If You Could See Us Now

"What would a favorite deceased relative be doing or saying if he or she were with you right now? "

Every time I see a ‘piece of Dad’ within one of my children or my brother or a family member’s mannerisms or actions I smile quietly to myself and I think that Dad would be pleased.

I cannot quite imagine what Dad would be doing if he had lived to see retirement. I cannot imagine him being still. I can’t envision him incapacitated by his health or body and idly watching life go by. In my mind, if Dad couldn't have lived the life the way that he was accustomed to living it, I don’t think he would have been content...

Yet, when I heard of the times that his brothers got together and enjoyed some winter vacations down South, I can picture him in the midst of his family and fully relishing that time (though I do see arguments about who was paying for what, as that seemed to be the norm among Dad and his siblings - they are generous to a fault and never wanted to have someone pay their way).

As different as my grandpa and his mother-in-law (my great grandma) were, the common thread that I hear between the two of them is the importance of family. “Never lose touch” was the essence of the message that she told one of my uncles when he was a child. I have heard that it was very important to Grandpa that his sons forge partnerships among themselves and stay connected.

I think of the ways that Grandpa would be pleased to see the way his sons rallied around and supported Grandma after he died. I think of the closeness that has reached out far beyond his seven sons and touched the generations beyond them and I think that Grandpa would be so pleased to watch over his family and feel what we feel when (we manage to) get together.

I cannot help but think of the connections that my uncle has made in his life. Whenever I speak with him, he seems to mention in passing, a friendship that has weathered the test of time, distance and change. Not just one friendship. Many. Those who reach out and touch my uncle's life are given the gift of having him reciprocate that contact. He makes you feel unique and special no matter who you are. He listens to you when you speak. He senses what is important to you and he speaks back to you in a language that tells you that he ‘gets’ you. I cannot help but wonder of the impact of the time that he spent with his grandmother … and if she could be watching over him right now, that she would be pleased to see how he took her lessons and words to heart and lived them.

I think that every time we do something that we know in our heart is something that would please a parent or grandparent, we sense a little heavenly ‘wink’ from beyond. I often wonder what Dad would say if ‘he could see us now’ and I live a lot of my life accordingly.

I hope that we have done you proud...

To anyone who is missing their dad this Father's Day weekend, may you feel his presence envelope you and hear the whisper of his voice telling you that he couldn't be happier with the person you have become and the life you are living.

Sink or Swim - A Little on Water Survival

I remember when I first learned the concept of drownproofing. I was in a pre-beginner swimming class somewhere in and around the age of ten.

The way that I understood it, drownproofing is supposed to be a life saving technique of conserving your energy if you need to rest and you are 'in over your head' in a body of water. You simply float and lift your head to breathe in regular intervals to remain afloat in a fashion that could save your life in an emergency.

I can't remember how long the 'drownproofing' requirement was in that pre-beginner swim class. I passed. Barely.

Drownproofing and treading water were my downfall in those swimming classes. Hand held video cameras were not the norm back in the '70's so there is no documentation other than that which is etched in my memory. I remember flailing and panicking and wondering how much longer I had to do this to pass. It took every ounce of energy I had, to remain afloat and 'survive' the endurance test.

That same feeling of exhaustion and wondering 'how long I have to do this' has embodied me, as I have tried to 'remain afloat' within this life-of-mine lately.

Second jobs, excessive overtime and being on-call deplete us. I have heard that 'even God' gave himself one day of rest. There are far too many people out there who are not giving themselves that day. Then even if you do get it, you feel like a pre-beginner swimmer as they flail in that pool of water, gasping for air, intaking as much as you can because you do not trust in your buoyancy (or when you will get your next reprieve) yet.

There is nothing (too) relaxing about a day off, when you must look into the distant future to find the next one. It is hard work to stay afloat when all you are doing is surviving.

As grateful as I am for my 'weekend job', it has almost done me in. Any time that I got a day off, I quite literally wasted it. My definition of waste is: not to do anything productive (namely, my family Book Project).

I have slept and watched TV through some of those days off. I have run errands. I have had weekends that have been purely frivolous and fun. I have allowed friendship and family into those sparse days off. I have rarely allowed myself to clean the house in earnest because that 'must' wait until I have completed The Book.

I have not given myself permission to fully immerse myself into anything because I am looking into the horizon and wondering how long it will be before I get my next break.

The summer months seem to have changed the outlook within my bookkeeping responsibilities. There is less panic and more room to breathe. I see many weekend days off in my future. I have finally, finally relaxed and savored many of the past weekends because I know there are more to come.

I have taken a few day trips. I have read three books. I have sat still on the deck and simply inhaled the moment. I have not felt like this in a very, very long time. Something has clicked into balance. I do believe that 'something' is regularly scheduled time off.

I need to know that I have a day (or two) that I can count on. A day (or two) that will not be a day when I may have to go in to work. I did have many weekends where last minute changes gave me an unexpected day off which were wonderful, but not being able to count on that or knowing that it came with a price ("We will have to work both days next weekend instead") and depleted the relaxation factor. Those days were akin to gasping for air while drown-proofing.

I feel myself charging up and becoming energized. From the inside, out. My ambition is coming back. My enthusiasm for life is returning. I don't feel like I am drowning any more.

“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.” 

~ Tyler Knott Gregson

On the Flip Side

The instant I hit the 'Publish' button on my "High Cost of Living..." post of two days ago, I had a rebuttal for it. In a perfect world, I would have sat down and written that immediately on the heels of such a negative set of words.

But Life walked in the door fifteen minutes after I wrote that post, I lived my ten hour Daycare Day and followed that with mowing the lawn and visiting with a friend that evening and woke up to my Youngest Son's birthday yesterday morning.

So here is my rebuttal. Two days late ... but there is a definite upside to my low (per child) daycare rate.

The flip side of the negative?

• I get to stay home!
• Multiply that rate by four children and multiply that by ten hours and it equals 'just enough'
• I am my own boss (for the most part)
• These guys keep my mind and my body moving
• I have the ability to talk with a friend while I work
• I work for some very amazing and kind people
• Quiet time (!!) in the afternoon
• I get paid to sit outside and soak up the sunshine
• I get paid to count ladybugs, listen to the birds and walk through tunnels
• I absorb the wonder of a one year old, as I gaze up into the sky find myself mesmorized by a plane or watch the garbage truck
• I notice the small wonders of the world - like the reflections of a sparkly shirt in the sun and birds playing on the street
• I am in on the ground level as my Little People learn new words, sentences and physical feats of amazement
• I am making my house work for its keep. There is nothing sadder than a beautiful, oversized, immaculate house that sits empty as its owners run off to work each and every day and the little time they have left over after working to pay for such a monstrosity is spent cleaning and maintaining it. 

That last point is a big one. We have a modest home but I can honestly say that every square inch of the house, yard and garage are being utilized 24/7 (the exception to that may be the front yard ... but there must be a way to make it work for me as well!).

What is the point of having a beautiful house if you are not home to enjoy it? Working from home is the key to my inner contentment. Everything that I am doing today, is heading me in a direction to continue doing what I am doing for the rest of my days.

Sure enough, I may want to trade in my Daycare Buddies for people my own age one day. A Bed & Breakfast? Room & Board? Taking in foreign students? There are many ways I can continue to make my home a vital and important part of my income earning strategy.

My bookkeeping is heading to a place where I will be able to (primarily) work from home again. Once I get my knowledge base firmed up, well versed and experienced maybe I can take on some more work-of-that-kind.

My writing is inching along. I never want to get out of the habit of writing. But it certainly doesn't pay the bills. Not yet. But if I just keep on writing what I write, who knows where this may lead one day. It may lead to nothing but memories for my children and grandchildren to hold onto when I am not longer writing out loud. But in the meantime? I am averaging about $3.78 per published column ...

I don't think that I was set on this place called earth to become rich. But I am rich in everything that matters to me. I have a wealth of everything that money can't buy, which is most likely why my hourly rate of income is the least of my worries.

Sixteen Years

Sixteen years ago, at 10:36 a.m. a baby boy was born. Sometime in and around 24 hours later, I got to take that little boy home and keep him. And now? He is old enough to drive.

Enter a boy that I didn't know that I needed, never expected but wanted more than life itself. He has helped me change my world.

He is my sitting-in-a-sunbeam-child that I often write about. He is the one who finally slowed me down and showed me how to be a mom. I wanted absolutely nothing more than to stay home and raise my own child, and be there for my (then) 11 year old son in a way that I never was and never could have been for my (then) 20 year old son.

Each of my children was raised by a different mother. Each one of those mothers is housed inside of my body. Oh, how I have evolved over the years.

One word of advice to any 17-year-olds out there. Seventeen is pretty young to start a family. You think you know a lot of things. Most of all, you know what you can do, will do and expect to do. I can only tell you my experience, but most of the things that I knew at age seventeen? I still don't know 36 years later.

Raising a baby when you are still growing up yourself works better for some than for others. I was one of the 'others'. I had a lot of growing up to do before I was capable of simply being the best mom that I could be at that time.

In a life where I look back and say I regret very little? The one thing I wish I could redo is to be a better mother to my firstborn son.

My second son was born in the prime of my life. Twenty seven was the year I started making good decisions for myself and for my family. My feet were firmly planted on the ground and I was starting to see the life-we-should-be-living. That was the direction I was headed shortly after the birth of my second son.

Transition is not always easy. We had some challenges and upheavals but we came out the other end of a trying time in a much better place.

Life is a process of learning as you go. I took what I learned from raising my oldest son and put that knowledge to work, raising my second. Staying home to raise him during his teen years was (what I believe) a life-altering decision.

I would not have had that sitting-in-the-sunbeam-moment (where life came into such clear focus) if it were not for the birth of my youngest son.

By following my heart and truest calling, I was calmer and simply more of who-I-could-be to my family. I invited the world into our home (I opened my daycare) and my youngest and I navigated the waters of life within a safe and controlled setting.

We encountered bullying, tattling, cheating, lying, unfairness, unkindness and the whole gamut of life-in-the-big-scary-world together. We also shared all of the good stuff. The simple appreciation of quiet, after a busy day. Friends were made that walked alongside him throughout most of his elementary school years. My little boy navigated the pressures, demands and perks that came with school life like a pro.

I have always credited his exposure to the real world within our home and in a safe environment, to his successes.

Now, look at him. He is almost grown up. He is two years away from graduating from high school. He knows the direction that he wants for his life to go when he finishes school. He has made new friends easily within this new world of high school. He is happy. He is kind. He is responsible. He is honest. He does not litter (Honestly!! Just last week he handed me a piece of clear plastic the size of my little fingernail, telling me "I don't want to litter"). He is respectful. He may be quiet but he is deep. If you get him talking about something he is interested in, you may not get a word in edgewise.

I have often said that it is as if he has taken a good, long look at the people within his world and taken the best of each person and enveloped that into his character. I am grateful that I can look at my son and see that he has taken what I loved about his father and weaved it into the core of his being.

We are all a tapestry of genes, who we are, who we meet and how we interpret and incorporate it all into our personal perspective and personality. I love that my son has taken the best of the best and woven it into the tapestry of his life. I have also seen this very same trait incorporated into my other children's lives as time has evolved.

Each one of my children is becoming who-they-are-meant-to-be. When I see glimmers of myself (that don't make me flinch) within the core of their being, I know that they have incorporated a piece of me into their 'best self' as well and they simply make me proud to be their mom.

P.S. Small disclaimer: I also see some of the 'worst of me' woven in just as deep and that keeps me humble. Oh, so very humble!

High Cost of Living Verses the Low Cost of My Daycare Rates

I was just sitting down, enjoying my morning smoothie and coffee as I read this blog post and within the story was the statement that the author made $2.00 per hour, per kid when she babysat when she was 11 years old. Thanks to Google, I could decipher that this was 23 years ago.

This further led me to calculate my hourly daycare rate. Now. Today. As of June, 2014 I am making exactly $2.54 per hour, per kid. And out of this wage, I pay for the extra groceries, supplies, toys, entertainment and house repairs/renovations to accommodate my little daycare family.

According to my wage, it took over 11, ten hour days of babysitting one child to pay for my two new pillows.

I spent two days of one child's daycare income to pay for the garage sale toys that I bought this weekend.

Our take-out meal last night cost half of one child's daily daycare income.

Thankfully, I am now taking care of (almost) four children. That is why I am spending the big bucks buying pillows and toys and take out.

According to my wage, I think that we should be living in the tent that I bought this weekend.

Memories

I do believe that I finally, finally have found the pillow of my dreams! I purchased a memory foam pillow and have had a very happy neck ever since.

This successful sleep tactic, with the additional epiphany that my neck/back issues are all related to 'waking up in the morning' led me to believe that perhaps I need to rethink my bed as well. If my aches and pains are all happening while I am sleeping, it is pretty obvious where the source of my troubles lie (it never ceases to amaze me how I cannot manage to put two plus two together quicker).

Since the memory foam was working wonders on my neck, I thought about the memory foam that is folded up in a closet (to make our guest's sleep on our futon a little more tolerable). Yesterday, I finally got ambitious enough to unmake my bed and insert the memory foam. I simply could not wait to crawl into bed last night.

Well!!! First and foremost, it is not called 'memory' foam for nothing!

I dreamt like I have never dreamt before. I woke up completely and totally worked up after remembering and reliving my 'school career' days. It was awful. I ended up escaping the clutches of those awful memories and then relived my recurring dream where someone is chasing me and I cannot keep my feet on the ground and I float up past the rooftops to allude capture. I have not had that dream for years. And I had it last night - as I slept atop my memory foam.

Then I dreamt about visiting Dad's 'resting place'. It wasn't his grave but it was something akin to that, that held a box of memories that Mom had carefully selected and tucked away 'with' Dad. We opened the box. And I wept. And I wept. And I wept. I cried harder than I have ever cried in my life.

From there, the dream segued to a scene where I was back in my house-filled-to-the-brim with my daycare family and we were out having a picnic. I didn't make enough food. I needed to use some of my sister's meat because I didn't pack enough any. And I didn't have enough eyes to watch all of my kids (thankfully, I had so many kids they were watching out for each other). I felt like I was reliving my past.

Somewhere in between all of this, I got a diagnosis from Senior Cat's vet and she said to bring him in immediately. His life was hanging in the balance and I had to make a decision that hinged upon spending thousands and thousands of dollars to fix him. Or not.

Memories, memories, memories!!

I woke up this morning thinking "Wow! That memory foam really works!!" Not only did I wake up with a happy neck and back ... I woke up with a brain full of old memories.

Countdown

I never did like the 'countdown' of hours-left-to-go-before-I-go-to-work.

Afternoon shifts were my nemesis. Nothing could be fully enjoyed because there was a continual time-check throughout the day. Four more hours. Ahhh. Three more hours. Quick! Time is running out. Two more hours. Minor anxiety in chest. One more hour. There is no time left. Half an  hour. I wonder how much I could squeeze in before I really have to go. Five minutes. I need more time!!

Then came the time when I truly felt that I had this whole countdown thing down to an art. I was in super-nesting-daycare-preparing-to-become-a-wife mode. I cooked, I cleaned, I organized, I was super-woman. Hear me roar! Oh, the things that I squeezed into that time that I carved out for myself before my early daycare day started.

This was followed by a year of education, a year of working from home then the finale - a year of working outside my home.

The education year? I was still superwoman, only I was having fun. I still ran my daycare before and after school and I completed my studies during regular school hours. I worked at a bookkeeping job part time. I danced! Oh, how I danced!! It was a perfect year of a well choreographed life. I was living, learning, working, moving and shaking. The game of 'How much time do I  have left?' became 'How quickly can I get my work done, so that I make the most of my time off?' It was a most wonderful use of my time!

The year of working from home was a close second to the year-of-education. Unfortunately I wasn't earning quite enough to pay the bills. I was still master of my time. Living my life, doing what I wanted and needed to do took priority. I got my work done in the cracks of living-my-life. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end of my productive time management skills. Housework took a back seat, cooking was becoming a feat of providing food (frozen food entrées became the norm) and I was honing the fine art of procrastination.

The year of working outside of my home was the year that everything came unravelled. I woke up at the same time each morning, got ready for work and waited for the phone to ring. Or not. These were times of high anxiety. The ringing of the phone dictated my life. It told me where to go. Every day was a new surprise. I needed the phone to ring because I needed to work. Yet the closer the clock got to the 'deadline' of starting a day on time, the more I wanted the phone not to ring. I accomplished next to nothing during that time. I existed. I survived.

Then came the year that I finally came back 'home' and restarted my daycare.

Now, my weekdays are very predictable. I know what time my kids start arriving and my parents are absolutely awesome about picking up their children on time. I can actually make plans again!

I write. I write here, there and everywhere. I squeeze writing into the cracks of my life and I am actually earning a small income from it. Writing is taking over the spot where house cleaning used to live. The house is a mess but my heart is more content. Priorities.

Then there is my bookkeeping. It is the job that is probably the basis of my retirement plan. I know that I will have to work as long as I breathe and I simply can't see tending children when I am 80. The business of tending numbers could be my bread and butter one day. I like the challenge, I enjoy working with numbers (trust me, after the year-of-working-outside-of-my-home taught me that I like black/white; wrong/right; balance-to-zero equations far more than I enjoy the phrase "Use your judgement!"). The only downfall to my bookkeeping job is that it has become the job that I am doing the Final Countdown as the hours melt away before I must leave for work.

I stared at the ceiling fan in my bedroom this morning thinking "If I get up now, I will have three hours". I got up and each step along the way, I am counting down the hours-left-to-go before I must leave my home (it is down to under an hour at the moment).

I wrote that paragraph, then checked to see what time the Oil Change store opens this morning. It turns out that I could leave right this moment, get my oil changed on my way to work and arrive just on time. I am back in the business of squeezing in the very last morsel of time before my work-days begin.

Now ... if only I was as concerned about cleaning windows or writing a book, I would have it made in the shade.

It is coming. I can feel it. My heart is slowing down and I am getting acclimatized to the renewed tempo of my life. Work, leisure, friends, family and down-time are all falling into a nice pace. I am regaining a little bit of everything. And with it? Myself.

The final countdown is on and I must run. But it is a good run. I'm not winded when I get there. I enjoy the destination and I love coming home.

Time is on my side once again. I am still counting down the time but I'm finding the rewards once again.