A look around

Gosh, it's been awhile since I've been in this space. I've been busy and blogging has not been a priority in this girl's life.

Don't take that personally; I love you.

This fall has been full. My schedule doth overflow. I'm not bragging and I'm not complaining. I'm just busy.

I don't know a single person who, when asked, "So, things been busy?" would answer with anything other than an exasperated affirmation. We tend to fill our time. Being busy - especially for women - is often a brag-y kind of badge of honor: "I'm so busy" = "I'm so important/needed/essential etc." To admit otherwise makes us seem somehow less in a society that constantly compares.

That said, I have no problem admitting I've experienced profound boredom.With that came a heaping portion of depression and loneliness. Idle hands/devil's workshop sort of stuff.

No thanks.

And so I will always appreciate being busy. Even if I feel as though life will swallow me right up at any moment.

Work commitments, pressing deadlines and a lousy construction-laden daily commute swell my weekday calendar. Outside of that, there are community and church volunteer commitments on an almost daily basis.

Plus, lest we forget, I'm a wife and mom. Carving out family time has been a challenge, but we did manage a fall break family vacation to Washington DC.

My son's high school marching band season is in full swing and so we are up early and out late every weekend. My butt is in the bleachers a lot - at home football games on Fridays and at contests almost every Saturday.

I love it. I really do. 

Oh, and I've been sick ... like four-rounds-of-antibiotics sick with various maladies since August.

So there's that.

Low energy and an overwrought schedule have been my challenges this fall. It's hard to stay on track. At times, I wonder if am I veering without noticing, like a sleepy driver behind the wheel.

That's why it's good to hit the brakes and take a look around.

Get your bearings.

Remember where you've been.

See where you are.

Bask in the moment.

Look at the road ahead.

My truth is this: my life is hectic. It is overwhelming.

And it is infinitely blessed.

I took one of the photos in Washington DC of the Washington Monument, and all the rest here in Indiana at a band contest in Greenwood, at Mount Saint Francis, at Perrin Park in Jeffersonville and along the country roads of Floyd County. These are my photos, unedited, no filters, no Instagram.

This is what I see when I stop and take a look around.

Enough

When my son was 5, he came home from a playdate with a perplexed look on his face.

"What's up, buddy?" I asked.

"Mommy, are we poor?"

"Why do you ask that?" Truth is, I already knew exactly why he was asking.

"Well, Such-and-Such* said we are poor because our house is so small and we don't have a flatscreen TV, and we don't have a pool, and we don't have a basement. Is that true?" he asked, those big brown eyes staring up at me intently.

*Not his real name. Also, it was 2004; flatscreens were not as common or inexpensive as they are now.

I wanted to explain socioeconomic class stigma to him. I wanted to talk about those among us who truly face abject poverty without a home, medical care, enough to eat or decent clothes to wear. I wanted to talk about material possessions versus spiritual gifts. I wanted to reveal that external appearances are not always as they seem; happiness does not equal fancy. Poor does not equal bad. Comparing yourself to others is a game with no true winner.

I wanted to express my indignation at having been judged by Such-and-Such, though in reality, that attitude had more than likely trickled down from the adults in his life. It was not much of a leap to assume it was the grown-ups who had expressly or inadvertently deemed our outlet mall wardrobes, little house, domestic vehicles and nonprofit-sector careers somehow lacking; inferior. Their 5-year-old had picked up on that and conveyed it back to my own ... you know, just so my son would know where he belonged.

But looking at my son's sweet face, I could only summon: "Well, he's kinda right."

Now that little nose was scrunched up in a manner that indicated my answer was not making any sense.

"Look, Such-and-Such is right: we don't have all those things. We don't have all that stuff that he and his family have. So to him, I guess we do seem poor. But let me ask you this, kiddo: do you have everything you need? "

"Yep."

"Do you even have some of the things you want?"

"Yep."

"Do you feel loved?"

"Yep."

"Then I guess we have enough, huh?"

"Yep." And he went on his way, satisfied.

That was 10 years ago. We still live in the same little house in an area noted for its affluence. We still drive modest vehicles. We still dress without pretension. We still work hard. We still have bills.

We still have enough.

Enough love.

Enough laughter.

Enough compassion.

Enough friendship.

Enough beauty, inside and out.

Enough to eat and even to share.

Enough to get by and even to save.

Enough to remind us who we are, where we came from and not lose sight of where we are headed.

Our house is clean enough.

Well, mostly.

Our house is happy enough.

We are happy enough.

Perfection is not a goal, nor is the accrual of materials items. That's not enough for us.

"For where your treasure is, so your heart will also be." - Matthew 6:21

I'm happy to report no other kids have been as direct in pointing out the material differences like Such-and-Such was. Sure, those differences are still there and they are obvious, at times. Thankfully, I have somehow managed to raise a teen who isn't particularly materialistic. He is easy going and content. He is happy.

Recently, I picked him up from a friend's house. It was the first time he had been there and as he got into the car and we backed away from the big, beautiful house in the upscale neighborhood - the garage of which would swallow our relatively dinky cottage whole - I said with a wink, "We still have the smallest house. Reigning champions."

And then my son pointed out, "Yeah, but we have everything we need and a lot of things we want."

And that's more than enough.

Still summer

School started here last week.

Yes, last week.

When it was still July.

School ended in June ... and started again in July. They went to school every month this past year.

That's a shift for us here, a shift that began last school year to a "balanced" calendar. School starts earlier, but now includes longer, two-week breaks in the fall, at the traditional winter break and in the spring.

Not everyone in the school district is a fan of this schedule, but we like it. It works for us as a family. My husband and I work year-round and we are better able to take time off together as a family with the breaks spread throughout the year.

My son enjoyed his shortened summer. He packed in all the summertime things a teen should: camping, fishing, swimming, sleeping in, time with friends, movies, cookouts, books, bike rides, running, band camp, a 10-day trip to the beach and a day at an amusement/water park. He took a driver's ed class, got his learner's permit and spent a good deal of time behind the wheel carting his parents around. It was a good summer.

And it still is.

Even though school is in session, it's still summer. Summer didn't come to a screeching halt when the school bus doors swung open.

Summer break is over for the kids here, but summer itself still rages on. And if summer is your season, then there's still time to enjoy the best parts of it, even if doing so requires working around the last bell of the school day.

There's still time for cherry tomatoes from the garden.

There's still time for flowers to bloom.

There's still time for long walks down a winding road with a friend.

There's still time for cooling rain showers.

There's still time for burgers on the grill.

There's still time for a big bowl of syrup-draped ice cream or chunks of sweet watermelon.

There's still time for tales by the campfire or even a picnic.

There's still time for a stroll by the lake or on the golf course.

 There's still time for farms to produce and provide.

There's still time to be carefree..

There's still time for the sun to hover a little longer and bless us with evening light.

There's still time for mosquitos, snakes, ticks, sweaty bras, sun burns on the back of your legs, and dried-up lawns, too ... but I'm aiming for the positive in this post, so I'll downplay all that.

Truth be told, it's been a beautiful summer here. Relatively mild temps, with several evenings spent sleeping with the windows open. That almost never happens here May through August ... unless you like to sleep in a stifling oven in the humid kitchen of hell while being marinated in the sweat of Satan himself.

This year, however, it's been so darn pleasant, it's the first summer in a long time that I haven't wished it away pining for fall to arrive and set me free from the AC prison.

So even though we are back to the familiar rhythm of the school year so soon after the end of the last one, I really can't complain.

Change is coming.

But there's still time to make the most of the season while the season lasts.

The walking dread

Oh gosh! My hands!

I looked at both hands in disbelief.

Contaminated.

My stomach sank. I'd just polished off a breakfast sandwich  ... with my hands ... the contaminated hands. And now it was in me. There was no going back.

Let me explain.

It all started yesterday ...

I was having a bad day. Just awful. A hectic morning was building up to a midday mental meltdown. I was out on my lunch break just wanting to grab a quick bite, but nothing sounded good and everything, everywhere was crowded.

I settled on a soup-and-sandwich kind of place and was in a long and not-moving line when I got a call on my cell. It was of a personal nature and I didn't want to miss the call, so being courteous to those around me, I stepped out of line to take the call. It was disappointing news and I was not happy.

I was also no longer in line.

Approximately 4,000 other people got in line ahead of me.

Approximately.

I decided to take my disappointment and sinking mood elsewhere. As I was backing my car out, another car zoomed passed and almost clipped me. Startled, I decided this was definitely not the place for me.

I was trying to process the news I'd received in the call and also trying to decide lunch. I hadn't been feeling well and was now feeling worse, at least emotionally, and so I wanted to make a food selection that wouldn't ruin my day physically.

I opted for a sandwich shop that was in a gas station near my office. The thing was, everyone else was there too (crazy crowded) and, yet again, my car was nearly bumped by another car with a distracted cell-phone-talking driver.

I ventured across the street to a fast-food grill, hoping for some reasonably healthy fare, but instead was cutoff by another car for a parking spot and nearly rear-ended by another who was also going for the spot. I tried to maneuver out of the way of the way, and was met by another car that was going the wrong way.

It's like cars were falling out of the sky and trying to land on mine in some sort of divine video game.

Also? People were lined up out the door at the restaurant.

I was rattled to the core and considered just going back to the office and eating Twizzlers - you know, the ones with the filling. Yum!

But I was shaky and needed more sustenance than that. So I got out of that cramped parking lot and headed down the parkway toward a chicken place that sells good salads.

The drive-thru line was 10 - yes, 10! - deep and the parking lot packed.

I pulled into a neighboring bank parking lot and cried. I just wept. For my frustration. For my disappointment. For my rattled nerves. For my growling tummy. For the wasted gas. For knowing that if I had just gotten back in line at the first place, I would probably be eating my soup now. I cried.

Once I got my cry out, I wiped the smeared mascara from my now-irritated eyes, and headed back to the gas station sandwich shop near my office. Lunch rush over, the parking lot was clear. There was no counter line. Things were looking up for me.

And then it happened.

My hands were full. I was balancing my bag of food, an open drink, my purse, a handful of dollar bills and coins, all while standing at the drink station trying to get a lid on my soda. The full soda started to slip from my hands and I turned to catch it - and dropped all the coins into the trash.

Seventy-one cents fell out of my hand and into the countertop trash bin. And, with nary a thought, I reached in and picked 60 cents of it back out ... of the trash.

I reached in.

I reached in the trash.

I reached in the trash in a fast food restaurant.

I reached in the trash in a fast food restaurant in a gas station.

And then I realized what I'd done.

Oh gosh, I reached in the trash in a fast food restaurant in a gas station!

Horrified and completely baffled by why I didn't just donate 71 cents to the landfill, I shuffled everything to my clean left hand and hit the door. I managed to get in the car and basically just drop everything into its rightful place while retrieving the hand sanitizer from the console.

I popped the sanitizer's lid, aimed for my right hand ... and the lid shot off, dumping the entire container all over me - my slacks, my blouse and thankfully, my right hand.

Back at the office, I washed my hands - more than once - and finally settled at my desk to eat. I was shaking with hunger. With my very first bite, I took out a chunk of the inside of my mouth.

Not a pinch to the cheek. It was a flesh-spittng chunk.

I was hungry, with mascara-smeared red eyes, a bloody mouth, and covered in antibacterial goo. Add my hazmat hand to that, and I could have been a zombie from The Walking Dead mindlessly ambling about the office.

My afternoon got better. I recovered from my disappointment, pulled myself together and drove home unscathed.

... And then today ....

In the back-to-school rush of the morning today (yes, we started school already yesterday), I stopped off for a quick breakfast via drive-thru. My total was $2.60. Hey, what do you know ... exact change in the console.

Exact change.

From the trash.

From the trash in a fast food restaurant.

From the trash in a fast food restaurant in a gas station yesterday.

And now the change had traveled ... from the trash ... to my hand ... to the console ... to my hand again this morning ... and without thinking about it until it was too late ... to my food ... to my mouth this morning.

Hey - I'm ok.

Despite my freak-out this morning at the realization that I had not entirely escaped my rotten luck of the previous day, I got through today just fine without triggering a zombie plague.

Some days are like that and we all dread them. It seems like the universe is out to get us at every turn. But we gotta walk through the messy days, past the dread. Just when we think we've conquered our demons, they rise back at us to take another turn.

We have to face our challenges and get our hands dirty - in the parking lot, in the trash bin, in our own minds. Avoidance just drags out our worries, distracts us, makes us linger on the negative, keeps us from focusing on the right things.

[And wastes a lot of time and gas during our lunch break.]

Just remember, life's ick isn't the end of the world. Shake it off. Wash it off - literally - if you have to. 

Eventually, a fresh start awaits.

Christmas ... even in July

"Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling." - Edna Ferber

Yesterday, we celebrated Christmas in July by hosting a little cookout at our house.

Before you start with the whole, it's-too-soon blah blah blah negativity, please understand:
1. I don't care
2. I agree

I don't care if you don't like my party theme. It's okay to stop reading this post right now. We can still be friends.

I agree Christmas is over commercialized and retailers try to get in our pockets way too early and Thanksgiving gets completely overlooked. I've talked about this before.

I've also shared that my family and I have a longstanding tradition of celebrating Christmas in July. This year, we decided to open the doors and invite friends to share in the celebrations with us.

It was definitely July. A cranky thunderstorm Saturday had strewn leaves about, tossed our patio chairs and left the yard soaked. It rained and rumbled Sunday morning too, making it a sweaty-wool-blanket kind of horrible humidity. And when the summer sun shone in the afternoon just before guests arrived, temps crept up toward 90 and a wind kicked up.

Stupid thunderstorm tried to kill my tomato plants. Stupid storm.

Not a cooling wind. It was the kind of wind that pushes the thick air directly into your lungs in order to better scorch them.

It was perfect cookout weather ... if you like to barbecue in a freaking oven.

That was the July part of Christmas in July. Despite the heat - which eventually gave way to cool temps by nightfall - there were also some of the better aspects of July: the long summer evening, teens playing capture the flag and lawn Twister, eating hot dogs off paper plates while sitting on a blanket in the grass.

The Christmas part included twinkle lights adorning the deck rails and festive holiday music playing. Inside, we had a small white tree in the kitchen sporting small stockings filled with school supplies and candy (school starts here Thursday) and glittery star ornaments for the kids to take home.

Sweet treats normally savored in December.

A little tree in the living room and a few homemade hostess gifts to send home with guests.

I'll tell you how to make these fun, easy vinyl letter canvases in another post. Promise.

In the spirit of giving, guests brought dog and cat treats to be donated to the local animal shelter.

It wasn't the biggest party we've ever had. Nor was it the most elaborate endeavor. But it was fun and festive and good to share with friends.

Christmas in July has never ruined "real" Christmas for us. This little sneak of festivity in no way detracts from the big one in December.

It was the easy, obligation-free version of Christmas: simple gratitude for the good people in our lives; the blissful tickle of tastes, sounds and aromas that trigger happy sense memories; sharing and caring for no other reason than the simple desire to do so; a reminder that God's love shines all year and in every season.

That's why we celebrate a little bit of Christmas in July.

"Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas." - Dale Evans

Date day

Our son left last week to spend 10 days in Florida on vacation with another family.

So that means his longest - and probably best ever - family vacation will be spent with another family.

<sigh>

That also means that his little family back here in Indiana has gone from three to just a pair. Granted, this is how the whole thing got started - mommy and daddy love each other very much and got married and then there was a baby - but it hasn't been just mommy and daddy alone in the house for an extended period of time for more than 15 years.

I'm not a huge fan of this arrangement, but it is my future: we aren't raising our child in order to keep him with us forever; we expect he will leave us at some point. College lurks in the visible future. Then it will be just my husband and me again.

But we're not there yet.

In light of the kid's absence, my husband suggested we get away for the weekend. Really, just an over-nighter somewhere. Just the two of us. He works every other weekend, and even though he was scheduled to work this past weekend, he offered to take the time off so we could be together.

My response? "Eh ... nah."

Please understand: I like my husband. A lot. He's the best. And I like to spend time with him. After 26 years together as a couple, we still dig each other very much. It's just that I got real practical about it all and said, "Save the time off for another occasion. School fees are coming up, so let's save the money. We can just do something another time."

We're parents. We don't "get" - get time to ourselves, get to do what we want, get to have non-family fun. We give - give our time, give our attention, give our resources.

As he so often does, my husband ignored me ... and took the time off anyway.

When  my boss asked me how I was doing with my son away, I mentioned my husband's gesture with a pinch of disdain for his stubbornness.

"Lorri, if a man wants to plan a romantic get-away, go," she said. "You will never remember the weekend you just stayed home, but you will always remember the weekend you got away."

Okay, that got me.

In the spirit of compromise and cost saving, we agreed to get away, but just for the day and come back home that evening.

I'm so very glad we did.

We spent the day in Bardstown, Ky., just about an hour or so from our home. It is a lovely small town, named The Most Beautiful Small Town in America in 2012, and has been recognized as having one of the most beautiful town squares. Here's more about Bardstown, including its rich history.

We dined at a cool old tavern, the Old Talbot Tavern, admiring the stonework, rough floors and beams as much as the fried catfish and sweet potato fries.

We giggled and flirted.

We held hands as we walked along the old downtown pavers.

We shopped. He indulged me in purchases without the usual mentions of budget, space, or need.

I bought gloves. In July.

We took our time. Not once did we worry about being somewhere else.

We lingered under the cooling shade of a garden arbor at a park on a hot day.

He kissed my hand. I leaned into his arm.

We spent the rest of our evening at home, cuddled up on the couch with a pizza and cold beer. We watched chick-flicks and stayed up late.

Gosh, it was such a nice date.

My boss was right: I will remember the get-away. I will remember feeling special and pretty and loved. I will remember that it's okay to indulge in something just for us as a couple. Yes, parenting involves a lot of sacrifice, but that doesn't mean we should sacrifice the fundamental relationship that made us parents in the first place.

I needed to let go: not just of my growing child, but also of my habit of selflessness.

Because every now and again, a girl just needs a date day away with her best fella.

Summer staycation

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it." - Robert Orben

That's the kind of vacation we took this summer: a whole lotta nothing.

I took more than a week off of work and my husband took several days off.  My son wrapped up an online course and driver's ed. All of which meant we had time; time to be together as a family.

We had vacation time.

We never once packed a suitcase, made a reservation or punched an address into GPS. We stayed home. Except we were always doing something ... and kind of never really doing anything.

Gosh, it was the best kind of break.

It started off bumpy with the AC going out my very first evening off. Not to worry. After one open-window night of sleep, we were back in business with a charge of coolant and the replacement of some compressor thing (I think?) ... all I know is, it cost waaay less than a new unit and so my biggest fear was allayed.

I stocked the kitchen and took the time because I had the time to cook at home - real meals and the good stuff, like turkey, pork roast, tacos, and lots of salads and desserts.

S'mores truffles? Yep. And yum, by the way.

Get the recipe here.

I (meaning, my husband) tackled a paint project, giving new life to the tired 1990s honey pine end tables that are the right size for what we need, but were gashed by cat claws and generally beat-down-worn because we cannot have nice things. We just can't. That's who we are: people who can't have nice things. So we (meaning, I) bought expensive paint and we (meaning, my husband) revamped what we have.

Left has two coats of paint, wax and distressing (I at least did the distressing myself); the right one is the finished piece, using dark wax.

My son would be going on a beach vacation with another family this week, and so we didn't have the totally made-up pressure on us to "make memories" for him. Instead, he spent time with friends, swimming, going to an indoor trampoline park, gaming and hosting them at our house. He had band practice and generally hung out and relaxed, sleeping in and eating a lot. Except for the times we did stuff as a family.

And we did quite a bit of that.

We walked the new pedestrian bridge that connects the neighboring community of Jeffersonville, Ind. across the Ohio River to downtown Louisville, Ky.

View of downtown Louisville from the pedestrian bridge.

View of the pedestrian bridge from downtown Louisville.

The bridge was an old railroad bridge that had been out of operation for quite some time. We enjoyed a beautiful afternoon stroll and hit a downtown Jeffersonville eatery that was delish and then visited some favorite shops as well.

We even got bored. 

Not the awful, depressing kind of bored that makes you question the meaning of your life. No, this was the good kind of bored: the kind that makes you look around and ask, "Well ... what now?" And then figure that out - whether it's planting pumpkin seeds in the garden, watching a movie, binging on NetFlix, napping or reading.

Our Independence Day celebration was decidedly low-key. Our son had plans with friends and so it was just my best guy and me. We had dinner out and then hung out at home.

The temps had turned off cool late in the week, like a little gift just for me on my vacation. We pulled on hoodies and watched neighborhood fireworks beside a glowing fire on our patio.

Gosh, it was romantic.

And a little redneck.

Seriously, how much do these families spend on fireworks?

Anyway ...

We did venture out of the area to Indianapolis to visit friends, and the next day to Evansville to visit family.

The Ruins at Holiday Park, Indianapolis. Do you recognize them from the movie The Fault in Our Stars? I don't because I haven't seen the movie. I have it on good authority (teen girls).

 And on Monday, I was back in the office.

My return to work wasn't filled with the kind of dread one might associate with getting back into the old routine after a break. I had a great time off. I was rested. Happy. Content. My heart was glad for the time with friends and family. I was appreciative of all we did so close to home and appreciative of all we didn't do (pay for a hotel, argue in the car, eat out every meal).

All that appreciation kind of rubs off and makes you appreciate other things, like having meaningful work to do and a place to do it.

The best souvenirs I brought back from my summer vacation were peace and perspective.