Good job making things work

I had a really good day today.
I did good work.
I did not get paid, in fact, we're down money. 
I barely got recognition, and what I did will not be remembered.
I hardly got done anything I'd planned to do.
But, it was a good day.

I helped someone get some medicine.  I lifted a little chore that made 2 people's lives easier.  I walked with one friend and listened to her thoughts around a hard decision.  I walked with another friend, vented some of my frustrations, got some good ideas, and listened to her vent about her frustrations.  I practiced letting go.  Yesterday I was in a well justified snit, but it didn't make anything better and wasn't helpful so I'm still practicing letting go.
I accepted the chance to help an older adult learn to read.

I'm not exceptional.  I'm the norm.  This work I did?  There were others directly involved doing even more.  There always are others, doing what needs to be done, not because they get paid, but because it just needs to get done.  What do women do?  Get shit done.

This world runs on the unpaid, unacknowledged, and unappreciated labor of women.

Just thought you should know

Also, to all my women friends doing the good work every.single.day.

 I see you.

You're amazing.

I call bullshit

Back in Aug I saw another post about National Cancer Survivor Day, "battling" against cancer, "brave" survivors, etc. blah, blah, blah. "Copy and paste, share, if you too know someone touched by cancer." 

Now it's October -  National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  


Nope.

Just nope.


Don't pink wash it by buying some product.
Don't seek attention for yourself by asking for people to notice that you know someone touched by cancer (hint - we all do, it's not that uncommon).
Don't be condescending and victim blaming by using words like "battle" and "brave". Most cancer patients have many, many days when they don't feel like battling and being brave, and that's OK.

You want to make a difference?

Fork over some bucks to primary research.

Write a letter to your senators and representatives letting them know that you support, and expect them to support, and FUND, fundamental cancer research.

Make a meal for a family currently dealing with this, but ask first if/when it's convenient, and if there are any foods you should avoid - and then actually show up when you said you would.

Ask what they want and need, then listen and follow through - clean a patients house, do some laundry, pull some weeds.

And most of all, remember that people with cancer are just that - PEOPLE who happen to have an illness that every single one of us will have, if we live long enough.

Not ... Enough

Have you ever noticed that if you don't do something the "right" way, the socially accepted way, that then it's all your fault?

Yesterday I discovered Black Girl Dangerous, a fantastic blog that describes itself as " a literary and activist forum that amplifies the voices of queer and trans* people of color."  Yes, it's angry, it can be extreme, especially the current post, but, it also makes some excellent points, and can be beautiful to the point of bringing me to tears.  I got carried away and linked a lot (3?) of the posts on my facebook page. 

I was saddened to see the comments that a couple of friends made on my links to her posts.  Mostly along the lines of "I can't read her" -  she's too angry, full of loathing, negative, not productive....
It could be summed up in this remark: " Really, it doesn't take any more effort to look around and see the positive. But then one can't continue to call oneself a victim."

It's being a victim to express your feelings?  To name the injustice you've seen and experienced?  When you've been abused and mistreated, when you've seen others in the same situation, you shouldn't be angry and speak out, you should just "look around and see the positive"?

I felt personally invalidated by their opinion on BGD posts.  It's taken me a while to understand why I was so hurt by this, why I was well and truly triggered.  Here it is- what I heard these people say was "She's not doing it right."  I heard them say that there is a proper way to be a marginalized minority, there is a proper way to express the feelings you have about how you have been treated, and this isn't it.

It's something I've heard and experienced again and again in my life.

When I spoke out as a young adult about being molested and abused as a child I was invalidated - told it didn't happen, told it wasn't so bad, told I was rude to talk about it, besides "You lived, right?".  Because surviving was evidence enough that it couldn't be that bad?

Now as an adult I'm not recovering from cancer treatment right either, I'm constantly asked "How are you?  When are you coming back to ...?"  No one wants to hear anything but "Fine." and "Soon."  No one (including me!) wants to hear the litany of ailments cancer treatment has left me with, or that my life will not be returning to what it was any time soon, maybe not anytime at all.  I just need to "look around and see the positive."  To do otherwise indicates that I'm ungrateful for my life and all my blessings.  I lived, right?  Shouldn't I just shut up and be grateful to be alive?

I was taught to be a good little girl.  Keep quiet.  Keep the family secrets.  Be polite.  Suck it up.  Put on a good face.  Time and again, when I have bucked those lessons, I've been reprimanded and shamed, and that's what I heard in the facebook responses to my links to BGD's posts.  You are not ____ enough.  Not polite enough, not good enough, not white enough, not brown enough,not sick enough, not healthy enough, not grateful enough... 
You Are Not Enough.

I don't think they meant it that way.  They certainly didn't mean it towards me.  Knowing these people IRL, I suspect that it really is just that they have enough on their plate without having the pain of another thrown in their face.  I know it's hard to face the harsh reality that so many other people have to live with, especially when our own feels like more than we can take.  I can only take so much too. I turn off NPR and turn on my MP3 player to avoid having to listen to one more report of another bombing, another war, another rape victim.

Just because I can't take it, it doesn't go away.  It's my right to not listen when I can't take anymore.  But even more so, it's the victims right to speak their truth, in any way they need to.

Yes, it's good to survive.  Some times it makes us stronger, but the unfortunate fact is to be a survivor, first we had to be a victim.  It's not a crime to be a victim, it's not a crime to wish it never happened and to rail against the powers that be that allowed it to happen.  It's right and just that we speak out when we can, however we can.  The world needs our truth. 

The world needs everyone's truth - even if the truth is ugly.

How else can we know we need to work to make things better?

Welcome Home?

We've been home just over a month.
Can I just tell you how hard this last month or so has been?  H-A-R-D. 

I have been working, really working, to hold it all together.  I've tried not to be a whiner.  But it's time to just let it all hang out.  I'm going to list why this has been such a challenging time. 
You may not tell me I'm a whiner, you can just shut up and read. 
Or, click away from here, 'cause it ain't pretty.
You've been warned.

About 5 weeks into our trip Fire Lord got a call from a co-worker asking if he could borrow those clamps they'd talked about.  Fire Lord was game, but had to explain that we were, like, out of the country, on a boat, on, you know, the ocean, so the fellow would have to work it out with our house sitter.  With that settled the co-worker said something like "Well, I think you should be ok, I saw your name on an org chart, so you probably still have a job."
He didn't say this like it was a joke.  Turns out there was a lot of layoffs reorganization in Fire Lord's lab while we were gone.  By "reorganization" you can read the entire project was canceled and everyone redeployed or released from employment.  Luckily his supervisor was responsive to his rather alarmed humorous voice mail, and assured him that a job was waiting for him when he got back.

Just a week and a half before we came home we learned that my FIL's best friend had died.  She had been like a grandma to our boys, joining us for Sunday dinner and family holidays.  We got home on a Sunday, and attended her funeral the very next day.

We spent that first week home catching up on laundry and sleep, and spending some time with my SIL who had been staying with my FIL.  It was during this week that we agreed that my FIL would be moving in with us with in the next month.

The next week Firelord learned that the plum new job he had waiting for him was as a tech lead in field he hadn't worked in for 20 years.  Talk about a steep learning curve!

The rest of us stumbled around trying, without much success, to get back into our normal routine.  I had a series of medical appointments to go to, dealing with the after effects of cancer treatment and trying to tease out those symptoms from other issues.  It was spring break for our local schools so some of our regular lessons had been canceled, friends were out of town, and we just weren't getting much of anywhere.  Little did we realize that this week would be about as good as it gets for a while.

We learned on Thur. 3/28 that Fire Lord's father had died the day before.  We'd had him to Sunday dinner just a few days earlier, (like we did pretty much every Sunday).    He was 93, but we really truly believed that he would be with us another few years.  He'd been to the doctors for a check up just a couple weeks prior and the doc had said that he had the health of a man 10 or 15 years younger than he was.  We thought he'd move in with us this month.  As much as the death of a 93 year old can be unexpected, this was unexpected.

I have no words to tell you how this hit us, how shocked, surprised, sad, and guilty we felt.  The "if only"s came on hard and fast.  "If only we'd convinced him to move in with us sooner."  "If only he'd moved into a home" "If  only we'd stopped by to check on him more often" "If only he hadn't been alone"  So many "if only's".   The coroner's findings indicated that it was quick, and that there was nothing anyone could have done, even if they had been right there.  That doesn't seem to get rid of the "if only"s though.  There is little logic in emotion.

That weekend, while we planed my FIL's funeral, family started coming in.  Easter Sunday came, and Lego Kid's birthday came.  The week of the funeral one SIL and another BIL also had a birthday.  We had 14 people sleeping under our roof, plus more family put up in town.  It was amazing and wonderful to see the family again.  I loved that we got to have the little kids at our house.  But it was also crazy.  Anyone who has had a loved one die knows that feeling a funeral brings - feelings of family reunion and love, and sadness and loss.  It's crazy, and it's exhausting.

It's been a week now since the last of the family left town.  It seems like both more and less time.  Nothing is really settled yet.  Fire Lord has not only a new job to learn, but has to settle up his father's estate, and cover for me while I take care of medical stuff.  My kids lost their closest grandparents within a month of each other and we haven't settled into our homeschool rhythm.

It's just hard.  I know we'll get through this, we have wonderful friends here, and I do honestly have some of the best in-laws on the planet.  I know it could be so much worse.  But we are so very weary. 

Welcome home indeed.

It's a Bill and Ted Day

There are days when each and every wound you ever received is on the surface, raw and tender, waiting to bleed all over again.  These days are a reminder to be kind.  Show compassion.  Practice patience.

That woman yelling at her screaming child in the check out line?  Maybe she had to decide whether to buy groceries today or pay the doctor.  Give her an understanding smile.  If you're up to it, offer to help her get her groceries to the car.

The perfectly healthy looking guy who's walking away from the handicap parking spot?  He might have one of those insidious hidden illnesses.  This may be his first outing this week, and it will take him 2 days of rest to recover from it.

The person who pushed in front of you at the express lane, but has more than 15 items in his cart?  Maybe he's getting last minute supplies for his father's wake.  He didn't even see you moving towards the same line.  What he sees now is the last time he saw his dad and how he wished he'd told him more often how much he loved him.

The woman who's late for work, again, even though she knows the big project is due tomorrow?  Maybe her asthmatic child has another respiratory infection.  She's frantically calling to find child care while she works from home on her computer.

It's a hard world out there folks.  You know it is because you live in it too.  I know people can be assholes to each other.  I know I have been.  But usually there's a reason, even if we're not ready to share it.

So, today, I'm going to try to remember that everyone is hurting.  We all have our own pains and sorrows.
Sometimes those pains are obvious and people give you hugs and casseroles.
Most times those pains are invisible and people just try not to strangle each other.

Just for today:

Be Excellent to Each Other.

Silver - Make New Friends

Making friends seems like it should be easy, doesn't it? Some how it isn't always. Maybe you're shy, or quirky, or just quiet. Maybe you're new to town and haven't found your niche. Maybe your best friends moved away, or you had a falling out with your not-favorite-any-more-friends.

You could complain about it. It can be quite satisfying to complain. I do it a lot (just read this blog!) But, complaining doesn't really make it better. In fact, complaining about not having any friends is often counter productive to making new friends. So what's a person to do?

Get out there. What do you like to do? Go do it. What do you have to do? Do it with a smile, and ask for some company. What do you have to offer the larger community? Everyone has skills and talents that can be used somewhere. Consider joining an activity group, a social action group, a volunteer organization, a charity group, or a church. These are all great places to meet people who share your interests, passions and intentions.

I've posted about this before. I'm on several on-line lists for homeschooling, parenting, etc... and at least once or twice a year some one posts about the difficulty in finding/making/keeping friends. This may indicate that I hang out on line with some pretty socially inept people, but I don't think that's the case. I think that having a community is a very real human need and that it's difficult to find that community if we don't fit societal norms. It's up to us to find or create our own community.

Creating your own homeschool

"How do I start?" "How much time does homeschooling take?" "How much money do I need to homeschool?" "What curriculum should I use?"

These are questions I hear again and again from parents as they approach the idea of homeschooling. Often these parents are in a position where they feel they must homeschool with limited financial resources, and so have a sense of desperation about finding the answers.

Homeschooling can be scary, since it is so far off the beaten path. Homeschooling isn't hard. Well, it isn't any harder than parenting, which you're already doing.

My advice applies to more than just homeschooling -

Keep your goals and principles in the forefront of your mind.

Search out like minded friends and give and accept support.

Get involved in your community.

Give yourself time and room to make mistakes and learn from them.


When I first thought of homeschooling an experienced homeschooling mom asked me questions that befuddled me. She asked "Why are you homeschooling?" and then "What are your goals?".

I realized that the answers to those questions always lead me in the right direction. Rather than homeschooling from a recipe (curriculum) we homeschool from scratch, based on principles and goals. Sometimes we have used a curriculum or book series, but we used them as fit our goals and principles, not necessarily as proscribed.

So, I would suggest that you ask yourself and your child - what are our goals? Long term for adulthood, midterm for youth, short term for this year, this month, this week, this day... Then with a list of goals in hand head off to the library and see what they have. Find books on subjects your child is interested in, look for books that have projects and puzzles in them. Use the library computer to get on line and find some resources that interest you.

Every day read with your child, talk about stuff - the books you read, a bird you saw, local events, etc... (This goes for older kids too!) Find local events and attend together. In the summer many communities have free concerts, festivals, and other happenings. Your public library might be a good place to start looking for those. Consider volunteering for your favorite charity or service group. There are some that will take a parent with child(ren) for certain activities.

Help your child discover their favored learning styles. Work together to find and create educational resources. This process will teach your children skills they can use forever in self education.

Find and get involved in your local homeschooling group. Collectively you will have many more resources than you have individually, and the support from other families is priceless.

Living in a creative society

We live in a consumer society, yet what I want with my family is a creative society. It's important to understand the difference and realize that with our daily actions we not only choose, we create, the life we life.

A person in a consumer culture looks outside of the individual for entertainment, education and survival. A person in a creative culture looks to each individual for the entertainment, education and survival.

Today as I write this, my husband is showing a friend and his brother how to use his table saw to cut the wood they need to build a small sail boat. The friend's children are here playing with our children. The older two are on an ancient laptop, programming in python. They are laughing manically - it must be a funny program! The younger 4 kids are outside burying and then digging up treasure, occasionally throwing a ball for our big mutt. I sit here typing up posts in advance, having just discovered that I have the power to pre-schedule blog posts. (Yea me!)

We are making our own entertainment. We are creating our own community.

Being on the Outside

I'm not a people person. If I followed my "druthers" I'd stay home, reading books and puttering. Yet, I'm involved in several on going groups, book groups, choirs, homeschooling, church, etc. Being involved in my community, giving back, and keeping in touch is important to me even if, as an introvert, being with other people is tiring. Dealing with people is a skill that doesn't come naturally, so I'll share a little of what I've learned.

Recently I had the unpleasant experience of being an "outsider", attending a regular meeting that I had missed for many months. It was a good reminder of how hard it is to join an existing group, and what a group can look like from the outside. It's difficult to see why we should make the effort if we're going to be excluded or even experience rudeness when we attempt to get involved. So, for today, here are two perspectives to consider.

The existing group has a history and a culture that doesn't involve you. When you show up, full of energy and ideas, you challenge that. Until you've been showing up for a while, until the individuals in the group know you, trust you, and believe that you understand the culture, structure, and purpose of the group, you will continue to be an outsider. Even short absence can lead to being an outsider in some groups.

Before you expect to be included, be prepared to put in some time equity. Think about what your values are and what communities are worth getting involved in. Although human nature will always be what it is, some are more welcoming than others. Groups that revolve around a shared goal and some sort of work, like a performance group or volunteer organization, will probably make room for you quickly, happy to use your skills.

Spend some time making meetings and learning about the groups goals and dynamics before opening yourself up or expecting acceptance. You're the new one here. It's easy step on toes if you're not familiar with how things are done. Just your presence can build a bit of trust equity with the group, so it's not wasted time. If this is a group you want to be involved in, be ready to give it some time and effort.

Make friends with individuals within the group. Be respectful of existing relationships, and create some of your own. As a whole, I find large groups intimidating. I do better when I know some individuals within the group. An individual can often clue me in on details I'm unfamiliar with, and if nothing else, be one face I can be genuinely glad to see.

Volunteer to do some real work. If an opportunity arises to be of use, grab it! There's nothing like being of value and doing something useful for getting involved and being included. If after a time you still feel excluded, or even taken advantage of, then that will tell you something about the group, and perhaps about your own skills at making connections.

If you are part of an existing group (that is open to new people), be aware of newcomers. Think about how you are being perceived, both as a group and as an individual. The group might even want to have a regular way of welcoming newbies, and helping them be included. Work to create a positive and welcoming culture. If your group has a negative culture you will not only scare off new people, but probably experience attrition of existing members. If there's not already a person who takes it upon themselves to be welcoming of newcomers, consider being that person.

I'm not skilled at people stuff or groups at all. Man, this topic is hard for me. I can only share my own experiences. Please, if you have ideas, share them!

Building Community

Time for a new topic string.... :-)

A couple of recent incidents in real life groups and an on-line group have reminded me of the importance of community. It's also made it clear to me that many of us don't know how important community can be, and even if we do, we don't know how to build that community.

I know that I didn't grow up in a strong community. My nearby family was incestuously close, but closed off from others. I didn't grow up in a church community and my live-in parent was hostile towards our neighbors. Public school, even with all the bullying and regular humiliations, was the most wonderful place in my life. That's one of the reasons that, even though we homeschool our children, I will forever support public schools and public education. I know that for many children that's as good as it can get.

As an adult, I have discovered the importance of community and I am learning how to create, build and maintain that community. I'm not an expert, but this topic is important enough that I want to explore it.

In this series of blogs, I'd like to explore the meaning and value of community, how to find and build communities, and how to maintain them once we've got them.

What does community mean to you?

Finding friends

A question has come up on one of my groups again. It's an issue often enough that I decided to blog about it.

The question goes something like this: (please,forgive all the slashes)

"My child doesn't have any friends. S/he is quiet/reserved and imaginative/creative and/or active/physical/kinetic. S/he doesn't seem to "click" with others easily."

First of all, why is this an issue? (No. I'm not being facetious.) Does your child want more friends or do you want your child to have more friends? Some kids really would rather not bother with friends, especially when they're very young and/or have siblings they enjoy. Is your child content playing on their own or with siblings? Is your child asking you to be their playmate more often that works for you?

It's important to understand how much of this is your issue and how much is theirs. It's perfectly legitimate for it to be your issue. Something like "My kid is driving me crazy. He has too much energy for me and needs someone else to work it out with" is a perfectly good reason to search out friends, but it may require a different approach than "My child was crying and told me that he wanted more friends." There seems to be certain Right Brained kids that are not extroverts and it's important that we respect that, even if we have compelling reasons for wanting to them make more and deeper connections with others.

My middle child suddenly noticed he didn't have any friends a couple of years ago when he was six. My heart just ached for him. I wanted so much to fix it, but it wasn't something I could "do" for him. It's been a process for both of us.

I noticed much earlier, but since he didn't care I gave up worrying about it. Once he expressed a desire for friends it became something we've worked on together. While he's very empathetic, he's not one for whom friendship has come easily. We've had to talk about what makes a person a friend and how to be a friend.

We've talked about what it means to be a friend, how you know if someone is your friend, the different kinds of friends. There are friendships based around a shared activity, friendships based on physical location, friendships based on a feeling of kindred spirit, etc... It's possible to have many different kinds of friends to meet different needs.

I have boys, and I know their friendships can be different than that of girls, but here's my experience, for what it's worth.

Park days, church, classes and such are a great way to meet people, but not a great way to build a real friendship. When we have the opportunity to meet new friends I look for characteristics I know will be good matches for the child I'm thinking of. I look for similar interests, similar energy level, emotional maturity/awareness (or lack there of :-P ). For instance, my oldest loves books, games, robots, electronics, so it's easy for him to build friendships around these interests. My middle child has more energy than an entire gymnastics team, so he does better w/ someone who also has a lot of physical energy and doesn't mind a bit of tussling. (Also, the child's parent needs to be ok w/ that level of physicality, so if their child is already like that I don't have to explain so much). At different times my kids have done better with kids older or younger than them.

When we really want to make a friend we arrange a one on one play date with someone that we'd like to know better. It's nearly always a "family" play date. In fact, sometimes the other parent and I will not point out that it's a "play date" for the kids at all. We'll just say "we're going to visit my friend" or "my friend and her kids are coming over" and then encourage the kids to get out of our hair by giving them an activity near us while we chat. That takes some of the pressure of playing together off the kids. They're just hanging out because we make them, not because they're trying to be friends. I'm pretty up front w/ the other parent about how we need one on one time for the kids to warm up to a real friendship and most other parents have understood that.

If your child is having problems with friends gravitating towards a sibling rather than him/her, you might try looking for friends that are not likely to be as attracted to, or attractive to, the sibling. Maybe someone younger or older than the sibling, or w/ interests that are unique to your child? We've had that problem with my middle son. He's a bit wild, and wears out even the most energetic kids, isn't really great at using his words... His current two good friends are both also very energetic and creative, one a year older and one a year younger. The older one can gravitate to my oldest boy, which has hurt middle's feelings... We talked it through, and oldest becoming aware of the situation has worked to turn attention back to his brother sometimes, which has helped. Middle is learning to pay attention to body language and spoken language has also helped him realize that he needs to tone it down sometimes. (Room for growth here!) It's amazing what a couple of years of growth and intention have done though.

The final thing I would say is that it's more important to be comfortable in your own skin than to be popular. If a child feels good about himself it's easy to find others whose company he enjoys or to be comfortable without company.

OK, not the final thing. I never shut up, so there will probably be more somewhere later. ;-)