Portent of Things to Come ....

Was out with Gary last evening to buy a fire pit for the scouts then to eat at a Chinese restaurant. As we were walking through the parking lot, a cool breeze past by, lifting my hair and smelling of trees and grass. It took me back three years to October in Oslo, Norway – a month filled with the promise of things to come.

And suddenly I was back in Texas, and disappointed….

I went to Norway with my family at a time that I was not really stable. I had been diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) years before and was still dealing with the panic attacks and depression much more than I should have been. I was not losing chunks of time – which was what initially gave me a clue that my brain was not functioning normally in the first place. In Norway, I was unable to work even if I had wanted to since I did not possess a work visa. I loved Monday mornings when Gary headed to work, Ryan & Jessie were off to school and all of a sudden, the 100 year old house and the 2 ½ acres it sat upon were mine – all mine. It oozed peace and I soaked it up every day – until that last day, as the sun was setting, we said goodbye to an empty house and headed back to our hotel, for our flight to the US in the morning.

I came back in much better shape than I had been before. I can go to the cemetery and sit by Rachael's marker and not feel loss, she isn’t there, and I am OK. I can see a funnel cloud and I am not back in the middle of the tornado that hit our house. It makes me nervous, but that is all. I know that my panic attacks will go away and even in the depths of one, my calm, peaceful Norwegian voice I found, will whisper that all will be well, just ride it out, nothing to be afraid of – it always goes away – and I can almost function during one …. almost.

Yeah, the wind, and October: The thing that always followed was winter and that meant snow. Lots of snow:

And I loved it. If I was cold, I could put on down coats, and booties and sit closer to the fire, so cold was never the issue. It was all about the snow – so quiet, so peaceful, blanketing everything in Celestial white. And I would build a fire in “Lori’s Room” and read a book, and quietly, peacefully, cradled in 100 year old wood and a cocoon of snow … slowly heal. I loved the snow. It reminded me of growing up in Logan, Utah – and also made it no big deal to live in it.

In Norway in the winter, the sun would rise late and set early and stay very low on the horizon – and for a photographer – you know what that means. Entire days full of perfect light to take photographs. The only good time to take a photograph (you can ask anyone – don’t trust me, I don’t know what I am doing) is at dusk and dawn. And here I lived, right in the middle of magic light for 6 to 8 hours a day – and everything I looked at looked like a beautiful photograph.



But now I am in Houston, and will look forward to bundling up, and bringing out our winter dyne’s (duvet’s – Gary and I have individual ones, as they do in Norway – stops that hogging), but it is not the same. The cold is colder here- I guess the humidity – we blame it for everything else. I miss the silence of a snow fall, sitting in front of a fire, the feeling of being cradled in down, and light and snow and being able to sleep – really fall asleep.

I will miss the snow.

(Crazy) Bird Lady

It all started while living in Norway. My desk faced a window and I had a beautiful view of our deck and yard full of trees. One day, I saw the cutest birdhouse, and had to have it. I placed it where I could watch the birds feed - as I found out - all year round. I was smitten.

Unfortunately my Norwegian bird house met its demise one day when a huge gust of wind sent it flying off the deck.

Found a bird house for our new Texas home one day at a fair and promptly set it up - outside the window in front of my desk:

My most exotic visitors are two parrots - Julio and Pedro - yeah, I named them. They have wonderful conversations ... complete with Spanish accents and, of course completely in my head. That's when I started wondering if I am one of those creepy 'bird people'. I am not sure, but I do know that I am a 'bird house person'.

Ryan and I were picking up the corsage for his homecoming date at a florist shop and I found yet another bird house. I had to have it. My thinking was that it matched EXACTLY a bench I purchased in a small village in Norway and they were meant to be together. And, it sort of filled up the hole left by one of my ficus trees that had a branch die and left a gap that I feel is my mission to fill. The nest (complete with the cutest little eggs) did not seem to be enough, so .... a bird house:

I am pretty sure the next stage is me sitting on a park bench somewhere in tattered clothing and a bag of birdseed muttering to myself while tossing food to the birds.

***

Maybe Julio and Pedro will come visit me ....

Not a Single Funnel Mishap....

Anybody need a funnel? I have a few. The good news is that they worked fine (especially when used with the 'Linda's funnel plunger' - basically a dowel, but 'Linda's funnel plunger' sounds better). All in all I believe the activity was a success. I am 0 - 4 in not burning down the Church during an Enrichment Night (day) and this time we were actually using irons and hot glue guns! I have been told by a few women that they had a great time and that it was wonderful which I attribute less to my skills as Enrichment Leader and my 'Craftiness' than the fact that they got to go home with free stuff.

Friday, at some moment when I was not obsessing about Enrichment Night or actually doing some required work for it - it occurred to me that my GREAT DISTRACTION would be gone at 3:00pm on Saturday - then what was I going to do? I never actually got that far in my head. I had the morning mapped out - last minute asking Gary and Ryan if they would go get some of the craft stuff at Cathy's home and take it to the church. Gary asked if they would need both trucks and I was thinking, well Tiffany Kamp had come an taken the stamp stuff early, so ... probably not. When they showed up he looked at me like I was from the planet 'Understated' since they barely fit everything in both trucks ... but I actually come from the planet 'Can't Estimate to Save My Life' - different galaxies. I had not actually mapped out the areas in the church where things would go since I needed to see the stuff at the chuch (that planet thing), but that went fairly smoothly once the experts arrived and just set up their stuff.

I knew we would have some clean up, but after that? Nothing. Complete blank ... as if the Earth was going to cease to exist at around 3:00pm on Saturday. My distraction may be gone, but the detritus from said distraction is still in my house. I had Ryan take all the boxes and put them in my craft room ... I'm sure there is about a week of avoiding it (as long as I don't have to walk in the room, that is) and about that much time putting stuff away. I came home, made Ryan put the stuff upstairs then just collapsed in bed - I don't remember what else I actually did yesterday ... So - a good two weeks of distractions to look forward to. Gary will be in Phoenix the first week of that and London the second, so Ryan will bear the brunt of any storms that happen the brew.

Gary picked Jessie up for church today. He has a car service that picks him up and takes him to the airport and he needed to be home before church actually ends, so he got her for Sacrament meeting then fed her peanut butter sandwiches and dropped her back off. Thus, we were in separate cars. When I walked in the chapel and spotted them, the first thing I thought was how lovely Jessie looked in the dress she was wearing. I have no idea whose it was, but it was a purple top and skirt and way nicer than what I had sent her to RSS with. Her hair had been cut and you could tell that it had been cut by an actual stylist and not her mother and had been styled that morning so she looked good. She had a sore on her face - like a big scrape but when I asked if she fell, she said no. This is the frustrating part - just so you know - the part were she cannot tell me things I want to know. I will call tomorrow and see if I can find out what happened.

Jessie got to say 'hi' to some people and be loud during the meeting, we thought we would try to do this once a month and see how it goes. Don't know how the drop off went - which I guess is the point to Gary taking her and dropping her off (so I don't kick puppies when I get home), but I am assuming he will keep me informed. She starts school on Tuesday and that will be good. She has enjoyed 'workshop' but will still be doing that in addtion to school once transportation gets worked out.

This sound pretty much like a 'what I did over the weekend' and pretty boring ... just reporting in I guess.

Funnels, ARD’s, Lost Keys and the Tin Man

Since sleep still eludes me, I thought that I would ‘soldier on’ with my ramblings of a mad woman.

I am on a quest for the perfect funnel. Not that I want one … I NEED one. Rather, I need about 10 – for my Super Craft Saturday Enrichment Activity. I know – it’s just a funnel, but it is complicated … really … and I am too tired to fully explain. It involves diameter, the length of the average clove (or more importantly the deviation from said average), the width of a channel sewn in cloth, the projected patience of a woman on a Saturday morning with a sewing machine and probably π to about 10 decimal places, but I am holding off on the π part till the last minute . Some of these variables are unknowns, but what is a known is that I am knee deep in funnels … orange plastic funnels, metal funnels, funnels made out of cardstock. I am just in a ‘funnel nightmare’ – who knew there could be such a thing?

Distracting me from my funnel nightmare today, I had an ARD for Jessie at her new school. Since the hours of sleep I have accomplished since Sunday night barely gets me out of single digits, I guess it is no surprise that I didn’t realize that Jessie would be at the ARD until Gary this morning said: “Give Jessie a hug for me.” She is looking good – for someone learning how to brush her own teeth, wash her own hair and for some reason wearing some other persons clothing … but it was all good. Like I said … distracted.

She is very excited to start school and the school looks great. She seemed OK coming in with RSS staff and leaving with them, so still adapting well. Me? I’m doing OK as long as I am worrying about funnels – so there you go. You can’t say I don’t have great coping skills.

In the middle of all this, yesterday I went to my doctor, got poked and prodded and headed to Walgreens for a prescription. Came home, got in the house, tossed my keys in the Walgreens bag to better facilitate the dogs frantic demands for her reward for keeping the house free of riff raff, thieves, robbers and whatnot while I was gone. Garbage had not been picked up, my good friend Mr. Amazon had stopped by, and my OCD was in full swing so I grabbed my prescription, stuffed the Walgreens bag in the box, picked up every other piece of garbage in the house and got it to the can … so proud of myself! Ten whole minutes of a garbage free home & just in the nick of time ... the truck rumbled over right after. Thus – making another wonderful distraction: looking for my keys. After walking through my movements I resigned myself to the fact that my keys new address was the local landfill. Got the spares … to go in search of funnels.

Imagine my surprise when I found my keys:

Now, if I could just find that perfect funnel ......

The Tin Man? I discovered Charlie looks SO CUTE wearing the metal funnel – it fits perfectly!

Matryoshka dolls

I made Ryan clean out his closet the other day because it scared me. It is a walk in closet that could not be walked in. I was too chicken to dig through the pile, afraid of what I might find: a litter of kittens, grilled cheese sandwiches, waffle irons ... who knew?

He did a great job and luckily there were no dead bodies of any sort. He piled everything he did not want / did not fit any more in the family room upstairs. So today I was up there itemizing stuff to donate.

Our family room upstairs is rarely used and is where most of my collection of toys that I bought in different countries live. I have a collection of Russian Nesting Dolls. Every now and then, I take them apart, now that we live in Houston and it is more humid then their home town of Moskvá, so that they won't permanently fuse.

Usually, I pull them apart, then put them together - neatly lining up the beautiful painting so that the top and bottom match, standing them up in a row, biggest to smallest ... in honor of my OCD. Today, I just piled one up and stared at it for a very, very, very long time:

There are 9 dolls in it, just like all of these:

Something tells me that I need to probably work on getting my life looking more like my little blue ladies here, or even my Red Ladies - everything hidden inside, neatly, but there - when I want to get to it. It occurred to me that I just need to start ... one at a time, littlest first...

No problem at all.

"Retail Therapy"

Gary is one of those lucky husbands that has a wife that feels better when she shops. My friend the other day put a name to it that I had not heard: "Retail Therapy". Currently it is cheaper than the real thing, unless you count everything I have purchased for my big Super Saturday - which has been a blessing. It is a huge distraction and a lot to do - Super Craft Saturdays don't get done by themselves ... and I decided not to delegate so that I HAD to get up and do something. Currently I am proud to announce it is a week away and all I have to do is find a few funnels and buy some ink pads - did the rest this week - so I didn't sit and stare at the walls all of the time. Now just pretty much terrified with the amount of extra time that leaves in the next 161 hours (exactly).

I found this box and it felt 'right' - so, I bought it. Don't know where it lives right now we just stare at each other kinda getting use to the idea of having a Willow Tree box living in the house with me.

Of course, it was the quote that clinched it: "Protect and cherish, give wings to fly".

I sit at my desk and look at it and wonder if she was ready when I pushed her out of the nest ... I guess time will tell....

Jessie's Mom

Sitting in the dark last night, wondering why I can't sleep, get anything done and just stare at the walls, I thought: I'm "Jessie's Mom". I have been for some time. Doctors would ask, "Are you Jessie's mom?" and then tell me the news - good, bad, devastating, whatever. I would be at the store and people would ask "Are you Jessie's Mom?" - the answer was always yes. I was ALWAYS "Jessie's Mom" - there was no way to stop, no breaks, no reprieve.

I realize that being Jessie's Mom was a full time job. She would be up in the middle of the night often, wet and I would get her changed and back in bed - so I did not stop even at night. While she was at school I hurried to get all the things done that other people just did ... anytime - but when Jessie came home, things were different. I used to tell people when we were trying to schedule things that my life ended at exactly 2:15pm Mon - Fri. I had to be home to get Jessie off the bus, and then it was 'Jessie time'.

Obviously that is all gone now. She calls, daily - sometimes more than once and sounds good, but always asks if I can come and get her and bring her home. Sometimes it is very hard to tell her that is where she lives now and that I would see her soon. So small moments of "Jessie's Mom" and some of the hardest part of being "Jessie's Mom". But this is such a small part of my day it does not really count.

I realized at exactly 2:57am this morning that I had lost "Lori". Twenty years of being "Jessie's Mom" is a long time. The little parts that weren't "Jessie's Mom" I was "Ryan's Mom" and "Gary's Wife" I ran out of time ... for me.

So, I have a piece of paper in my wallet, small - like a Chinese fortune cookie fortune - saying: "Find Lori" - and it is my number one goal right now. After 20 years, I am assuming it might take some time, but I will get there.

I just have to figure out how to start.

OK, maybe the glass is half empty today...

I wake up when I wake up and I feel it. I get up and wander this huge house and I feel it. I try to get things done, anything - I have a whole list - and I would be so proud to mark anything off it - one thing and I would say that I have my 'act together', but can't seem to because I am distracted with 'that feeling'.

It is always there, just out of my grasp - like a scent long past, but every now and again you get a whiff of it, it flows past your face like a silk scarf on the breeze and you remember. Jessie's spirit is gone and has left such a hole in this house and our family that I don't know what to do, I don't know how to get it back. I don't miss the yelling, the cleaning up blood, the hitting, but I would give anything to have her sitting in the living room right now talking to daddy on her finger phone telling him how her day went, because, you know what I just realized? Her days are always GREAT! She saw the wonders of the universe in my flowers outside. She talked to angels on the phone. She knows more about Christ than I do. I truly think she can talk to the dog. Her happiness, and pureness, and closeness to God drifted in and out of her just as she breathed, wafted and filled our house with an intangible protection. An we, unknowinglly, unseeingly ignored it ... until it was gone and now we can't figure out what is wrong.

And now she is sharing that with others. Last time I spoke to an adult at RSS, they said they wished they had 10 Jessie's.

Me Too....

Where Dreamcatchers (and my sanity) go to Die...

Here’s the thing … I just wanted my kids to have a good education and Travis High School seemed like the place. Never mind that Gary’s boss happened to be in the same ward we would be living in … a bit awkward, but not a disaster, right? Until he gets called as Bishop – so now Bishop and Boss – still fine, I just avoid him. Enter my calling: Enrichment Leader for Relief Society – I have been surviving. We have a high number of Enrichment Activities each month and I have not set fire to the church during any of the Enrichment Nights – so pretty good … for me.

Now, some lady donates a boatload of craft crap and we are supposed to have a Super Craft Saturday, and me? I am a ‘crafty’ wannabe but mainly clueless. Who is the Queen of Craft in the ward? Yeah, the Bishops wife – a wonderful lady I have also been trying to avoid since I can hear the conversation with her husband one evening: “Honey, did you know that Gary’s wife is batshit crazy?” (Ok, she would not say ‘batshit’, but what it is, is what it is …).

She is going over to the house full of the craft crap with me on Monday and I am a bit worried that after, we will come to my house to discuss the dozen or so craft projects that I had come up with and the supplies left needed to get. In my mind, this escalates to going into my craft room, which escalates to “holy crap, it's a mess", which escalates to me at Target today buying 6 large drawer sets, 3 small drawer sets and other spurious 'organizational doohickies' to clean up my craft closet and my craft room, which, actually, had me productive for one whole day this week (since I am sure anyone out there reading this does not count blogging as ‘being productive’ – I am still avoiding life with gusto).



So, when she has that conversation with her husband, it will NOW go: “Honey, did you know that Gary’s wife is batshit crazy? Although, she has a lovely craft room".