Throwing Marshmallows

The rain started again, mid-afternoon and has been getting steadily stronger. It is so bad that Ellie is refusing to leave the garage. She keeps standing by the door, but when we open it, all she does is run around near the garage door…she won’t set a foot outside. Can’t say I blame her…it is coming down in sheets.

I even carried her out under my umbrella, hoping that once we got out she might be ok. But she immediately high tailed it back inside. Let’s hope that she can last until tomorrow morning. Of course that is assuming that the rain stops by tomorrow morning! Hmmm…just checked the forecast and they are calling for 90% chance of rain tomorrow…so it is not looking good…

I have a feeling that my rain gauge is going to be overflowing tomorrow. Especially since we have not emptied it from two days ago.

Here’s hoping that we do not float away overnight…

And we missed it! Seems as if there was a 1.8 level earthquake this afternoon at 1:30 and its epicenter was just down the road from us.

At 1:30 however we were miles away in Fairfax at the NoVaUnschoolers parkday and did not notice anything. A friend of mine who came later said that she had been on the phone and heard a rumbling that she recognized from her years of living in California.

No damage was reported and I am sure that folks in California would laugh at the excitement our little “microearthquake” has caused.

What you are looking at is a picture of my car in our garage. Yes, you heard me right. At long last, my car can actually reside inside the garage. I had to include a photo because without photographic evidence, I am sure that friends and family who have actually seen the state of our garage would never believe me.

Now there is actually still a lot left to sort through and get rid of organize and I did not take a picture of our front porch (which is holding all the stuff I plan to freecycle). I am also not under any delusions that it will stay this way forever (as proven by the fact that I have written on this subject before). But I can enjoy it while it lasts.

And here is a wider look:

(yes, I finally got my signature back!)

Hmmm…it has been a year since I have had anything to post in this category. This does not mean that the boys have not argued in that long of a time. Just that they had not argued over anything so utterly ridiculous that I felt a need to post about it.

The qualifying argument occurred this afternoon while we were driving home from Jason’s pottery class. As is typical for spring in Northern Virginia, our weather has been bouncing up and down…wet and rainy and cool, 50s and 60s one day to hot and muggy 80s the next. Today was an 80s day and the car had been sitting for awhile, so we had turned on the air conditioning (have I mentioned that my boys are heat wimps?)

This was fine, until about halfway home (which, by the way takes all of 10 minutes), Jason decided to turn off the air conditioning in the back because he could not hear the audio book we were listening to (Sir Thursday, book 4 in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix - highly, highly recommended!) This was not acceptable to Kyle who was hot (yes, whiney, cranky hot). Thus ensued the battle for the control over the air conditioner dial.

I was successful at holding the battle at bay for the remainder of the 5 minutes it took for us to get home by telling them that there was less than 5 minutes until we got home and to cool it. We got home, I got out and went inside. When I came back outside a few minutes later to let Ellie out, I realized that they were still in the car…arguing over whether the air conditioner of the car which was parked in our driveway, with the engine off, going absolutely nowhere should be left in the on or off position.

Realizing that the argument was getting physical with each boy pushing the other in an attempt to turn the dial to the desired position, I went in to negotiate, only to find that each kid was completely vested in their desired outcome (complete with justifications explanations why it was completely sane and reasonable for them to be fighting over this).

I threw up my hands in complete exasperation and said that this argument definitely qualified to be blogged about as a Really Stupid Thing The Elms Boys Argue About, which, believe it or not, broke the stalemate (well, that and my grand pronouncement that the dial would be placed in the half-on/half-off position, yes, please call me Solomon).

Ya gotta love ‘em…or at least that is what I have been told…

- Stephanie

I came across this quote in my morning reading and wanted to capture it here:

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we have already. Our wisdom is all mixed up with what we call our neurosis. Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, therefore it doesn’t do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing.

- Pema Chodron in The Wisdom of No Escape

I have spent much of my life not being satisfied…not being happy with who I am. Wanting to “fix” myself. Because if I fixed myself, that would fix everything around me and everyone (including me) would be happy.

I have been doing a lot of personal work over the past year and one of the biggest changes that I am seeing is that I am becoming more comfortable with who I am, warts and all. Honestly ok with it, not just ok because I am “supposed” to be ok. Which I guess is a good thing seeing as I am turning 40 in June!

It is very easy for us to think that we have control over more than we really do and that is the trap that I found myself in. I somehow thought that I had the power to fix everything and everyone and if things were not working out it was because I was not good enough or had not tried hard enough. Living my life this way finally caught up with me…I was (am!) exhausted from trying to control everything and everyone.

I have been slowly working on letting go. I still have a long way to go. But I am encouraged that the more I let go, the easier things become. This does not mean that life has gotten easier. To be honest, life has stayed just the way that it always has been…challenging, frustrating, difficult, yet also exciting and, yes, even enjoyable.

What has changed is me. It seems counterintuitive in a way…the more that I let go and stop trying so hard, the easier things become. But I am seeing that this is true.

I am most definitely not perfect in this area. But I am finding that the less I look to fix things in my life, the more likely a solution will appear. So I am working on sitting with things that are bothering me rather than trying to change them. Being with them. Recognizing that these problems do indeed exist and that is ok. Trusting that things will work out when they are meant to and that I will be ok. And amazingly they do and I am.

It will be interesting to see what the next year brings…

- Stephanie

Back in November I found out about an online backup service called Mozy. For $5 a month, you get unlimited online backup. The software is easy to use. The intitial backup did take an extremely long time to run (I left it running overnight and even then it took a few days if I remember correctly) but since then the backups have been fairly quick and I have been able to run them in the background.

I realized that with all my photos, I really needed something that was idiot proof (i.e. automatic). I had been doing manual backups to an external hard drive when I remembered (maybe once a month?) I realized that this was extremely risky (and time consuming to do) so the idea that Mozy would take care of all that for me was appealing.

Over the past month or two, my computer has been acting really sluggish. I kept getting disk full errors and it did not matter how much clean-up or compression I did, I could not consistently get enough free disk space. This is not surprising, as my photos take up a lot of room and I have been playing around with Photoshop Elements editing features more lately. This means that I eat through a lot of hard drive storage. I was outgrowing my computer.

To get more room, I moved 4 years of photos (1998-2002) off my hard drive and onto my external hard drive. This worried me, because they would no longer be included in my Mozy backup. But I figured that I did not do much with that drive, so they would be ok. However, I was soon getting Disk Full errors again.

Yup. Time for a new computer, and with my 40th birthday coming up in June, an early birthday present seemed a perfect way to rationalize it. But what kind should I get? I have always been a PC person. No particular reason, probably because that is what I used mostly at work and what I was comfortable using. But back in February (in time for his birthday), Jeff, the ultimate PC and Microsoft guy, came home with a Mac. Seeing as how most of what I do is photography related, I decided to make the switch.

So two days ago, Jeff brought home my very own MacBook. I have been having fun playing around with it, figuring out how to transfer licenses, getting everything set up, moving files. And then disaster struck.

I was using my external hard drive to copy files between my computers and I unplugged it instead of “ejecting” it (this seems to be a mac thing). When I connected it again, it had an error saying that it was not readable! I tried rebooting, connecting it to other machines, to no avail. I have no idea what happened. But it seems to be dead.

Now this would not have been too big of a deal except for the fact that I had not copied over those 4 years of photos yet! Those photos for which I did not have another copy! Jeff said that he would take the drive into the office and see if he could salvage them, but I had no idea if that would work.

But then I remembered Mozy. I was not sure how long they kept copies once files were deleted from your computer, but I figured it was worth checking. And lo and behold, all the photos where there! It was easy peasy to restore them to my PC where they are now sitting while we try to figure out how we are going to transfer the rest of the files. Whew!

Needless to say, I strongly recommend Mozy, especially if you have irreplaceable files like photos. Don’t wait until something crashes.

And now I need to get back to setting up my Mac. It is taking a bit of getting used to…some things are definitely different but so far I like it. And can I say how awesome it is to have a HUGE hard drive again?

Stephanie (who has not copied over her signature file to the new Mac yet!)

Note to Self: Buy jumper cables.

2nd Note to Self: It is perfectly ok to listen to your iPod for an hour through your car radio while the boys are in gymnastics. It is not a good idea to turn on the seat warmer without turning on the car, however.

I love serendipity. Such as when I stumble upon a new blog right when I need it. Like Tara’s Periwinkles and Pine. I am incredibly art/craft challenged and kept thinking that I needed to poke around online to get some inspiration. And then Periwinkles falls into my lap with inspiration to spare. I think that we will try the crayon and hot rocks tomorrow. It looks fun and doable (seriously…homeschool math, no problem…homeschool art and crafts and I run screaming for the hills). Oh and she loves children’s lit too…looks like a lot of good finds in her reading lists.

And if the neat art ideas and books were not enough…I have absolutely fallen in love with her music choices. Because, you see, Tara has a neat plug-in that allows her to have her favorite music playlists playing. Now usually music on websites sends me running the hills…I hate it. It is one of my pet peeves actually. Please don’t subject me to your tastes in music because it most likely is the not the same as mine.

But that was not the case here! I got caught up in the first track by Amos Lee and was hooked. Soon I was clicking through her playlist and checking out artists on iTunes. I ended up discovering three new artists that I absolutely LOVE…Amos Lee, Jack Johnson and Jamie Cullum. And due to the magic that is iTunes, I am enjoying them as we speak (as I write?)

I have actually been on the search (without much luck) for new artists since I discovered Martin Sexton this summer. My friend Joanna’s husband is a musician who plays all over Ocean City in the summer and he played a wonderful cover of Sexton’s Hallelujah that I fell in love with immediately. After finding out it was by Martin Sexton, I downloaded most of his albums over the course of the summer (interesting side note…each summer seems to have its own “soundtrack” to it…last summer it was Martin Sexton, the summer before it was James Taylor (go figure and don’t ask me why…))

I am so surprised any time I find a new artist that I actually love…my music tastes are pretty heavily weighted towards music I loved growing up…Billy Joel, Chicago, Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Eric Clapton. Lots of classical (Bach, Mozart and others), and instrumentals (like Linus and Lucy and the Canadian Brass). Most of the more recent stuff I have discovered is instrumentals from movies/tv such as the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks (the boys and I both love these) and the Robin Hood soundtrack.

I don’t like much “popular” music…which is why I was amazed to find so many good tracks on Tara’s playlist. I guess that I need to do more hunting in the folk music category.

Another interesting thing is that I just realized that I am most definitely more partial to male vocalists…I had never realized that before. While I enjoyed the female vocalists on Tara’s playlist and would more than enjoy hearing them at a friend’s house, there were none that I grabbed me enough to want to purchase for myself. Not sure if that means anything…

I looked through my music list and sure enough, the only female artists (other than the Indigo Girls) I have are part of ensembles (like The Mamas and the Papas and Peter, Paul and Mary…um…did I mention that I am a bit stuck in the past musically?)

I guess that I should probably stop babbling now. I just can’t tell you how excited I have gotten over all this. (And how much time I have blown over at iTunes) Doesn’t take much, does it?

I was working on a blog post about a fun geodesic dome class at the National Building Museum that Jason took a week ago, and am finding that I want to take a bit more time with it to be able to include links and pictures and whatnot. But it is getting late and I really have been trying to be good about not staying up late. It makes a big difference in my day when I can get a good nights sleep.

So that post will have to wait. And you get this one instead. And I am off to bed…

So Jason’s best friend Jack from Ocean City came up this afternoon to help celebrate a belated 11th birthday for Jason. They are having a blast.

So far they have done a little of everything…some legos, some pokemon, some Age of Empires, some sword fighting, some pizza, some cake, some air hockey, some laughing, some joking and a lot of fun.

Now the question is how to get them to go to sleep…

Actually I have been back since late on Monday, but I am still trying to get caught up on my sleep and everything I missed.

The cruise was…well, let’s say illuminating? In that I have discovered that I am NOT a cruise type person. I am a beach/pool type person and unfortunately the weather was not overly cooperative. The first full day was not too bad…did get a couple of hours of pool time and we took an excursion to an island off the Bahamas…unfortunately there was a brisk wind and TONS of people so not exactly relaxing. The next day was overcast so instead of hitting an island and beach we were stuck on the ship all day. Then that night on the way home we hit some really rough seas and I spent the entire night on the floor of the bathroom (I brought pillows in with me so that I could try to get some rest). I usually do not get seasick so this really caught me by surprise. And was one of the worst nights I have ever spent. I finally fell asleep around 4:30 am only to have to get up at 6am to be off the ship by 7:00 am.

I know, I know. I am whining about being on a cruise. I found that for me, there is just not enough that I enjoy if you take away the pool and too much depends on the weather (not to mention the potential for possible seasickness!) And I also really did not like being one of thousands on board. Too much herding involved and not enough time to really explore.

Ah well. Live and learn. Needless to say it is good to be back.

But I am getting closer…progress not perfection!

I am trying to keep in mind that it has taken me quite awhile to get to the point I am now and that it will take more than a day to get back into balance!

I have made some progress. I have gone no mail on several email lists and am considering a few more. I have also identified several email lists that no matter how good the topic I am only going to read. These lists I have decided can continue perfectly fine without me jumping in <snort>. And the interesting thing is that since I have started doing this, I have realized that usually my point gets made by someone! I want to be able to focus my postings on my statewide and local homeschool lists (VaEclecticHS and NoVaUnschoolers) as well as Homeschooling Creatively. These are the ones that I most enjoy posting to and feel that I have the most to contribute to, so it makes sense to focus on those.

I have unsubbed from some blogs (sorry!) and am really trying to limit my reading time. This is the hard part too as there are so many wonderful blogs and great conversations going on, I just want to jump in on every one. So I am thinking about this as more of a “break” rather than an end. So if you see me commenting on a post that is weeks or months old you will know that I am catching up!

I have been working on re-focusing my work with VaHomeschoolers as well. The problem that we have is that there are so many exciting things that we want to accomplish it can get frustrating not to be able to do all of them now. The good thing is that we have been putting out calls for volunteers and getting them! We now have a new editor for the Out and About (VaHomeschoolers monthly activity and events email publication). This was a hat that I used to wear and am more than happy to pass it on. (Thanks Jennie!) So I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel there. And it has been very reassuring to find that as we do more and more outreach more and more people are stepping in to help. It really is the only way that we can survive.

Another interesting thing that I have noticed this week is that just shifting and realizing that I don’t have to do everything right now has put some space back into my life. I would get an email and think I had to respond immediately or read a post and want to write back right then. I am giving myself permission to wait a little bit. And I am finding that the world has not come to a crashing halt (imagine that!) Being online as much as I am can add an immediacy to life that can be daunting to keep up with.

One little change that has made a big impact is that I no longer get online as soon as I wake up. I used to not even get out of bed before grabbing my laptop! How crazy is that? I have changed my routine now so that I get up, walk and feed Ellie, make sure the boys are awake, take my shower, read a daily reading, meditate (or at least sit quietly) for 10 minutes (hoping to extend that but for now it works), finish getting ready and then go out into the family room to get online. This has helped immensely, although I have been surprised at how tempting it is to jump online to check the latest and see if there are more fires that need to be put out. Yes, I know, crazy.

In this same vein, I have also been working on changing my default mindset…I found that often when I had “free time” I would gravitate to the computer. I am now consciously choosing to do things around the house or with the boys.

It is a work in process, but at least I am trying!

And as coincidence would have it, Jeff and I are leaving on Friday for a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas with Jeff’s company. And I will not <gasp> have internet access! Which I think will be a good thing. It will force me to make a break and hopefully when I come back I will be able to be more balanced at what I start doing again. I am not really a cruise-type person, but I am looking forward to relaxing and getting away for a few days (my in-laws are coming up to stay with the boys). I hope to have time to focus some on my photography which is something that I have not had enough time to do lately. I have a few new photography books that I am bringing with me to read poolside and obviously will be bringing my camera with me.

So I will be offline for a little bit. But I will be back! So please keep checking back. Believe it or not, even though I want to get my online time back into balance, one of the things that I want to find more time for is blogging. I find that writing this blog is a wonderful creative outlet and I have so many things that I want to talk about. So one of my priorities is to find more time to write.

So here is to balance! May we all find what works for each of us…

That huge crashing sound you heard? That was my house of cards falling apart. What happened? Nothing major really. And that is the problem…it has not taken much lately to send me crashing because I have everything balanced “just so” which means that any little bump in the road causes me to crash. And I am tired of crashing.

I often have people ask me how I “do it all”. Well, it has become obvious that I can’t and I am killing myself trying.

My biggest problem is that everything that I am trying to do (well, mostly) is stuff that I enjoy and want to do, especially my homeschool advocacy and support work. But since there is so much of it I have found that I am feeling more stress than joy lately.

So I am going to scale back. I need to put my focus back on the boys and our homeschooling, where it belongs. Don’t get me wrong, we have been doing a lot and they are learning, but I just feel that I have not been putting as much thought into what we are doing as I would like. I have been finding myself not being as “present” as I want to be. Having too many things that I am responsible for means that I am always thinking about how I am going to get everything done and not enjoying what we are doing.

This is not going to be easy for me. I hate letting people down. But obviously life will go on and hopefully as I get more balanced I will be able to judiciously pick more things back up. And start enjoying them again.

I had forgotten that I had taken this test a little while ago and found it remarkably accurate for an online test. I also find it amusing that I am not borderline in any of my characteristics! No doubt where I fall.

My multiple intelligences results did not reveal any big surprises either. Interpersonal and verbal/linguistics are definitely my strong points.

Learning styles, personality types and multiple intelligences are fascinating to me. Guess that is one reason why I am so strong in interpersonal skills!

Go check it out!

Sigh.

Here’s to next year…Go Hokies!

Here is hoping that 2008 is a good one!

Although it may not seem it with the lack of blogging lately. The funny thing is that I actually have several things that I want to post on, many of which are relative quickies, yet I still can’t seem to find the motivation to post.

Too many things to choose from…the house is a mess (which my blog reading is telling me is very normal!), the boys have been indulging in their new Wii and Nintendo DS games as well as their new Bionicles and Zoob sets. I finally got my Christmas cards out and am still fighting to get the calendars made (the color copies I made at Kinkos turned out terrible, but they said if I could bring in an electronic version they would re-do them for me. So I am working on converting them to pdfs…) I splurged on 3 new digital photography and Photoshop Elements books using a gift certificate from my Dad and his wife. I also spent way more than I should have on the end of the year Barnes and Noble and Audible sales. I have a few VaHomeschoolers projects in the works which are fun, but I just wish that I had more time! And I have been trying to find more time to do my photography…

So basically, too many things and not enough time to do them. And the sad thing is that most of it (except the house cleaning stuff) is fun stuff that I want to do! I just want to be able to do it all at once and not have to choose.

Ah well. Hopefully I will get back into the swing of things soon…keep checking back!

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

-by Susan Cooper, 1977 written for The Christmas Revels

I swear that I thought that we had all of next week before Christmas. But we don’t. Christmas eve is on Monday! How did that happen?

Just thought that I would give friends and relatives a heads up…nothing is going to be on time.

• The picture collage to go in the Christmas cards is finished and printed, but I still have to sign the cards and send them out.
• The presents for our aunts and uncles and brothers are bought, but not mailed yet.
• I had already known that one present for the grandparents was going to be late as I just discovered it a few weeks back and it will take some time to pull together, but I promise it will be worth the wait.
• The photo collage pages for the annual Elms Boys Calendar have been done for over a week, but when I went to pull together the calendar part I found that the disk that I usually use has gone missing (yes, this software is so old that it requires the disk to be in the computer). After spending two nights trying to find calendar software (either freeware or pay version) I did find one that seemed to fit the bill, however the free trial only allows you to print the first 3 pages. Unfortunately there was enough that I did not like about the software so I am not sure if I want to pay for it. I have not been able to find any consensus on good calendar software on the web so I am still trying to figure that out. At the last minute of course.
• The boys are almost finished making their presents, but I am still not 100% sure we will be able to assemble them…we found a fun project and Jason wanted to do some things a bit different and I am hoping they will work.
• The tree is up and has lights and garland but no decorations yet.
• The house has no lights.
• The house is half decorated and I still need to find the boys stockings.
• I think that I have all the boys presents, but have not been able to sit down and actually figure out what exactly we have for them (I have been picking up things here and there for months)

I really need that extra week. Really I do. I wish that I knew where it went and what on earth happened this year.  I did try. I swear that I did.

I am feeling a bit decadent right now. It is two weeks before Christmas and I am in Ocean City…by myself. I tend to get very stressed around the holidays, so this year I decided to try to take a bit of a mid-holiday break and get away for a couple of days. We did not have much going on this weekend, so I decided to go for it.

I will say that it is a bit strange, but nice.

So what am I doing? Not much. A little bit of shopping. Catching up on my blogs. Some VaHomeschoolers work. Reading. Watching the rain. Listening to Christmas music. Lots of Christmas music because I really do not like a lot of what is on tv and the DVD player is broken and I refuse to go to Walmart to buy a new one. I will have to remember to pick one up back home.

Basically I’m just trying to get some breathing room. And hopefully it will work. I will say that it just seems as if there is more “space” here at the beach. Things are not so crowded. Things are not so rushed. So we will see.

The danger is that I will set my expectations too high and will try to get too much done while I am down here and then get frustrated at everything that I did not get done. I really am amazed at how easy it is to get caught up in everything and just forget to breathe.

So I am trying to remember to breathe.

Breathing is good. I like to breathe. Especially in the salt air.

I am sure that this weekend won’t get rid of all my stress. But hopefully it will enable me to hold it at bay so that I can enjoy the rest of the holidays. Because I do enjoy the holidays. Really I do.

When I have time to breathe…