungary)

1: cameras lost

1: cameras purchased

90: pounds of Kid

2: grades completed or entered (5th and 6th, respectively)

pi: number times radius squared to get area of a circle, which shape PIES come in… coincidence? I think NOT.

5: new DVDs

2: new DVD sets (Dr. Who, Planet Earth)

10: weeks my Netflix account is on HOLD

1: cup of caffeinated coffee, accidently brewed and drunk on Christmas Day, with all attendant side effects and detriments

14: weeks of wanting a Wii

16: weeks of saving allowance

1: happy Wii owner on Christmas morning

1: first salon pedicures (and the addiction begins!)

2: birthday cakes and candles

16: episodes of appointment TV – Lost, of course

10: days since my Christmas holiday began

3: days until my Christmas holiday is over

2: days left of Holidailies

10: favorite posts

15+: new favorite bloggers

1,000: yards of yarn bought over Christmas break

12: colors in the current knitting project

6: current projects on the needles

2: hours left till today’s deadline for Holidailies

5: number of times I’ve told the Kid it’s bedtime

2130: military time for the Kid’s bedtime

2400: timehack of mom’s “lights out” during the holiday

6: books in Chronicles of Narnia

1: number of books in Chronicles of Narnia read to the Kid at bedtime

infinity: number of times left to say “I love you” to the Kid

After reading this Best of Holidailies recently, I’ve been thinking about how gift-giving happens in our family, with my Santa-believing, starry-eyed-over-Christmas kid.

Back in the olden days, when the Kid was a baby, it was absolutely true that you could give him a box and he was happy. (more…)

Today, I wrapped presents. I did eight or nine presents in 26 minutes. I think that was my best time ever, and I attribute it to the kitchen island being cleared away for wrapping, and the deadline of school pick-up to motivate me to wrap rather than stash all the unwrapped things yet again.

My first job was wrapping presents for a department store. I filled in for someone whose full-time seasonal job it was. She needed an afternoon off for some reason. I was the lowly temporary inventory clerk/daughter of the Personal Shopper, who was game to help. It was a wonderful afternoon.

People would come, hand over their sweaters, socks, belts, stemware, and pick a number from the 15 or 18 choices on the wall. The wrapstand had as many rolls of thick, shiny classy paper, in the latest colors and traditional red, gold and green. A cutter was built in so one could roll off the right amount of paper and then give it a satisfying RIP. The coordinating ribbons and the assortment of gift boxes were below in labeled bins. Once carefully tissue-papered and tucked into the right gift box, a present was a perfectly symmetrical object that could get wrapped with precisely creased and triangulated paper. Double-stick tape was hidden in seams. We also had tissue paper with the store logo, foil embossed stickers and other stick-on flourishes that gave it a department store finish.

Et voila! The finished present was good enough to eat or put under a designer tree. Rarely did anything come to Gift Wrap that couldn’t be boxed, wrapped and ribboned. Those dizzy women who swoon at the sight of a jewelry store box, or a Nordstrom’s sticker… that was our audience. We were going for the status and brand-conscious woman (both giver and receiver) with our shiny paper. It was a creative process using precision and pre-fab design, but still it was a triumph to stack up the boxes for customers who waited (im)patiently for their merchandise.

I haven’t ribboned, bowed or labeled any of the packages I did today. I got stopped and now wonder how did I give things from “Santa” all these years, while using the same paper as those packages from “Mom”? How is that not a total tip-off for the Kid? Maybe it’s just more of the Santa mystery. This year, I’ll be a little more cautious. Santa is going to make liberal use of the stocking hung by the chimney with care.