Squirrel Antics

We have a bird feeder that the squirrels had started getting to, so we moved it higher up the window in the hopes that no squirrels would be able to find a way to reach it anymore. Then, a couple days ago, I heard a thud, so I ran out to the kitchen to see what had happened. This is what I saw. (The bird feeder itself had been knocked to the ground.)

The poor squirrel was breathing hard and clearly freaking out, thinking, "Why do I always get myself into these messes? What am I going to do now?"

 

A minute later, his last claw slipped, and he fell some more. This time, oh joy, he caught himself by sinking all his toes into the formerly lovely mesh of our screen window. But again, he was stuck. Another few moments, and he slipped and fell the last few feet to the ground. Obviously he wasn't hurt, but I sure hope it teaches him to avoid our bird feeder from now on!

Miracle(s) of the Ceiling Fan

Home ownership. Ah, the joys. Every week there's a new adventure in "this was really not installed correctly the first time." I blame MacGyver. A whole generation of us grew up thinking there was no need for appropriate materials. A wad of chewing gum and a paperclip, and voila! Fixed.

So, for example, our coat closet has been nearly impossible to shut correctly for months, if not years. This week, I finally decided to figure out what was going on. It turns out that the screws that someone had used to replace one of the bottom hinges were completely wrong. They were really long and threaded on the end but not toward the head. The closet door, of course, is mostly hollow with just a half inch or so of solid wood to screw into at the beginning. So the screws went in with grippiness (a technical term) but then had nothing to grip with when it actually mattered. I took those screws out and replaced them with ones that worked.

Sadly, because I didn't have matching screws for the job, my replacements--though they work--are also, essentially a juryrigged job. Thank you, MacGyver.

We also have a pipe that was installed--by a licensed professional, ugh--that is not correct to code. We can't get hold of him to fix it. There's also the fact that nearly every door in our house has had problems, the really cheap matte paint throughout the whole house that looks disgusting at this point (because, hello!, children), the fencing that we had to replace when we moved in and that was not well-done (the gate is impossible to latch anymore; it hangs too low), and the wallpaper in the bathroom that someone just painted over instead of removing.*

But this week, we finally conquered one of the Things That Should Never Have Happened. The outdoor ceiling fan and light fixture.

Here's the thing: When you put up a fan outdoors, you're supposed to use an outdoor fan. Outdoor fans have nice covers that keep out the birds. Outdoor fan blades are not made out of cardboard that wilts and droops. Outdoor fans are meant to be used ... outdoors.

Our old fan/light combo was awful. I mean, the birds liked it (except that dead one last year that I found just hanging from it, upside down, stuck in all the nesting materials that were dangling from the motor housing--but that bird probably just died of old age). At least one new generation of offspring called that place its home. But we never used it, and it looked like the plague was coming for it. So we finally bought a new one, and I began to install it.

Look, I know everyone makes jokes about IKEA instruction manuals, but I think those IKEA manuals are amazing. I have never had a problem with them. The instructions for this Harbor Breeze fan, on the other hand--nope. And it's not the first ceiling fan/light kit I've put up, so I do have some basis for comparison. To be honest, actually, I think the thing could have been constructed to be easier to put together. It was surprisingly difficult, especially compared to the ones I've done in the past.

This is where we finally get to the miracle portion of the story.

In the process of removing the old fan, I was supposed to save the screws that attached to the outlet box so that I could attach the new fan. I knew this. But I was just not thinking very well, and so I allowed them both to drop to the ground (of our deck, which has slats that things can fall between). Then I got down from the ladder and actually threw one of them away in the bag full of garbage (including tons of nesting materials) from the old fan. I could not find the other.

And suddenly I remembered that I was supposed to save them. Argh. I hunted around the ground, tried to sift through the garbage bag, and couldn't find either. I had to give up for a while and figure out what to do (also to feed those pesky children who keep insisting that they need to eat occasionally!).

Fast forward to hours later when I explained the problem to Brice and he suggested we use our uber-strong magnet to try to find them. I found about five or six screws in the nesting junk, and it looked like one of them might be it. But only one. We needed two. So we sifted a little more, sorted again, and suddenly there were two. Seriously, I really don't know how we found the second one, but we did. It was just there. Miracle!

I went through the next several steps of installation, did all the wiring, and got the fan blades ready to attach. The design for this was really bad. It was extremely difficult to attach the fan blades because of the positioning of everything. I tried and tried, and I kept dropping the screws! This time I knew it was bad, so I put a rug under me to catch things, but it was still going badly. I dropped one that rolled off to who-knew-where. I got down to look around a bunch, and again, just when I'd sort of given up, I turned and saw Ammon playing with it. Yay!

Anyway, making a long story short, it was a little thing, but I really believe we were blessed with little miracles to help us finish the project. And now we have a nifty new ceiling fan/light that is meant to be used outdoors. Hooray!

* By the way, despite all the frustrations that sometimes attend home ownership, I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity. Our home has been such a blessing, and I'm grateful that we found it and grateful for our neighbors and friends, etc. But there are the downsides.

Recent Epiphanies

1. I realized this week that with six people in the house who usually wear clothing, we produce a load of dirty laundry almost every day. Nudism is suddenly looking more appealing.

2. I was sitting on the couch, rocking a bit in discomfort, and wondering what fresh horrors my period was going to visit upon me this month, when something occurred to me: I'm only thirty-six. That means I have ten years more of this, give or take. Ten. Years. I just ... bleh.*

3. We do not have a psycho neighbor who keeps sawing away our aluminum ties that Brice keeps putting on our fences. Hooray! Apparently squirrels like to chew on soft aluminum. Squirrels. Sigh.

4. Other things that happen when you have six people: You can easily eat an entire cantaloupe in one meal. You have to peel more than three clementines. You go through a LOT of water. Also, dishes. You rarely have as many leftovers as you think you will. Your dining room table that seemed so big when you first bought it now seems like a regular size. There is six times the amount of fun and silliness, chaos, and laughter, and tears, and joy.

5. Today is the day that Mormon Lit Blitz posts my story! That means I should be putting some sort of effort into advertising it, right? Because writers need to practice self-marketing? So here's me advertising. (I'm sorry to say that I'm going to send you on a link parade because it's much easier for me than re-copying all the pertinent info here, so ... sorry, not sorry.)


*Warning: In case you were considering giving me all sorts of wonderful advice about how to make periods less awful, probably don't bother. Either I've already read and dismissed it, or it would require suddenly becoming a new person (e.g., drink more water, eat healthier, lose weight, exercise more, etc., etc.--all good advice, but all obvious, and if I'm not succeeding at these things for general health purposes, it's not going to suddenly happen because I have lousy periods).**
**Double extra warning: Really, really don't comment if you're just going to say how wonderful periods are and I should really embrace them because womanhood! motherhood! yada yada! If you are going to say something like this, you should just be grateful that you're saying it from a safe distance.

Scattered Thoughts

I’ve started avoiding blogging again because I only have little bits and pieces to tell, not any sort of coherent narrative of really anything. But that means stuff is piling up, so we’re doing another random pile o’ junk post. (Also, I started this a week ago, so it’s all old news, but I’m not going to try to fix any weird verb tenses or time references. Ptui.)

Major Minor Miracle. Yes, I know “major minor” doesn’t make sense, but here’s the thing: it was a total miracle to me, and really huge for that particular moment in my life, but it’s also ridiculously small. Yesterday I was so stressed out over preparing for our co-op’s class fair that is happening tomorrow. I had a list of performances on a sheet of paper, and I needed it so I could type up the programs for the fair, but I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. I’ve been on high stress about this activity for a while now, and this was the last straw. As I searched, I prayed—please, please help me find it. I looked in every spot I could think of that it could have possibly ended up, and I finally hit the last spot—the car—and it wasn’t there.

I came back inside the house feeling utterly defeated and on the verge of tears. Again I prayed. Please. Then my eyes wandered over to our fireplace mantle, where our family yearbooks are lined up, and there was the paper, sitting with the yearbooks. Exactly where I had put it and completely forgotten it almost a week ago. I was so grateful.

Koa the Earthling. This just barely happened—Koa walked out into the living room with a box on his head. He told Brice he was an earthling.

The Anthology! My latest gigantic and insane project is finally finished and printed and distributed! I’m enormously proud of it. It’s a collection of stories written by the teens in the writing class I’ve been teaching at co-op this last year. I’ll be posting more about it on my other blog soon and I’ll link there if I can remember. But let it just be said that it was a large undertaking and I am so thrilled to be done (but also thrilled to have done it).

Short Fiction. Speaking of writing, I have been returning to short fiction a lot lately and really enjoying it. It’s been so much fun, and I think I’m going to spend more time in short fiction for the next little while. I have several places I’d like to submit things to, so we’ll see.

Mormon Lit Blitz. Also speaking of short fiction, go look here! Pay particular attention to the entry for June 10th.

Mother’s Day. Brice is so wonderful. He made Mother’s Day quite lovely, as he always does. This year he made me a delicious breakfast frittata and said, “Fri-tada!” Complete with a “tada” gesture. It was pretty great, but it doesn’t translate on paper very well. Also, he bought me a lock-picking set! Yay! Now I can start learning a new skill. It comes with a see-through lock, which is pretty cool because then you can actually see the mechanisms, which I’ve never really understood before.

I love this about Brice—he is always supportive of my whims and desires to expand my learning, even when it’s silly.

Compliments. Okay, this is probably weird, but I keep two compliment files—one is informal, in my memory, and the other is actually in a file in my email. The email file is where I put emails or facebook messages or other communications that people sent me that were really touching and made me feel all glowy and happy. I get to go back and refer to it occasionally when I’m feeling particularly crappy. The other file is my internal list of the weirdest/funniest compliments I’ve ever received.

This last week, I got to add two potential compliments to the weird file.

1. As part of our class wrap-up, I was asking the teens what their future plans were with writing. Many mentioned how they felt about the class (overall positive), but this was my favorite: “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

2. Driving home from church on Mother’s Day, Brice and I were talking about how our various parenting abilities had improved since the beginnings. I mentioned that I was much better with small children than I used to be (though still not very good), and he replied that he thought I was “pretty decent.” Which was both honest and amusing, given that he said it on the day we’re supposedly telling all the mothers how incredibly awesome they are. But actually, “pretty decent” felt like a pretty great compliment. It was real and completely believable (not like “you’re the best with babies!” which would just be a lie).

Must update photo! Holy crumbs, I just looked at the photo that’s on our blog header, and we are two babies behind. Yikes. I really need to fix that. Someday...

The end. Oh so many times in the past little while I’ve thought of something to add to a blog post, but I never do remember them long enough to add. So we’ll just end here.

In honor of his birthday...

 The baby took nine steps today!

Yesterday and Tomorrow

 Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death. Maybe I'll sound callous saying this, but I didn't remember it. I rarely do. The only reason I remembered today was because I was doing a critique for someone who'd written a story about grieving, and part of her story was so much like mine that I suddenly noticed the date.

When my mother died, I was in grad school. It was break, and we were all meeting with our professors and planning our schedules for the summer. I had a lot to do. It's not like we were super close. I hadn't lived with her growing up, and things were complicated. And we all knew her death was coming. So really, I told myself, I should just be carrying on and getting stuff done. I had clients to see, a meeting with my professor, some case notes to type up. After all that, then there would be time to grieve or feel whatever I was supposed to feel.

I remember one of the other students really wanted to be in the practicum class I had been assigned to. She came to talk to me in the computer lab to see if I'd be willing to trade. We talked for several minutes, and I never once mentioned Mom's death. Later on, when she found out, she felt terrible for putting those details on me at such a time. But really, it wasn't her fault. She could not have known. I had given her no clue.

The facts and feelings finally came spilling out when I was meeting with my professor. We were discussing my progress in the program, and he was concerned about some of the things I hadn't gotten done yet. Like the good therapist that he was, he was kind but firm, and there was definitely some reprimanding to be done. I took it all in, silent and perhaps a bit withdrawn. A call in his office took him away for a moment, and while he was gone, I burst into tears. The poor man returned to the room to find me bawling, and at first he thought it was because of his comments. I quickly explained the real reason--funny that I felt the need to reassure and comfort him instead of receive comfort. It was strange that those few minutes alone, in the silence, were what finally brought on the breakdown.

I don't remember exactly what he said, but I suddenly realized that the way I was dealing with things wasn't quite right. I couldn't just pretend everything was the same. I needed to take a break. I needed to get back home to be with my siblings as we planned the funeral and dealt with her possessions. I needed to let people know.

I remember the weird awkwardness of calling all my clients to tell them I was cancelling appointments because of a "family emergency." Some of them asked if everything was okay, and I just told them yes. What else could I say? I was their therapist, not the other way around. So I still wasn't telling it all, but at least I wasn't pretending to myself anymore.

Even now it all seems surreal, this strange detachment, this desire to just keep moving.

And yet.

I fast forward now to the preparations for Mom's funeral. My older sisters and I gathered at the funeral home to put the finishing touches on Mom's body. It sounds morbid and weird--and at first it felt that way too--for us to work over her body, doing her hair, trying to get that ghastly orange makeup to not make her face look too fake. Who knew that a dead body's hairstyle was so hard to get right?

It sounds awful, but it wasn't. It was, for me, the most important step in my grief. I looked down at this body lying before us, and the overwhelming feeling came to me: This is not my mom. This is the house she used to live in. She isn't here anymore, and that's okay. She's just moved out of town. It wasn't so much about being detached finally as it was about realizing that it was okay.

Tomorrow is Easter. It's the day we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of the one who made it possible for me to say that--she is gone, but I will see her again. There are things for us to sort out, apologies and forgiveness to be had, hugs to be given. Knowing my mom, there's probably some crocheting to do.

I am grateful to know that even when sadness comes--and it does--it doesn't have to last. He is risen, and we will too.

Totally our kid

There are moments when you turn around and think, "Yep, that kid is definitely mine." This is one of those moments.