Time flies so quickly. Other times so slowly it feels painful to our minds and bodies. What amazes me sometimes is how things change and yet stay the same as the clock ticks away. Much has happened during the many months since I've written my last post here. Too much, in fact to even try and write about in one post. This poem by Barbara Crooker explains some of it.

In the Middle

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

A day late....

Yesterday was a special day for many reasons...

On July 4th in...

1776 - The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress in America.

1802 - The US Military Academy officially opened at West Point, NY.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was announced in newspapers. The property was purchased, by the U.S. from France, was for $15 million (or 3 cents an acre). The "Corps of Discovery," led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, began the exploration of the territory on May 14, 1804.

1817 - Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.

1845 - American writer Henry David Thoreau began his two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, MA

1848 - In Washington, DC, the cornerstone for the Washington Monument was laid.

1855 - The first edition of "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman, was published in Brooklyn, NY.

1863 - The Confederate town of Vicksburg,MS, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant.

1881 - Tuskegee Institute opened in Alabama

1884 - Bullfighting was introduced in the US in Dodge City, KS.

1886 - The first rodeo in America was held at Prescott, AZ.

1892 - The first double-decked street car service was inaugurated in San Diego,CA.

1894 - After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.

1901 - William H. Taft became the American governor of the Philippines.

1910 - Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.

1934 - Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight.

1934 - At Mount Rushmore, George Washington's face was dedicated.

1939 - Lou Gehrig retired from major league baseball.

1946 - The Philippines achieved full independence for the first time in over four hundred years.

1955 - The first king cobra snakes born in captivity in the U.S. hatched at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.

1957 - The U.S. Postal Service issued the 4¢ Flag stamp.

1959 - The 49-star U.S. flag was debuted.

1960 - The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia,PA.

1966 -U.S. President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.

1976 - The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.

1987 - Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the "Butcher of Lyon," was convicted by a French court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

1991 - My daughter was born at 4:34am.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!

I Am From.......

I am from cake pans and cookie sheets, the old dutch oven, scarred with burn marks on the outside yet spotless on the inside, from Frank’s canned sauerkraut and Bakalar’s hot dogs.

I am from the long, winding road that cuts through the bluffs full of green trees and stony outcroppings. I am from the century-old farm house across from a ridge full of pine trees planted by my own parents’ hands.

I am from the wild sumac, peony and lilac bushes, colorful and fragrant and full of flying ants that ignore protests from humans and fly into eyes, nose and ears. I’m from blackberry brambles, full of fruit ready to be picked in July and made into topping for vanilla ice cream.

I am from large and happy families with so many cousins, aunts, and uncles I easily get lost in the confusion of family reunions, from strong and stubborn German and Norwegians who carved out an existence here through the sweat of their brows and the work of their own hands

I am from those who are too easily offended and too proud to ask for help when their own backs are up against a wall.

From coming into the world as a surprise and “you should do as you’re told”.

I am from church every Sunday whether you feel like it or not, from that ol’ time religion, because it’s good enough for everyone.

I am from the north, the city next to the muddy river, from fiords and Scandinavia, from angel food cake and chocolate chip cookies.

I am from the stolen kiss taken while asleep, from walking miles everyday to see that special someone, and from love letters written from a far-away land during a world war.

I am from the cedar chest, from an old recording of two year olds singing songs and laughing with their parents. From albums stuffed and overflowing with pictures of times long ago, from newspaper clippings pasted into scrapbooks and treasures too valuable for a price.

I found this over at Cynthia's. What a great writing exercise!

Where have I been?

I wish I could think of some profound reason for my absence from this place for almost three months, but I really can't think of one. Sometimes I find a need to draw away from something in order to hopefully discover a new freshness about it when I come back.

I've been pretty busy during the past couple of months. Having a job, kids, and a husband makes life busy. Most of it would be kind of boring to write about, however. But since it's my blog and I can write whatever I want, I'll be boring.

My last entry here was one that celebrated my 17th wedding anniversary. The man I love did the dishes and part of the laundry for me yesterday. Yeah. He's a keeper.

My son is on the way to becoming a nutritionist. Tonight he said, "Mom, can I have some potassium?", as he pointed at the bunch of bananas on the kitchen counter. When he starts talking about folic acid I'll loan him out to the health food store here in town. He can be the walking talking health food encyclopedia.

I bought a new pair of shoes last month. Clogs. I haven't worn clogs since 1980 or something. Someone slap me upside the head if I buy a pair of platform shoes, okay?

17 years

Seventeen years ago today, I woke up an unmarried woman. I went to sleep with the man of my dreams.

Happy Anniversary, honey. :-)

There will be no other posting today. I plan on doing other things.

After reviewing the last few entries in this blog, it seems to me that there's an undercurrent of sadness. I guess I've been really down in the dumps lately, and it's spilling over here. And while I know that this is my space and I can say and feel anything I want here, I've decided that I need to do something about the gloominess I've brought here because I'm not normally a gloomy person.

In fact, I'm quite quirky sometimes. Some people would say I'm downright wierd. I'm probably the last person in the JLand blogging community to do this, but here are some of the wierd quirks in my personality. Hmm. Maybe I should have the teenager in the house help me do this. She already thinks I'm wierd.....

1. I can name all fifty of our great United States in alphabetical order. In fact, I can sing them in alphabetical order. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut....well, you get the idea.
2. Everything reminds me of a song. It drives my husband crazy sometimes. He'll say something like, "It might rain tomorrow" and instantly I'll start singing. You know, "It's Raining Men", "Raindrops keep falling on my head"..... I just love to embarass my kids with this, too.
3. I read everything. Cereal boxes, the telephone book, my kids' textbooks, the instructions for some gadget that I already know how to use. If I'm stuck with nothing to do, I'll read anything that's in sight.
4. Whenever I have a plate full of food, I plan the way I eat the items so that either one of two things happens. I end with a bite or two of the thing I like the most, or my last bite of my first helping will be the thing that I know I won't be having a second helping of. I know. Wierd.
5. I love barbershop music. No...not from the movie "Barbershop". I mean men's four part harmony. My dad sings in a barbershop chorus. In fact, he started singing with them the year my twin sister and I were born. The joke is that he simply had to have an excuse to get out of the house on a regular basis....for rehearsals, of course. I grew up listening to this stuff. I was born and raised on it. Some of my happiest memories as a child are of going on trips with my dad and mom and listening to the singing. And, because I have to share it with you, here's a link to a page with music clips on it. I don't yet know how to create links for individual mp3s here in blogger yet, but if you click on the link, it will take you to a Jukebox page. Scroll almost all the way down to the bottom, and you'll see the song "Stars and Stripes Forever". Go ahead and listen. It's really quite fabulous.
   

Parenthood

As much as I'd like to think I'm as funny as the Steve Martin movie, alas I am not. A few things have come to mind, though, in the last few days.

When you're 14 you think that you can wake up, get dressed, take the dog out, eat breakfast, and bundle up for the Wisconsin winter weather......all in 15 minutes. No matter what either of your parents say, that's the way it is. Now, this is a major frustration for the parents. And for the poor doggy waiting to relieve herself. If the young woman in question is trying to help her family members develop patience, it's not working. How to get that into her hard head is quite impossible, though. This whole situation is made worse by a little thing called a lock that is on her bedroom door. The parents cannot enter her bedroom to entice her out of her bed with things like ice cold water. All we can do is stand outside and pound on the door. One of these days, my hope is that the teenager will have a child exactly like her.

When you're ten you think that everything is a joke. A snowball thrown at the back of a parent's head, for example. Or tormenting the family pet with a battery operated robot. Or tormenting a sister with endless questions about the world around him. When you tell the child that these things are not funny, he doesn't believe you and stomps off to his room in disgust because "he was only joking." One of these days, my hope is that he will have a child who does the same things.

When you're 39 and a father, you think that teasing the children is okay. You think it's okay to tease the daughter about the boy who called the other night. You think it's okay to start rough housing with the son. The problem comes, though, when one of the children gets hurt, whether emotionally or physically. Is it so hard for you to apologize? One of these days, my hope is that he will see the boundaries that each child has around him/her and honor those boundaries.

When you're 41 and a mother you constantly find yourself in two worlds. One where the children are still young and you want to control everything from what they eat and wear to who their friends are and how much time they spend away from the home. The other where you are proud of your children's maturity and independance. Your heart swells when you hear your daughter giving advice to a friend about how to deal with peer pressure. You are so proud when your son defends an outcast at school and somehow finds a way for the other child to be accepted, however briefly, into his group of friends. I cherish both worlds.

One of these days, though, I hope to be more comfortable in the second one.

In Contemplation of the Ending of the Year

A Dream Within A Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep–while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

The time has flown by this year in a flurry of unexpected changes. There have been many times, especially during the last half of the year, when I've wanted to scream, "Stop the world...I want to get off!" Change is always a bit dizzying for me. My equillibrium was challenged and tested, and much to my surprise I did not fall. I'm still standing. I may be holding on by my fingernails, but by God, I'm still standing.

The new year will continue to bring more changes. Our lease for our house is only until May, and while this place has kept us warm and same, it has much to be desired. I have a job working in retail, but I'm not really much of a sales person. So, I'm keeping my options open, and if something else comes along, I will grab it. I plan on starting some college classes in a couple of weeks. For now, it will be at the vocational college, taking some refresher courses in Microsoft Office applications, and then, hopefully in the summer I will start some more substantial courses for a bachelor's degree.

So much to look forward to! I'm nervous and excited, and yet I'm still mourning what happened to us just a few months ago. But I really need to look forward. Focusing on what has been lost is not productive and can only cause more pain. I love Cynthia's entry for today. Go over there and read it. It's time to say, "Good morning!" and go forward.