Because of a Virus

Because of a faceless, anonymous jerk somewhere out in the e-universe, our computer caught a virus this week.

Because of a computer virus, my husband had to take our computer in to work, where the gurus could do their magic.

Because my husband took the computer to work, I had no access to my files.

Because I had no access to my files (but I did have a babysitter), I had to flounder about for a writing project to work on.

Because I was floundering for productivity, I rode out to a park and sat down with paper and pen (gasp!) and began outlining notes for a new novel, built on the foundation of the old—a project I’ve been procrastinating for months under the guise of nonfiction goals.

Because I actually got started on planning the novel, I found myself in the heart-pounding, keep-me-up-at-night excited stage of infatuation with my project.

Which is a thrilling place to be.

228) For the convergence of Hackers, viruses and babysitters.
229) For inSpiration…again.
230) For a terrific query class
231) For great reinforcement from said class
232) For the discovery that the novel I thought had to be completely rewritten is actually quite good…beginning on page 200…
233) For being so excited about rewriting said novel that I can’t sleep
234) For working DSL
235) For lots of blog hits
236) For five days of exercise last week
237) For clouds lined up like celestial trumpets in the west

holy experience

Published in: on July 12, 2010 at 5:04 am  Comments (2)  
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Ordinary Gratitude

The problem with keeping a gratitude list is that I tend to notice the same things all the time. But gratitude is an attitude that needs cultivating…at least for me. And the times when it’s hardest to keep a positive outlook are the times I most need the spiritual exercise: when kids are sick, and life is busier than usual (like this past weekend, with its tee ball, late-night movie at the park, commencement, two weddings, recital and rehearsal).

But once in a while, a quiet appreciation for ordinary life sparks of its own accord, and needs only a gentle breath of effort to burn bright and illuminate the beauty of things I might otherwise take for granted.

And so today, I am grateful for the beauty of evening light playing on the woods behind my home…

…for the discovery of music that entrances my daughter and fills my spirit with joy…

…for the opportunity to sleep with my husband (Julianna’s spent the last few nights in my place, because when she’s sick, she won’t sleep without Daddy)…

…for the opportunity to sleep in my own bed…

…for a bowl of strawberries, grown by the labor of my own hands…

 

…for new acquaintances in the land of Holland…

…for long morning cuddles at the breast, completely irrelevant to nutrition, but holding on to the nursing bond as long as we can.

 Now it’s your turn. What ordinary beauty can you see or hear or feel right now, in this moment, right where you are—computer screen and all?

tuesdays unwrapped at cats

Published in: on May 18, 2010 at 5:26 am  Comments (8)  
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Unwrapping the Gift of a Day Off

Michelle at Graceful is my guru this Lent.

First, she gently prodded me to reconsider my use of the internet.

Then, she echoed how I felt in doing so.

And then encouraged me in the struggle.

She inspired me to be careful of the way I present my faith, reminding me that living it is more important than talking about it. I realized that it’s easy to write about God, but sometimes the blank screen encourages me to write things that sound good but are only half-true.

And then came Sunday.

Normally I don’t write on the weekends. Maybe a blog post, maybe ten minutes to scribble down an idea, but those are days off. Days to spend with my family.

However, right now I’m having to check my temperature every morning, and my brain starts racing the minute I wake up; there’s no going back to sleep. So at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, I went downstairs and turned on the computer, as if it was any other day. I began by checking my Google reader. The first words that I saw were: “Sunday is For Slowing:”

“By making our greatest and most important goal the one of
productivity, we miss out on the ways that God’s gifts of grace
come to us by doing nothing.”

Nora Gallaher, The Sacred Meal 

I gnashed my teeth. My hands trembled over the keyboard. My brain went to war with itself over the possible two hours of uninterrupted writing time I was being asked to forego.

And then, wincing, I shut the computer down, and sat down with my scrapbooking stuff.

The gift of a Sunday off looked something like this: I only checked email twice. I stayed off Facebook. I left the writing documents closed. I cooked dinner at a leisurely pace, and had it all on the table before we sat down. I finished four scrapbook layouts—yes, I said four—and I went to bed relaxed, instead of queasy with exhaustion.

It was a good day. Thank you, God, for simple gifts–and for the people who inspire them.

(To unwrap more gifts in the everyday, visit Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting At The Sky.)

For more blogs worth reading, check out Genny’s Talkin’ Thursdays:

Published in: on March 2, 2010 at 6:28 am  Comments (8)  
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Floundering into Gratitude

It is 5:55 a.m. and a thin sliver of creamy moon reclines just over the bare trees. For the seventh night in a row, I’ve been up with kids multiple times during the night, and it is very hard to get out of bed. I suffer from lack of motivation, too, because along with finishing my Advent book and sending it to the editor comes a sense of floundering. I have a million writing projects I want to work on, but no clear path to navigate them. And alongside it, for the first time in months, I’m coming up blank on blog topics.

 But I pride myself on being a writer mom who doesn’t have time for writer’s block, so I throw on my robe and go downstairs. While the computer fires up I stand at the window and look out at the woods, the street lamps marching away beyond them, the new, untouched snow mounded on the deck rail, and I know what to write about today. I need to take time to be grateful, in black and white, not just in a hurried, whispered prayer in my mind.

 Grateful for the feel of Julianna’s hand in mine…

…for her sudden shift into a (sort of, sometimes) cuddle bug (even if it’s only when she’s hungry and she wants to see what I’m making for dinner)…

…for her enthusiasm for putting on and taking off her coat, which indicates that she loves everything she’s learning at school…

…for her adorable enthusiasm for “talking” on the phone…

…for the way she wants to help me around the house…

…for the wisdom to direct her desire to get into EVERYTHING and use it to teach her to follow directions, and along the way teach her concepts like in, out, up, down, on, get it out, put it away…

…for finally running out of clothes, which means I get to shop for her!…

…for Alex giggling at having his cheeks chewed instead of getting angry…

…for his willingness to ride his bike almost a mile with his daddy the other day…

…for the improvement in his writing…

…for his dogged determination to earn money for a new toy…

…for the stolen cuddle early this morning when he climbed into bed with me because he was scared…

…for Nicholas’s mischievous eyes and his adorable laugh…

…for the way he loves to snuggle against me…

…for the inspiration to pull out all the frozen breast milk and start feeding it to him…

…for nice moments cuddling with Christian…

…for the anticipation of a Valentine’s Day date…

…for opportunities to advocate…

Now that I am in the mode, the things to be grateful for keep on coming. But it’s enough to share a few, and keep my attitude one of gratitude today. What about you? Are you stuck in a grumbly rut? Are you floundering? What are you grateful for today?

(For more, visit  Tuesdays Unwrapped at chattingatthesky.com.)

Published in: on February 9, 2010 at 6:26 am  Comments (7)  
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Thanksgiving Day: A Gratitude List

For the last two weeks, I’ve kept waiting for things to turn around, scrabbling at the roots of positive attitude as I try to keep from tumbling over the cliff into negativity. It’s been a rough two weeks, no doubt about it, but I realize that the lesson to be learned now is gratitude despite “everything” going wrong.

I’ve been keeping a mental list of things to be thankful for, but I haven’t been good about getting them onto my gratitude list. And I’m beginning to think that the act of committing words to “paper” is where they take root and begin to grow. So this morning, along with everyone else on the blogosphere, I will write my list of things to be thankful for, and I will choose not to focus on the annoyances, irritants, and stresses of the past couple of weeks.

I am thankful for the first quiet day in weeks, in my own back yard.

I am thankful for the enthusiasm with which my kids greet their grandparents’ arrival.

I am thankful for getting to go ice skating for the first time in four or five years.

I am thankful for the reminder that sometimes, trial and error is the best teacher.

I am thankful for Central Dairy ice cream.

I am thankful for sleeping through the night. I never thought that was going to happen again!

I am thankful for the opportunity to write my Advent book.

I am thankful for the rush in my blood that accompanies inspiration, and especially writing music.

I am thankful for the friends, neighbors, and parish community who wrap us up in love we don’t deserve and can never live up to.

I am thankful for scrapbooking.

I am thankful for my jade plant, given to me by Angeleita, which is the only plant I’ve never managed to kill, and which is a constant memento to me of a very special mentor.

I am thankful for the end of the spit-up era (for this baby, anyway).

I am thankful for generous input for my next article.

I am thankful for Christmas lights.

I am thankful for beauty in all its various forms.

I am thankful for the luxury of recreation.

I am thankful for the opportunity to advocate for my daughter and others like her.

I am thankful for the people that I have met through this advocacy.

I am thankful for the way parenthood (and marriage) stretches my soul.

I am thankful for the end of the nursing strike.

I am thankful for good food.

I am thankful for the cute and tender and funny moments that my children give me.

I am thankful for the beautiful autumn.

I am thankful that the harvest is finally moving well, late though it is.

I am thankful for the chance to see family, immediate and extended.

I am thankful for my family, who now calls me upstairs to nurse and teach and dress.

Published in: on November 26, 2009 at 6:55 am  Comments (3)  
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PT: A Love Story

On occasion I have mentioned Gerti, Julianna’s physical therapist. What you may not understand unless you have been involved in a relationship like this is how deeply these people become connected to your family, how much they can coach, support, encourage, and otherwise enrich life for the people they serve. That is Gerti for us.

Gerti joined us when Julianna was not quite 8 weeks old. She was the original therapist, and the only one who has been with us through the whole journey. Gerti brought us Kim, our fabulous OT. Gerti visits us in the hospital. When I was pregnant, she put up with Alex hanging around while she treated Julianna so that I could lie down for a few minutes. When she visited Germany, she brought us chocolate. She taught us how to work with Julianna, yet she always encouraged us to be parents first. She knows Julianna almost as well as we do, rejoicing at her successes, wrapping us up in love during the tough times. And today, as life hurtles toward Transition and preschool and the end of home therapy visits, I want to pay tribute to this beautiful woman who has become such a big part of our lives.

"I'm so cute...if I play cute, maybe she won't make me work!"

Well....work can be fun...

Love...and trust.

Trunk strengthening

Love...and joy

At the top of my list of things to be thankful for this year…thank you, Gerti, for everything.

Published in: on November 25, 2009 at 5:01 am  Comments (5)  

Place in this World

Once, my mother told me that everything in her life had been so easy: she moved from her father’s house into her husband’s house, and she never felt unsatisfied, because she never fought the inertia of her life.

Most people probably react to that statement in the same way I did: You’ve got to be kidding.

It was the summer before I turned twenty-one, and I was a few short months out of a relationship I had expected (unhealthy as it was) to last forever. I was raw, lonely, ungrounded, and all of life felt like a struggle to stay above the current on a river I wasn’t sure was leading anywhere.

Most of us struggle for years, through adolescence and sometimes several versions of adulthood, to find our place in the world. Almost all of us suffer fits of envy and insecurity when friends or family members hit a windfall, reach a milestone, or find success. It’s not that we begrudge them their triumph; it’s just that we question the choices we’ve made, and we wonder if we’re really where we’re supposed to be.

I have those days. And I have the days when all the things I love are also things I feel I need a nice retreat from. And yet, I have to consider myself blessed in that all the things I *am*—wife, mother, musician and writer—are also what I *do*. How many people get to spend their days doing exactly what they would do if money was no object?

Published in: on August 22, 2009 at 8:05 am  Leave a Comment  
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A Week’s Worth of Gratitude

A filigree-and-marmalade sunrise

A perfect evening for a mile and a half walk with my baby…air shimmering gold in the sun, and brooding blue in the shade, with the perfect breeze nudging fluffy clouds across a pristine sky, newly washed by rain.

Bright baby eyes turned behind in the stroller, fixed upon me, the center of his universe (oooh, that’s a moment!)

Hours spent outside

New friends

The serious business of baby bath time, which ends with a lot of water kicked out of the tub

Three hours circling a race track…time in which spouses can talk

Christian’s boss, who kept Nicholas for several laps so we could walk hand in hand…

Julianna’s first bounce house

Sleeping with the windows open

Published in: on June 6, 2009 at 12:01 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Unplugged

Once in a while, it’s nice to go somewhere without internet access for a few days, even though it feels disorienting to be offline. But it’s not a state of being I’d want to spend too much time in.

We spent the long weekend in Southern Illinois. Two weeks ago, a storm came barreling through southern Missouri and Illinois, wreaking havoc. It wasn’t a tornado, but the winds were upwards of 100mph, and it went on and on and on. Three and a half hours the kids spent huddled under their bookbag rack at school. Offline was the least of their problems.

In the wake of the storm, my sister-in-law couldn’t get to the school because of downed trees. There was no power for several days. As many power outages as there have been in the last few years, from New York to Katrina, I hadn’t ever thought through the implications until it touched close to home.

For those with electric stoves, there was no way to cook anything. There was no way to keep food cool, except to run a gas generator, and no way to get gas because gas pumps require electricity too. Cell phones weren’t working, cordless phones weren’t working. Grocery stores and restaurants were closed. No ATM machines, no credit card readers.

By the time we arrived on Thursday night, power was back up and running, but hearing the stories was disturbing enough. It’s times like these when I realize how frighteningly dependent upon technology we have become. It makes life easier, more enjoyable, for sure, but now, what would we do without it? How will we live if something cataclysmic ever happens?

I grew up on a farm, so I know the basics of raising your own food. I know how to kill and prepare a chicken…though I’ve never done it myself, but I think I could do it if I had to. I know something about canning vegetables, and so forth. But I still need a chicken. And a vegetable plot.

Listening to my in-laws talk about the last couple of weeks, I feel a niggling of fear for the unknown cataclysm that could wipe out life as we know it. We can only survive so long on peanut butter and potato chips, and I fear the ugliness that might result when we get desperate.

But maybe I’m focusing on the wrong side effect of being forcibly unplugged.

The storm caused only one fatality in Southern Illinois. For that family, tragedy is still tragedy. But based on the amount of destruction we’ve seen here, the fact that the number is not far higher is cause for thanksgiving. And my sister-in-law told me that people are saying how great a time they had while the power was out. There was nothing else to do, so they played cards by candlelight and board games by flashlight. They got together with neighbors on front porches. They created community in a way that went out of fashion long ago.

So yes, if the unknown disaster ever does strike, life will be harder. But maybe we’ll also discover that we’re stronger—and better off—than we think we are.

Published in: on May 26, 2009 at 6:33 am  Leave a Comment  
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Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude

Crises tend to bring out the best in us. We rise to the occasion; we set our teeth, hunker down and lean into the wind, knowing that complaining won’t help—we just have to get through it. It’s not the big stuff that brings out the pessimist in us. It’s the everyday Murphy.

And so it was that late last week, Christian roundly dressed me down for being negative. It was a painful scolding. I felt that I had every right to be negative, after the unceasing pounding of hassle and headache and illness, combined with lack of rest, the last few, uh, months.

Yet at the same time, I knew I deserved it. It’s one thing to be gripey for a day, when times are tough. By the time it stretches into weeks, no matter how bad, it’s because you’ve gone looking for things to be ticked off about.

God has a habit of smacking me upside the head with the same lesson till I get it. This morning the devotional in Living Faith was about Paul, stuck in prison, beaten and battered, and singing psalms of praise.

Ahem. OK, God, I get it. It’s time to change my attitude.

Julianna screaming, Nicholas choking on his coughs and refusing to nurse…Alex still being slow as molasses in the morning, and me up half the night with Nicholas, so I’m too tired to exercise…And man, we should NOT have rented that movie.

But.

Julianna is home, and well, and slowly recovering her strength. She actually took three independent steps this morning during PT, though Gerti had expected a delay of several weeks as she found her legs again. And she’s used the toilet before nap two days running now. And man, that girl is cuter than ever. And even though the entrance of Nicholas has kicked me back to fourth place in her preferred list of people, she’s infinitely willing to respond and giggle for me, as long as I can make the XYs of the house give us a few minutes to ourselves. :)

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And Alex—well, even if he does take an hour to do something that should take ten minutes, at least he’s doing it; I don’t have to do it for him. And he’s behaving better at church, and he’s fascinated by his Rosary, and wants to go to a quiet church to pray (though I’m quite sure that the Rosary would far outlast his patience! :) ). He’s independent on the computer games, and mostly independent on his bicycle, which he wants to ride every day.

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And Nicholas is sweet as can be, sleeping in the crib now instead of in our room. His fleeting smiles are the best part of every day, and for crying out loud, the kid managed to stay well through the first seven major illnesses he was exposed to, despite sitting every day all day in a hospital for twelve days.

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And then there’s Christian. Christian helps with the housework and makes me laugh, he tries to give me a break from 24/7 kid duty and is usually willing to run an errand for me to make my life easier. He plays with the kids, he plans for our safety and future. He is a model of patience and reason, and when, occasionally, he kicks me in the pants, it’s never unwarranted.

I’m grateful, too, for our home, and for family and friends and community who care about us…who, whenever we get into a bind, shower us with lawn mowing, meals, care packages, house cleaning, respite, child care, prayers, and sheer numbers—I’ve ceased to be amazed at the spike in hits this blog takes when our family has a major event.

So the next time my gripey, self-centered, never-satisfied side rears its ugly head…which, undoubtedly, it will do before sunset today…I will follow every negative thought with two positives. Maybe I can learn to be one of those peaceful, optimistic people I admire.

 Then again, maybe I can’t. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not about success anyway, but simply about running the good race.

Published in: on May 19, 2009 at 1:46 pm  Comments (6)  
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