Praying for the light...

My heart is heavy. I walk around doing the day to day things that, strung together, moment by moment, make a life. But since Saturday, they are strung together not with the normal ribbons of joy and laughter, but with the brittle thread of tears, grief and confusion.

Sunday morning, the caller ID announced an early morning phone call from my best friend, Heidi, half-way across the country. I chirped a sunny, "Good Morning!" and heard, muffled from the other end, "No, it's not."

Death. Early, untimely, and unfair. Death has stolen my friend's true love. Death has taken a Daddy away from his children. Death has come far too close to home.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a person of deep faith. Today, I don't feel the depth. I don't rejoice knowing he is in a better place. I dwell on the darkness left here now that his light is gone.

I pray for Andrea. I pray for Jacob and Sydney. I pray for the light that I know will come.

Who are you today?

I kinda like waking up each morning and deciding who I am going to be for the day. Some days I go to a public school and teach. Substitute teaching is actually kind of fun. You get to spend the day in someone else's shoes, which, in a voyeuristic sort of way is exciting. Best of all, there's not much pressure. Most teachers and principals feel that if you make it through the day without killing one of them or yourself, it's been a pretty successful day. I can swing that. Avoid homicide? Check. Avoid suicide? Check.

And some days, you get that really jazzed up feeling that I have missed...the one where you (yes, it's cliche') make a difference.

Ever since I spent three years of my life as a special education teacher, I have had a soft spot for those kids. The ones that need a little extra. Sometimes it's extra time, extra effort, extra attention. But a lot of the time they just seem to need a little extra love. Kids can be so painfully vulnerable and it makes you wonder how any of us have managed to make it to adulthood reasonably unscathed after being raised in a world full of grown ups. Teachers can be so mean. They can remove themselves so much from their inner child that they successfully ignore the tears that spring up in a big 4th grader's eyes because he has to leave art class for reading remediation. How can they forget? How can they not remember how it felt to be a child and be called out for being different? I don't ever want to grow up to the point where I lose my ability to see the world from a couple of feet below my shoulders. And yes, Donny, one day you will see that being able to really read is more important than making clay animals. But rest assured, Mrs. Smith gets it. I get that today, it's not. Today, you just want to sit with the rest of the 4th grade, with their big hunks of greasy grey modeling clay and be no more or no less than average.

I can't help but feel like we are doing them a disservice. I don't know the answer to improving the public education of inner-city students. I care. I really do. But on the days that I substitute teach at a certain school, I leave feeling like a fraud. I leave their loud, crowded, and chaotic school and drive my SUV a few blocks down the very same street to my son's quiet, calm oasis of a private school...where the teachers have the luxury of teaching students whose parents not only care about their schoolwork, but sometimes care too much. Those same students who don't have their only hot meal at school, because they all bring their high-protein, low-sugar lunches to school with a cold pack. They have had a hot meal for breakfast, and will have another for dinner, unless dinner consists of teka maki and a california roll. They don't barrel out of under-supervised yellow school buses, but rather hop out of german engineering in the carpool lane. They don't attend the school within walking distance from home, they attend a school their parents have researched and deemed the best philosophy for the type of life they want to provide for their child. It's more than meeting an obligation when I go down the street. It's about paying more than most do for a college education for preschool that nurtures the whole child. And I'm not mocking myself or my fellow Montessori parents. Well, not much. :)

It just seems, each time I drive the 4 blocks that takes me from one world to another, that here is here, and there is there, and where is the in between?

John McCain is a GOOD man...

So says my three year old.

I'm so guilty. So guilty of using my three year old's innocence to promote my political agenda. But I'm in good company. My uber-liberal, Obama-volunteering best friend abuses her mommy power to indoctrinate her preschooler, too, so if I'm guilty, I'm in good company.

A few moments after my son was born, before he was even dry, my dear husband exclaimed, much to the delight of my obstetrician..."A little Republican!" And now, in this heated election he wears his "Little Republican" shirt proudly. Just not to the Montessori School, where he probably would never be welcome again.

We have a little dialogue in our family these days. It goes like this...
"Harrisen, who you gonna vote for for President?"
"John McCain!"
"What about Obama?"
"OBAMANATION!"

Ok, it's funny. Especially out of the mouths of babes, ya know?

In Denver, at my best friend's house, the dialogue goes like this...
"Tommy, who's Obama?"
"Our next President!"
"Who's John McCain?"
"An OLD MAN!"

So tonight, as we watch thirty long, agonizing minutes of the Barack and Michelle show, Harrisen says, "John McCain is gonna win cause he's a GOOD man."

I wish, Buddy, I wish.

No matter what the funny dialogue is in your home this election year, the Smith family prayer is for a safe, strong America. God Bless Her.

Monkeys and Zebras and OH MY!

I am quite proud of myself. Unlike most things in life where I make myself somewhat miserable trying to make mountains out of molehills, I have made a tiny step towards simplicity this Halloween.

Halloween brings out the creative genius in a lot of people. I always know it's getting to be that time of year when I have to *gasp* wait in line at the friendly neighborhood fabric store to have my selections measured and cut. I always get inspiration from the people closely examining the pattern books for costumes, arguing with their mother in laws, and looking generally overwhelmed at the task of creating a costume from a flat piece of fabric or two. Inspired, because I can totally relate, even though the actual construction, thankfully, does not overwhelm me.

Halloween is a prime time for MOTY elections. Remember back in the 70's? I always felt bad for the kids in the vinyl smock with matching mask. I remember feeling so thankful that my mother could sew and create my costumes. I guess a little bit of that elementary school snobbery remains to this day because I put a lot of pressure on myself when it comes to my kids halloween costume.

For Harrisen's first "big" costume, I actually bought a serger. I had never used one, never thought I needed one, but I wanted the seams of his little monkey outfit to look professional. I cringe now thinking how I learned to use that machine on FUR of all things. (Not a great learning curve, looking back, but how was I to know?) And you know what? Aside from one ear a little askew, it was indeed, fabulous.

So fabulous, in fact that Evangeline is wearing it this Halloween. Therefore easing my workload, and conquering my obsession to be an over-the-top Halloween mom. A hand-me-down costume...and I'm totally ok with it! Score one for me!

Now Harrisen's costume...that's another story. I actually broke the above-mentioned serger doing the tail of his zebra costume. So, aside from materials and time, his lovely little zebra costume, including the authentic tail that I researched on Google, cost me $69 plus tax. But I learned a very good lesson. Never try to serge a zebra tail.

Journey into the unknown...

I recently escaped from one of the most damaging experiences of my life.  You know, the kind that makes you all "woe is me" and "why me" and a plethora of other pitiful and embarrassing emotions?  Well, this one really did a number on me.  I spent the better part of a month recovering from the trauma this "experience" inflicted on my psyche.  2 days after the great escape I was standing at my kitchen sink washing dishes, Fox news blaring in the background, husband arguing with the talking heads on television and my two kids wrestling on the floor and it's like a switch flipped on, and I could see again.  I stopped what I was doing, and said, "Scot, I'm home."  I had been present but absent for almost 3 months, and the weight of that realization really hurt. 

So, unwilling to let a poor (ok, poor is a really tame word.  But it's a PG rated blog. So there.) choice keep me down after it knocked me down, I started really looking for the lemonade.  I sure had a lot of lemons, so it just made sense.  I realized that maybe what I was doing wasn't what I was supposed to be doing, and God was setting me on a new path.  

Long story a little shorter, signs have been coming at me hard and fast.  The latest of which was just last night, when I found out I would not be returning to the NPO world right now, as I thought I might.  I've spent the better part of a decade raising money for very worthy causes...and I was pretty happy.  I was good at it.  It made sense and filled a need within me to do something that mattered.  But I can't help but see now that I have neglected my own creative soul in the process.  Surely, there is a way to do both.  So, I'm beginning the journey now. And it's exciting as can be.

Seashells...

We recently took our annual family trip to the beach. Yes, we go in February...it's usually still a little cold, but this year was fantastic. Wonderful weather, warm sunny days, and a new little girl to experience the joys of sand for the first time.

On our way down to the Gulf, there was a pretty significant storm which churned up the water a bit, which meant the seashells were plentiful. This is an especially fun thing for a two-and-a-half-year-old. Seashells are just magical to kids, and the beach was littered with them.

The problem was, because the storm was pretty violent, only the smallest of the shells were unharmed. Most of them were gorgeous, but missing parts...a little battered, splintered, and not quite whole.

I remember as a young girl (heck, even a young adult) searching for seashells on the beach and only choosing the whole, perfect beautiful specimens for my bucket. The broken ones were...well...broken. I only wanted the pretty seashells that looked like they were supposed to look for my collection.

It's funny how age and wisdom, and the trials of life change our perspective. I realized this time that I really loved the battered, broken seashells on the beach. The big beautiful orange fans of shells that were missing the top half of their glorious curve. The dark grey and maroon twirly shells with the tips missing. The sand dollars that were cracked open, showing the intricate maze inside. I found myself wondering where these shells had come from, and what they had been through to end up at my feet. What magnificant wave crashed on top of them to give them the scars they carried. I wondered if it is necessary to go through the storms and waves in life to see the beauty of something that has been broken.

I found myself pointing out shells to Harrisen with my sandy big toe, and watching him squeal and gasp at how shiny, how bright, how big, how small each and every one was. I wondered what he would go through in his life before he recognized the beauty of broken-ness. I wanted to protect him from it, knowing all the while that I can't.

I now know this. Nothing is perfect. Nobody that has truly lived life goes without being hurt. Nobody that has experienced great joy has done so without great pain, and scars can sometimes make us beautiful. Just like the seashells.

Each time we visit a beach on our travels, I bring back some shells and sand to save in a little glass bottle, labeled with the name of the beach and the date we visited it. I usually look for perfect little shells to sit atop the miniature beach in a bottle.

Not this time. Orange Beach, Alabama. February, 2008. Beauty out of broken-ness. The shells sitting atop the sand in this little glass jar will be beautiful. But they won't be perfect.

S-M-I-T-H

Good Lord in Heaven.

First, let me preface this by saying, this might not be exactly P.C. I have the utmost respect for people trying to get by in a language other than their native tongue. I'm the gal who asked a Senegalese holy man to "Sleep with a Slave" while living in West Africa. Did you know that in Wolof, "Sleep with Peace" is very very very similar to "Sleep with a Slave"?

That being said. Sheesh. The Indian out-sourcing of every.single.company is driving me totally batty.

I call Brother because I have lost the install disc to some very expensive software for my embroidery machine. The call goes something like this:

Them: Hello. May I have your name?
Me: Katie Smith

Them: Can you spell that please?

Me: Smith? S-M-I-T-H.

Them: Ok, that's Haiti. H-as in....

Me: No. Katie. K-A-T-I-E

Them: Thank you Mrs. Smith, for that information. What is your street address?

Me: 805 Cobblestone Drive. One word.

Them: That's Cuble, C-U-B-L-E

Me: No, Cobblestone. C-O-B-B-L-E-S-T-O....

You get the picture. She didn't do very well with Shreveport, either. Or my email address, which is uber long.

Then we get to the problem. My missing software disc.

Them: What is the name of the product?

Me: PED-Basic.

Them: TED-Basic? T as in....

Me: No. PED. P-E-D. It's your product. PED-Basic. It's a Brother software product.

Them: Thank you for that information, Mrs. Smith. What is the model number of your equipment.

Me: It's not equipment. It's software. A disc. I lost it.

Them: Which disc did you lose?

Me: PED-Basic. The software. The install disc.

Them: Thank you for that information, Mrs. Smith. May I put you on hold while I research your problem?

Me: What the fuck? (I didn't actually say this part out loud.)

When she comes back on the line she tells me that she cannot help me with my problem and she was transferring me to someone in "that department".

I thanked her and waited patiently.

When the person in "that department"....(what department is it? The department that deals specifically with morons who need to embroider their baby's easter dress and have lost their disc in a pile of sewing rubble?) answers the line, I have never been happier to hear a whiney nasal midwest accent in all my life.

Turns out I can download the software right on the website. *sigh*

Bless that poor Indian woman's sweet heart. I can't imagine spending all day every day on the phone talking to people I can't understand. And I imagine I was probably the kindest customer she spoke to all day.

Are Americans really too spoiled to take jobs like that anymore?