Jen gave me two rose bushes from her back yard so that she could grow veggies. The roses were very settled in her yard, as they had lived there for many, many years and I wasn’t sure if they were going to survive the move.

(This is, obviously, a lovely yellow rose that is currently adorning the fence in my front yard. It will be even lovelier when I triumph over the effing aphids.)

(This is the one I was really worried about, Jen had to cut through the main root it get it out. It is a climbing rose that will, one day, cover my ugly shed with sweet flowers. Those are chives in the foreground, companion planting rocks!)

I love gardening!

I continued my love affair with the accordion / pipe whistle / fiddle in rock music by seeing Great Big Sea at Zootunes last night.

Jen and Bryan look pretty comfortable in their awesome chairs.

Two guitars, a bodhran, and two accordions - does it get much better?

We brought a picnic, including this cheese which I purchased based solely on the name - luckily it tasted good too.

It was great to just relax, laugh at the foibles of a band not used to playing in a family setting trying to curtail their banter, learn way too much information about the telepathic giraffe and clap until your wrists were sore.

Oh those Newfoundlanders! They’re always up to something.

When one moves in to a house that needs some work with a four month old baby, some things fall to the wayside.

This was my catch-all room. When we moved, anything I could not find a good home for went in to this room. As Andrew grew out of toys and gadgets, they went in to the room. As things piled up and the clutter made my neat-nick heart crazy, I threw it in the room.

And as the room got messier, the thought of cleaning it overwhelmed me more. I hated the room. I hated the mess that I saw every time I opened the door. I hated that, two years in, I couldn’t get my act together and clean the room up.

But I finally did. I brought a bunch of stuff to Goodwill and left the room in a fundamentally livable condition.

Hooray!

Nichole and I revived our baseball going traditions and attended the 3rd annual Stitch and Pitch night at Safeco Field.

For over 10 years, Nichole and I have been going to baseball games together. We cheered for Luis Sojo and Tino Martinez in New York when they played for the Yankees, we watched the Mariners win and lose in the Kingdome, we ate our body weight in chocolate malts and sunflower seeds. We hollered when they won and hung our heads when the lost. We were fans, first and foremost, of the simplicity and joy of the game.

There is something about baseball that lends itself to old friends. The ability to catch up, to sit together on a warm summer night, to reminisce, to know each other again. It was nice to go to a game without being high on slurpees and the ridiculousness of being seventeen.

A friendship grows and changes over twenty-three years, baseball stays the same.

One thing that I have realized in the process of recovery is how completely warped my sense of boundaries are. In fact, I’m not even sure that I should claim to have a sense of boundaries, or at least I should admit that any sense I do have is because of Justin’s steadying influence.

Nine years ago, before I left to go to school at Western, I read a book called Boundaries: When To Say Yes / How To Say No. On the whole it was a good book, but all I remember is thinking that none of the suggestions they made seemed very nice and that their advice could only work with people I wasn’t very close to, since, of course, anyone with whom I set one of these boundaries would never want to speak to me again.

I read it. I preached it to those around me. I refused to apply the principles for fear of making someone mad.

As the years passed, boundaries were forced on me. In my darkest moments of depression I had to say no to people, I had to withdraw from activities that were too much for me, I had to be an inconvenience. As I came back to the light I waffled between over-committing and withdrawing and through all those experiences I learned that, most of the time, people are okay - even if you let them down.

Yesterday a friend emailed me and asked if I could babysit for her on an upcoming Tuesday afternoon. She had an important appointment and needed some childcare.

I took a while to respond.

The voices in my head had a field day: Tuesday is your writing day. The time is important. Your friends are important. Her appointment is important. She needs help and you are the only one who can help her. You are not the only one who can help her. Having a time that is guarded is not wrong. You are being selfish. It’s just one afternoon. Valuing yourself is not always the same as being selfish. There is a way to do this that is healthy.

It went on and on until I hit upon a truly sane thought: Tell her the situation and ask her how badly she needs a sitter. Revolutionary.

And here’s the amazing thing, she encouraged me to stick with my writing time and assured me that she could find someone else. And it was done. Without bitterness. Without severing ties. Without nagging questions.

There are times that life stops spinning and allows us to see the progress we have made. For much of my life I would have been unable to get through a situation like this unscathed. In my mind there would have been only two options, agree to babysit instantly and shove the resentment down a little bit deeper or make up some stupid reason why I couldn’t do it and construct an elaborate system of lies that would prove to her that I was really busy and that there was absolutely no way I could help her out. The thought of telling her the truth, that Tuesday afternoons are an important time for me and that I wanted to guard that time, would never have crossed my mind.

Growth is measured in moments like these.

A few weeks ago it was hot in Seattle. Crazy hot. Too hot. My plants were sad. Despite my best, early-morning watering efforts leaves were turning brown and stems were drooping. I was worried.

For the last week and a half it has been wet and mild.

I think the plants will be just fine.

Andrew’s mouth is doing much better. The swelling is down and it doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much. He is still on some restrictions, such as not eating crunchy foods that he would have to bite with his front teeth, only drinking out of a straw or a regular cup (i.e. no sippy cups) and not using a pacifier.

NOT USING A PACIFIER?!

We had already crossed the worst hurdle, cutting the tips off the binkies so that he could hold them between his teeth but there was nothing to suck on a few weeks ago. He cried for 45 minutes when we first made the switch, and things have been fine since then. (Except for a few drawn out conversations: “The binkies are breaken. Mommy can’t fix them. Daddy can fix them? With his tools? Oh nooooo! The binkies are breaken.” Repeat ad nauseaum, smiling at the use of the term “breaken”.)

But not using them? Not white-knuckling their hard plastic goodness as you fall asleep? I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.

And then it hit me. In my head, it was all about what I wasn’t ready for, all about what I was afraid of. The downfall of having a good sleeper is that you get a little superstitious about the things that accompany sleep. This was why we haven’t done anything about the binky. The kid loves to sleep. He asks to go to bed. He runs down the hall at bedtime and waits, jumping and squealing with excitement, for someone to help him get his pajamas on.

I hear the bedtime horror stories from other parents and I think, if you have a system that works, you just don’t mess with it.

And then a doctor tells you that your child can’t suck on the pacifier while his tooth is loose. And it makes sense. And you don’t want any more dental intervention than is necessary (because that is more traumatic than anything you can imagine) and so you kneel down next to your sleepy child as he gets tucked in to bed and you say, “The binkies will hurt your teeth. We can’t have them.” And you watch his eyes fill with tears and his lip tremble and you think, Here it comes. And then he grabs his bear and says, with that adorable pronoun misuse that he has, “You don’t need the binkies. You can just go to sleep without them.”

And you realize that someday, the battle you are dreading will come, but that today is not that day.

And you are thankful for silver linings.

In addition to Harry Potter, there are a couple of other books floating around my brain recently. Check the Book List to see what they are.

Things I could do with my free time this afternoon:

Finish Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
Write, in hopes of retaining at least one faithful reader
Trader Joe’s shopping
Pluck eyebrows

Luckily for you, dear readers, I finished the book on Sunday night. So I guess I get to write.

My ten year high school reunion is this year.

I’m not going. The practical (and rationalizing) side of me says that I am not going because it costs almost $100 per person (plus drinks) and is being held at a bar that I could go to on any given night and see a number of people from high school without the $100 cover charge. The slightly more neurotic (but also more honest) side says that I am not going because I am afraid. I am afraid of getting my feelings hurt by people that I haven’t thought about in 10 years. I am afraid that the people I thought I was friends with in high school but have since lost touch with won’t want to see me and I will instantly revert back to my high school wallflower persona. I am afraid of seeing the looks on my fellow honor student’s faces when I tell them I didn’t use my degree and spend my days as a stay-at-home mom.

I am afraid of how much power I give these people, and it bothers me that the thought that they might be nicer now has never really crossed my mind.

So, in a desperate attempt to protect myself, I am not going.

It sucks, but it’s true.

I am going to write something clever for my little biography in the brochure.

I wasn’t planning on going to church this morning.

My original reason for staying home was that Andrew woke up at 5:03 this morning and, even with a good night sleep, he has been struggling to stay in the toddler room without me. As I did not want to be in the toddler room this morning, staying home seemed like the best way to avoid that.

Basically, I just didn’t want to fight the battle.

I also did not want to have a Sunday morning filled with one loud crash from the other room, multitudes of tears, one bloodstained shirt, a swollen lip, a loose tooth, a call to the 24-hour nurse hotline and the ensuing trip to the emergency room.

But that’s what I got.

We’re home now, and fine. Andrew’s top lip bears a slight resemblance to a duck’s bill, his front right tooth is moderately loose and we have an appointment to see the dentist for the first time this week. (Somehow, I was suffering the delusion that our first dentist visit would be an uneventful tour of the office and introduction to the chair, not x-rays to see if there is any nerve damage. But, it is not to be.)

So much for a quiet Sunday morning.

We are supposed to have dinner with some old friends tonight.

I could be spending a glorious evening reading the new Harry Potter, but no! I have to have dinner with old friends.

What was I thinking? This has been planned for months, I should have noticed the scheduling conflict.

*Calm down, this post is sarcastic. I’m sure Justin and Tim will have a lovely conversation while Jessie and I read.

My mom, Great Aunt Mary and I took Andrew to the King County Fair on Thursday morning. We lucked out and caught the only dry hours of the day, but I don’t think that even the torrential downpours through which we drove home could have dampened Andrew’s joy in seeing all the John Deere Tractors.

(Yes, he is hugging the tractor!)

My attempts at distracting him from The Little Furry Red Monster have been abetted by the find of this John Deere video. It’s basically Modern Marvels for kids and, since both adults in this house enjoy Modern Marvels, it makes sense that Andrew loves a kids version. They are really informative and it was so fun for Andrew to see all the tractors that he has learned about.

(A little piece of heaven.)

My favorite moment, besides the tractor hug, was the look on the tractor guy’s face when Andrew ran up to a tractor and said, “There’s a neat Lindeman Crawler Tractor.” After the man collected himself, he offered Andrew a chance to sit on the tractors (something that, according to the large yellow signs, was not allowed). Unfortunately, he tried to pick Andrew up before he fully explained what he was planning on doing and Andrew freaked out. Even when Grandma offered to pick him up and set him on the tractor he wanted none of it.

I felt the familiar twinges of embarrassment and frustration as the man started at my screaming child and said, “I just thought he wanted to sit on the tractor.” I started to try and explain but I caught myself. He didn’t want to ride on the tractor. That is his choice. He felt no remorse about his choice, so I shouldn’t either. There is nothing I could do - nothing I should do - to try and change his mind.

My goal is always to let him own as much of his own stuff as I can and, on this day, my ability to do that made the outing a lot more fun.

You can see all the pictures here. We did see some other parts of the fair - including getting up close and personal with a huge rabbit.

In the spirit of doing my little part, I hung a clothesline on the side of our house. I know it is cliché, but oh, how good those pillow cases smell!

I have always dappled at the edges of environmentalism. Here in the Pacific Northwest, you have to at least know the right answers and recycle your newspaper or you might face a torch-wielding mob on your front door.

Ok, maybe that is a slight exaggeration. But I was shocked at how much “green” we take for granted here. Justin and I walked around for five minutes with empty pop bottles in New York because we couldn’t find a recycling bin and it had not occurred to us that there might not be one available.

As I learn more about climate change and my environmental footprint, I am convicted that my half-assed efforts are not enough. My friend writes here about her efforts to make the world a little greener and I realize that it is not that hard to make a difference.

Like many other things, the small steps we can all take make a difference. Bringing your own grocery bags to the store, bringing Tupperware to a restaurant instead of using a Styrofoam to-go box, washing and re-using ziplock bags, hanging a clothesline, washing your hair less often, all of these things are simple, they just require a little foresight. Composting or starting a worm bin, growing vegetables, joining a CSA, carpooling, walking or riding your bike instead of driving, these things take a bit more planning, but they are not that hard.

It is all about habits.

The desire to take better care of the world infiltrates many areas of my life. As I care more for my body, it matters more where my food comes from. As I think about parenting in an intentional manner, I realize how much Andrew has already adopted the idea of a disposable lifestyle (and how dangerous that is). As I spend more time outside, I realize how important natural places, parks and clean water are.

The concept of stewardship pervades all of these things. A steward is one who is charged to care for or guard something of great value while the owner is away and whether you believe that this world belongs to future generations or to a Creator, there is little argument that it is of great value. When we see our bodies, our homes, our possessions, our neighbors, our children and our world as something of great value that needs to be cared for until the rightful owner returns it changes the way we think and, as we change the way we think, even our most entrenched habits can change too.

We went to see Ratatouille last weekend, I won’t add my great review to the dearth already available but let it suffice to say that Pixar did not disappoint (again).

Report to R.S.B.
by: Leonard Cohen
Book of Longing

Peace did not come into my life.
My life escaped
And peace was there.
Often I bump into my life,
Trying to catch its breath,
Pay a bill,
Or tolerate the news,
Tripping as usual
Over the cables
Of someone’s beauty –
My little life:
So loyal,
So devoted to its obscure purposes –
And, I hasten to report,
Doing fine without me.

How much of my life has been focused on the little things, the obscure purposes that I thought so very important? How much is still focused there now?

Peace is elusive.

There is a moment of it – and then the phone rings, you glance at a headline, read an email or someone walks in to your front door, and life catches you off guard.

Too often I buy in to the lie that peace is found in isolation, in carefully controlled circumstance, in the false world of no surprises. I dream of living there, of retreating and protecting those that I love the most.

But what happens when those I love are the ones who shatter my delicate construction? What happens when it is intentional? What happens when it’s not?

How do I respond?

In the past I have responded by severing all ties and orchestrating a full blown retreat or by contorting myself to such extremes that I feel as though I might have control of a situation. I sacrifice myself to protect others and then I look around in surprise when my life has fallen to pieces. My past responses no longer seem acceptable. I can not withdraw completely. The ties I would have to cut to protect myself from pain are the very ones that hold me up. I can not scramble for control. My plans fail, my schemes only lead to more hurt, and my ideals of peace are shattered by the magnitude of my own turmoil. No matter how hard I try to protect them, those I love will continue to hurt and be hurt, and I will feel their pain.

And when I step back and see the bigger picture, that too will be okay. My little life will be doing fine without me because I will choose to watch it escape while I continue in peace.

…because sometimes Mommy just isn’t fun anymore.

The Ultimate Workout Mixes are done and ready to begin their careers as 24-hour, On-call, Audio Motivators. The song lists are here and I will put them on the Mix Tapes page for posterity. Thanks to Heidi, Nichole, Cherie, Megan and Nick for the suggestions. You all can expect some mail in the next few weeks, especially if you send me your preferred mailing address (jarygel(at)gmail).

I have tested these mixes in a variety of situations and can assure you that - aside from working out - they are also useful for general housework, rush hour driving, exterior painting, writing, or drowning out whining, tantrums and unwanted phone calls.

If you’re feeling a bit put-out by the events of life:
Move! (and channel that rage)

Lose Yourself - Eminem
Bye Bye Be - *NSYNC
Science of You - Epoxies
Wind It Up - Gwen Stefani
Song 2 - Blur
SexyBack - Justin Timberlake
I Don’t Want To Fall In Love - She Wants Revenge
Holiday - Green Day
Guerrilla Radio - Rage Against the Machine
Breaking The Habit - Linkin Park
Drunken Lullabies - Flogging Molly
Must Be The Moon - !!!
Girl’s Not Grey - A.F.I.
Numb/Encore - Jay-Z and Linkin Park
Hands Held High - Linkin Park
Mr Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont’s Thin White Duke Mix) - The Killers
Saeglopur - Sigur Ros

Or, if you’re feeling cheerful:
Move! (and smile, life is good)

Never Is Enough - Barenaked Ladies
Wandering Away - The Go Station
Life Less Ordinary - Carbon Leaf
Some Days You Gotta Dance - Dixie Chicks
Float On - Modest Mouse
The World I Know - Collective Soul
No Fit State - Hot Chip
Where The Blacktop Ends - Keith Urban
The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
This Year - The Mountain Goats
Inner Smile - Texas
Turn The Beat Around - Gloria Estafan
Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire
Buddy Holly - Weezer
Beautiful Day (Quincy and Sonance Remix) - U2
I’m A Cuckoo -Belle and Sebastian
Triumphant - Royksopp
Gonna Fly Now - Maynard Ferguson

Now you have one less excuse to keep you from getting out there and doing something.

Ready. Set. Go!