New Again

This last week I began a new semester of classes. In case you didn't notice summer is peeking around the corner, the days are longer, hotter, and way more relaxed around here. Not that I delude myself into thinking they are going to stay that way, I know better, but after a frantic spring semester with a full load of classes, and so many kid things on the agenda, seven credits and the beach are going to feel like a dream.

I get to venture into the world of anthropology and algebra (nice alliteration) this semester. My algebra is considered remedial, and that is just fine. I've long since come to the conclusion that it's okay to not know stuff. It is simply an opportunity to learn. My anthropology is a basic freshman course, and hopefully will be as easy as it seems.  Both professors are old. We're talking they've already retired and come back to teach once in a while for fun with their hearing aids on old.  And that's okay, too. They've got more stories than I can imagine and with every story I learn a little bit more about other world views, and understanding their stories, or yours, helps me understand my own.


Last semester brought me happy grades. Grades that I worked really hard for, but oh so worth all that work. It gave me a new understanding about what I am capable of, and today, that understanding gives me the best world view I can imagine. The one that tells me I can do anything!

Life Support

It's been a long day, an even longer week, and this semester.....well you can imagine. So in light of my fatigue, this will be short and sweet. I have a wanted to spend this week immersed in my studies, instead I have been the mom. Grocery shopping, babysitting, soccer games, homework, library trips, car pool, prom, and so much more. I've done all the things that support the life of my family.  I've said it before and I'll say it again that the reason I'm doing this is for my family. So in my moments of resentment, the ones when I wish there wasn't so much to pull me away from studying for my finals, I try to remember that. This is for my family, and I am happy to offer life support as needed.

All out

When I was in high school I ran. I was a sprinter, and I loved it. The key to a good sprint is to go all out, past the finish line. If you slow down before the finish line, you will inevitably be passed and lose the race. Last year I accomplished a longtime goal and ran the bolder Boulder. If you are familiar with the race, you know that it is anything but a sprint. It's a ten kilometer race, that's more than six miles. My only goal was to jog the whole thing, and I did just that. I was surrounded by thousands of people yet I was completely alone. It was exhausting and exhilarating, but some of the same rules I learned in high school still applied during this long distance run. Although it didn't matter to anyone else, it mattered to me that I ran all out past the finish line. At this point in my life it wasn't about winning the race, but about giving all I could, and knowing that I gave my all. It could have been easy to dwell on all those that ran the bolder Boulder so much faster than I did. Instead, I tried to focus on what I had accomplished, how hard I had trained and worked to be able to run the whole ten kilometers

It has been a weird few days emotionally. I am counting down to finals. In just over one week I will finish my first semester back to school. It seems to be an odd combination of decompression, depression, and exhaustion.  I've been so crazy busy for so long that as things wind down it's easy to want to walk (or crawl) through the finals finish line. I know much of what I'm feeling is exhaustion, but I know that there is an element of fear as well. Finals are important, they are literally about proving all you've learned, and I can't help but worry that all I've done may not be enough.  If I have learned anything this semester it is this;  I am capable of much more than I often believe. I can't say that I'm running a sprint, I know that school is more of a long distance kind of thing, but my life experiences tell me that if I can hold out for just a little longer, and move past the finish line- past my fears, I won't have any regrets, no matter what grades I achieve.

Counting down....

I have two weeks and two days before my first semester of school is over.  I'm as harried and as busy as I was at the beginning of the semester, but now it feels more normal.  Sometimes I still wonder if I'm crazy as I attempt to keep up with it all, but then I think about how much I love looking in a microscope during Bio lab,  or that sense of satisfaction that comes when I've finished a rough draft even if it's at four in the morning.

My very good friend very delicately asked me if I recognized that my life could be easier if I said no a little more often and yes a little less often. If I said no to my children's extra curricular activities or took less credits, or anything. I know she's right, but the look of joy on their faces, their own sense of satisfaction that comes from being part of a team, and all the rest that comes with all we do, is worth a little extra craziness.

As I wrap up this semester, I look back and hope that I have focused on the good rather than the discouraging. I know that difficult does not equal bad, in fact it's quite the opposite in this case. It has been difficult to go back to school, but every moment has been worth it. Every moment, easy or hard, means I'm a little closer to fulfilling the dream I had to let go of eighteen years ago so that I could work on the other dream. The one that involves a great husband and seven amazing children.

Unfashionable fashion

Tonight I spent a lot of hours, I mean a lot, drafting a position/ argument paper for my English 121 class. I haven't had to write this kind of paper for a long time. I was incredibly intimidated by it. The assignment is to draft a letter to someone or some organization addressing a specific issue and taking a stand against it. I chose to write to the Fashion Houses.  I vacillated quite a bit as I was trying to figure out who the BEST audience/ recipient of this letter would be. I settled on the fashion houses because all my research indicates that they are the starting point. They build the clothes in impossibly small sizes, then they pass said clothes on to the magazines to use for fashion spreads. They only pass on the runway sample sizes because it is very expensive to make these clothes and they can't sell them once they've been worn on the runway, therefore the magazines exhibit the clothes in those impossibly small sizes, because that is all they are given by the fashion houses. When we are only exposed to one kind of image we get used to that image, and all others become foreign and undesirable. I felt like I was studying this vicious and ugly circle, one that perpetuates itself and we sit back and not only watch it, we enjoy it.

I can not tell you how disturbing it has been to me to research the effects of media, not just on girls, but on women as well. We are all susceptible to the belief that for some reason the girl in the magazine or in a TV show or anywhere, really, is better than we are.  I have said it before, and I'll say it again, our worth is intrinsic. Please be aware of all the ways our society tries to tell us that we are worthy only if.... As the advertising moguls have said, if you want people to buy your product you must first create a problem and then fix it for them. 

Please, never buy into the myth that has been created by this industry, the myth that says you're only cute enough, beautiful enough, hot enough, whatever enough, if you are the same size as the girls on the cover, or if you can wear the right clothes or be the right person because of some external, transient thing. Please remember that every day it is our responsibility to teach our children of their worth. If we don't teach them someone else with a very different agenda will teach them instead.

Totaled

I feel like I talk a lot about perspective in this blog. I got a little help this weekend remembering what is really worth while. While I try desperately to keep up with kids, housework, church, and school my husband works really hard to support us. He has a full time job and a part time job on the week-ends.

Friday night, as he traveled to work, a seventeen year old boy pulled out in front of Jeff.  Jeff had seen him stopped at the stop sign and then didn't think any more of him .... at least not until the impact.  Both cars were totaled, both guys walked away. As I drove that night to pick him up from the sight of the accident a thousand what ifs crossed my mind.  What if it had been worse..... What if I had to do everything without him

 Once in a while I complain. I complain about his schedules, the way he spends his free time, yadda, yadda, yadda. I just complain. When I got to the scene of the accident and saw the shape of his Jeep, I decided that maybe I should practice appreciating more than I practice complaining. Here are some things I appreciate about my sweetheart:

-He's generous. Have I mentioned my brother is living in our basement. He gives of himself in so many ways. He volunteers to  teach hunter-education for the state of Colorado. He volunteers for the CBA and edits the bi-monthly magazine. He supports my crazy life and schedule, and holds me when it starts to overwhelm me.

-He works really hard. When he was in college he worked full time and studied full time. He works two jobs to support us. He always has, and I have no doubt that he always will.

-He irons his own shirts. What this really means is that I don't have to.

-He takes the morning drive almost every day so I can sleep in after staying up way to late to study or to just veg. How grateful I am. If I had to get up and stay up every day at five am I'd be a basket case. Those extra hours of sleep make all the difference.

I'm a proponent of recognizing what you have, but events like this can't help but remind me even more poignantly that what we have could be taken from us at any time. A car, we'll replace that. Replacing the love of my life would be asking the impossible. I'm glad he's safe.

Here's to the end of the perpetual writing block

A few weeks ago our English class had a discussion about what makes good writing. One gentleman titled his post, Writing about writing....it's a viscous cycle.   Yet here I am writing about writing. I find it fascinating to see my children struggle with some of the same things I struggled with as a girl. I remember worrying that I did not have an interesting enough topic, or I couldn't think of anything at all.  When I was eleven I must have complained about being bored one summer day. I remember my mother handed me a legal pad and a pencil and told me to go out and write something, a story, anything. She obviously believed that I could. I didn't believe I could. I must have sat out in the grass for hours. I never got past 'It was a dark and stormy night'. That was probably the beginning of what I could call a perpetual writers block.  When I went to college, the first time, I remember writing to a prompt to see what level of English I would take as an eighteen year old freshman. I had a conversation with the girl sitting at the table with me. She really wanted the 200 level class. I really didn't. I saw her a few months later on campus and asked how she had done, she was disappointed and hadn't gotten into the 200 level class. I had.  As I look back this is a pretty good representation of my writing history. All around me people tell me that I should, could, ought to be, a writer, and I am filled with self doubt.  I don't have the ambition to write for anything other than fun, but if becoming a better writer is about practice, then I will practice. So here I am on my blog because it's part of an assignment, but I also enjoy it!  

Today I finalized a profile I wrote about a good friend. The profile had to support my thesis from a previous assignment. As I interviewed her she said something so good I had to share, “Being a perfectionist is really about insecurity; being insecure is about fear; and fear is about not having faith.”   As I write this I recognize the need for me to have faith in myself. That's a tall order for me, but I'm working on it - everyday. When I logged on I looked at my last post from March 13. I was trying to get ready for a couple of big tests that day and felt really overwhelmed. I know without a doubt that what I said was true, my worth does not come from my grade, but I'm happy to report a 98% on my lecture exam, and a 100% on my lab practical. Hard work pays off, and so does believing in myself.