Lovely Spring

Today is a perfect spring day. I am sitting on my porch looking out at the new leafy green and listening to the birds. I love this whimsical poem by Billy Collins.

Today

By Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

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2014 in Books

I have spent the last few days devouring podcasts and articles about the best books of 2014. I haven't heard of many of the books discussed, but that doesn't stop me from greedily marking off new books to read and nodding with satisfaction at some of the choices.

I got a little thrill of delight to discover that I had read 4 of the New York Times Top 10 list for the year, and that there were among my favorite books of the year. They included:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: I think this one may be on every single roundup of the year that I've seen--definitely a general audience pleaser.  I read it on my trip to Seattle for my grandmother's funeral in September. And I just got it to give to my mom for Christmas. Set mostly in Brittany, France, and a mining town in Germany, Doerr masterfully shifts between two stories.  Werner lives with his sister in an orphanage, and is destined to become a mine worker until he discovers his talent for constructing and repairing radios. He is recruited to become part of the Hitler Youth, where he develops a way to track down Allied forces who surreptitiously broadcast low frequency radio messages.   Marie-Laure is a blind French girl who is forced to flee with her father to a great uncle's home in Brittany during the invasion of Paris. Her father has devoted his career to working as the lockmaster at the Natural History Museuem. In order to nurture his blind daughter independence, he builds her scale replicas of their neighborhoods that provide her with the visual map necessary to navigate on her own.  Eventually, their paths meet up.  The writing is gorgeous and the characters shimmer in front of you. Wonderful.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill: I read this one twice in quick succession when AJ was out of
town with the boys and MJ was at band camp. I had biked around the lake and over to Chipotle and then brought my food to the neighboring park to sit and eat and read. The narrator is an unnamed woman who gets married, has a baby, struggles to maintain a writing career, and then to understand her failing marriage. The narration has a scattershot feel, a deliberate choice by Offill to help us understand her anxieties, frustrations, and anger. There are a few neat narrative tricks that were quite satisfying. And I liked this from the Amazon review: the novel "shimmers with rage and longing and wit." I also really enjoyed listening to the Slate book discussion about it.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. This one also drew me in and I sat and devoured most of it in one sitting. Roz Chast, the New Yorker cartoonist, has written a graphic novel memoir  about her and her parents as they  declined in health, suffered dementia, moved out of their Brooklyn residence of 50 years to an assisted living facility, and then eventually died in their 90's. As the only child, she feels a great deal of stress and anxiety in trying to care for them and deal with many momentous decisions, while at the same time confronting her conflicted feelings in particular about her mother. It is heartbreaking, genuine, and sublime.


The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. I love Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental writing for the New Yorker, and this book expands on her work there. It turns out, as she aptly documents, that the world is in the midst of a massive dying out of many species due to rapid changes in the earth's atmosphere, oceans, and climate--populations of frogs in Central America, bats, coral, and rhinos are rapidly declining. She combines writing about the scientific discoveries around extinction and other historically relevant episodes with fascinating science reporting about what is being done to try to prevent species devastation. So so good. I absolutely loved her description of diving at the Great Barrier Reef, and am determined to go there someday before it completely disintegrates due to ocean acidification.

My other favorites from the year: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays by Ann Patchett, The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
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Harry Potter, the First Time Through

There are a new set of covers for the Harry Potter books. Have you seen them? They are lovely. Harry and Hagrid are strolling through Diagon Alley on the cover of book 1. We saw the whole series when Zane and I were in Barnes and Noble last week, picking up his free book that he earned from completing their summer reading challenge (don't get me started on Lego Ninjago books. I absolutely refuse to read those out loud.) Zane had recently started reading book 1, and asked if we could get book 1 with the new cover. I happily gave in.

This morning, Andy stopped by my desk (we now work for the same company) and handed me Zane's copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Zane took it with him in the car when Andy dropped them off this morning, but he didn't want to wait until Andy got home tonight to get it back--about two hours after I pick them up. He's already on page 262, and though I wonder how deep his understanding is, I'm happy to see him embrace the wonder of Harry Potter.

Last night, at Family Home Evening, we were talking about Harry Potter. Maren and Toby has to work very hard to restrain themselves from telling Zane what was coming next, and gave several hints about future events. Earlier, I had a conversation with Zane about how as a baby, Harry had miraculously survived Voldemort's attack on his family, as well as a discussion of the power of the sorcerer's stone. At FHE, he asked if the reason why Harry was "the boy who lived" was because he had possession of the sorcerer's stone. What a good theory, right? He also asked if Snape was good or bad. To which we all chuckled--the enduring mystery of Snape's motives carries to the very end of book 7.

I love my little bookworm.  He also commented this week that he prefers "realer" books when offered the opportunity to read an ebook.  My thought exactly!
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Door County

This week, we went to Door County, Wisconsin, a little spit of land that juts up into Lake Michigan.  We had spent a wonderful 4th of July holiday with our dearest of friends in Shawano, and then decided to continue on to Door County on our own.

We stayed at a wonderful little place in Fish Creek called Julie's, which backed right on to Peninsula State Park. A peninsula on a peninsula.  We could literally roll out of bed and onto the bike trail in the park.

The first morning, we all biked together. The morning was filled with a few small annoyances, though.  Maren's bike tire was flat and would not hold air.  So we switched bikes and I rode Andy's, with Zane trailing behind, Maren took mine, and Andy headed to the bike shop across the street, not open for another hour.  The trail was full of mosquitoes, and for every small stop, we were swarmed.  Maren took a bad spill, scraping up her palm and twisting her ankle.  We stopped at the light house and then  made it to Nicolet Beach to wait for Andy to join us, where Zane and Toby quickly got soaked.  All in all, it was a good morning together and we enjoyed the ride.

Unsteady hand while riding

The next morning, however, it was chilly and drizzly and Andy had a work call, so I went out on the trail by myself, leaving the kids to watch TV.  I hadn't brought a sweatshirt, but luckily I was able to fit into a boy's size 10-12 (snug, but warm).  It felt exhilarating to fly down the trail all by myself, with no one to wait for, no kids jockeying for first position on the trail.  It might have been the weather, but the trail was virtually deserted.  The gray day only accentuated the leafy green cloaked forest, and I felt joyful and peaceful to be out.



When I got to the end of the peninsula, the beach was deserted.  A white stone walkway extended into the water on Nicolet Bay, and I biked right down onto it, then threw my bike down and lay prostrate on the white stone, starting to process all the sensations my body was taking in. The sounds of the shrieking gulls, the trilling song birds, and wind brushed leaves. The gray clouds with light bursting through in spots, the tall green oaks, birches, and maples, the steely waves, the islands in the distance. Then I closed my eyes to see what I could feel.  The wind blowing on my face, the coolness and solidity of the rocks underneath my legs and back. And then I noticed the pounding of my heart. And in that instant, a rush of awe, delight, and joy.  My own self, my body, me.  I was in a lush, alive, beautiful corner of the world, and I was part of it.  I was united with something much bigger and more majestic than just myself. And I felt so lucky to be there and to have that moment.

Looking out over the bay

It's been a challenging few weeks for me with sad and divisive news coming from inside my church.  I want my church to be a place where the Kates and other questioners have a home and don't feel stifled and bullied into silence or disengagement.  I feel a little at sea, wondering where and how I fit in. Being out there, on the bay in Peninsula State Park, was a glory and a grace.  I have no answers, but I have my beating heart, re-centered so often by the trees and the flowers, the sky and the stars, the wind and the waves.
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I Choose to Begin

"I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past—then I choose to begin at this very second. Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Early Journals

I choose to write again.  Yes.
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A Misty Dream

Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, I dreamt that we decided to take a trip to Yellowstone over our fall break.  We were hiking along the south rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and the trees were brilliant with autumn reds, yellows, and oranges.  I was particularly happy because it had taken only four hours to drive there.

Then, as I was waking up and the veil of sleep was still hanging over me, I thought, "Oh, it's so great that Yellowstone is only four hours away from us.  Wait...Yellowstone is not four hours away from us.  It's a two-day drive!"  Then, I felt so sad.

We had such a wonderful trip back west, including several wonderful days in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.  And I have added two things to my bucket list.

1. When the kids are a few years old, rent a house near Yellowstone for a month in the summer and do a ton of exploring and learning in Yellowstone.

2.  When we're retired, become seasonal rangers at Yellowstone.

For now, I'm feeling a little blue that we didn't get more time there. I keep thinking up schemes on how I can get back sooner, rather than later.
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Things I'm Happy About This Week

1. All this sun. I love summer and I love that there are still traces of light in the air at 10 pm.

2. Our new Burley Piccolo tag-along that we got so that the Z-bug can ride along with us on family bike rides. Plus, I got it in great condition off of Craig's List. Score!

3.  Summer reading lists:  I have decided that I will incentivize the kids to read this summer by paying them for each book they read.  Spanish books are worth the most.  And better-written kids book also are of higher value than the general flim-flam that they sometimes read.  I have used Betsy Bird's top 100 children's novels as a starting spot.  I also made Z a picture list of her top 100 children's picture books, and he has taken a great deal of pleasure in reading books with me and then checking them off.  I am also happily putting together my own summer reading list.  I have decided that I am going to read off my shelves for most of the summer--all these wonderful books I own that I haven't yet read.  (I have a mental thing about giving library book priority since they have to be returned.)

4.  Major project at work done:  I am in charge of a big yearly survey.  After doing a lot of research, I decided that I wanted to include a $5 gift card in each mailed survey as a way to get people to send back the survey.  I had the budget for it and I had the research to back me up.  It turned out to be a giant headache.  Trying to purchase 1500 gift cards through the channels of a state-government bureaucracy is a bizarre labyrinth of ridiculous hoops.  But, this week, I got to take the last 500 surveys down to central mail processing myself and send them on their way.  Big sigh of relief!

5.  The purple wildflowers that are out in full force this week. (You can see them in some of the family photos in the link below).

6.  Which brings me to the happiest event of the week:  we got our family pictures taken.  A woman in our ward has started up a business, and she does amazing work.  She shot photos of the kids last summer, and we loved them.  When I found out she was moving to California, I knew that despite my personal aversion to having my photograph taken, we needed to get pictures of us all together.  I stewed and stressed about what we would wear, where we would go, and worried that I wouldn't like them.  But, when I saw a few of the pictures she took, I was moved to tears.  They are beautiful.  They capture my family.  And we got photographed with our beloved books!  Just perfect.  I will have to post a few once we get the digital copies.
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Mother's Day

I got to play the organ today, making it impossible for me to skip out of church at the last minute if I felt so inclined. Mother's Day is always a little bit iffy for me. I do like to hear stories of women over the pulpit. Yet, I really hate the One Size Fits All mentality and the pedestalization that sometimes comes when we talk about women and mothers.

Because it has been such a beautiful spring, I decided that we should sing about Mother Nature today rather than how time sweetly glides along when there's no contention at home. We sang "For the Beauty of the Earth", and then later "All Creatures of Our God and King", and I felt slightly subversive to mentally place Mother in Heaven into these songs. No mention was made of Her today in my ward. At least I didn't walk out in a rage.
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The house is not a garbage can

Why is it that my kids cannot put their wrappers, papers, and other junk straight into the garbage can? The worst times of the year are Easter, Christmas, and Halloween, when they get candy and they drop their wrappers on the floor wherever they choose to eat (which SHOULD be only in the kitchen, but somehow that never happens either). They also throw their wrappers behind the sofa and piano--is that any easier than throwing them straight into the garbage can?

I was very happy to see Mr Z (the youngest) pick up a candy wrapper off the street all on his own when we were downtown so he could throw it away. He's the only one of my kids who seems to have a gut feeling that tells him that you shouldn't mindlessly drop garbage on the ground.
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Found in my Bed Tonight

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Irony

In the February Relief Society newsletter for our ward, the presidency message cited Daughters in My Kingdom. Yay!

But, the quotation was by Brigham Young. Boo...
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Favorite Things About My Town

We moved to Eden Prairie in 2006, so come June, we will have 6 years here. Amazing. I don't think we thought we'd live here that long, and I started to feel really claustrophobic around year 4 1/2 when I realized we had been here longer than any other place we had lived. And to top it off, I liked it less than any other place we lived.

There are many things I love about Minnesota, and Eden Prairie. I am going to write about them to remind myself of what's wonderful (even if I don't think the whole package is perfect).

Number one over and over is Staring Lake, only a couple of miles from our house. It has a path circumnavigating the lake which trails through dense foliage and tall trees. There is a little outdoor center which offers kids' classes and family activities, and it has a telescope. There is a great park which the kids love and an amphitheater for summer music and drama. We are there during all seasons.

Because the winter has been so mild, we have been more often than other winters. T got to try out his new rollerblades right after Christmas. I took the kids there on a Sunday afternoon when AJ was gone and we walked around the lake and onto the frozen lake to slide around and look at animal prints.

Last week, I worked from home rather than deal with the traffic snarl-ups during a snow storm. At the end of my work day, I hustled over to the lake so I could get a walk in before picking up the kids. It was gorgeous. I was alone on the trail for virtually the entire time, with only the sound of snow crunching and an occasional bird call. There is something so soothing to me about walking around the lake.


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Time to Step it Up

Well, I just looked at my pathetic stats for 2011. A total of 11 posts. Terrible, just terrible. I have so many blog posts in my head (still thinking about summer 2011 highlights!), but then I get home from work and the last thing I want to do is sit down at the computer desk and type. I am going to try blogging from the iPad (anyone out there do that?) and see if there is less of a mental barrier.
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Career Aspirations

When we were out with kids this weekend, the conversation of their future careers came up.

MJ is going to be a rich and famous author (a la JK Rowling or Rick Riordan). She will have loft apartments in NYC, Paris, and Rome. And she has agreed that AJ and I can be the caretakers of her Rome residence.

Mr T wants to be a rocket scientist. He has promised to take me for a ride.

The Z-Man says he is going to write Elephant and Piggie books* when he is grown up. He has already been throwing around titles. "I Found a Hole" and "Come On! Come On! It's Time for a Playdate."

*If you don't know what these are, and you have a 2-7 year old, you must immediately find these books. Our favorites are I Broke My Trunk, Elephants Cannot Dance, and Should I Share My Ice Cream? We love Mo Willems in our house!

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Rain + Shutdown = Lazy

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but all morning, it's really dark out and raining heavily. Since I am not a critical employee to the Minnesota state government, I have been on shutdown vacation the last two weeks. This week, I was busy taking the kids to fun places, but today it's been lovely to lay in my bed reading a wonderful book, listening to the rain, while my kids play on the computer. There's a deal in the making, so I'll probably be back to work next week.

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Playing Poohsticks

"Pooh had just come to the bridge; and not looking where he was going, he tripped over something, and the fir-cone jerked out of his paw into the river. 'Bother,' said Pooh, as it floated slowly under the bridge, and he went back to get another fir-cone which had a rhyme to it. But then he thought that he would just look at the river instead, because it was a peaceful sort of day, so he lay down and looked at it, and it slipped slowly away beneath him, and suddenly, there was his fir-cone slipping away too.

'That's funny,' said Pooh. 'I dropped it on the other side,' said Pooh, 'and it came out on this side! I wonder if it would do it again?' And he went back for some more fir-cones. It did. It kept on doing it. Then he dropped two in at once, and leant over the bridge to see which of them would come out first; and one of them did; but as they were both the same size, he didn't know if it was the one which he wanted to win, or the other one. So the next time he dropped one big one and one little one, and the big one came out first, which was what he had said it would do, and the little one came out last, which was what he had said it would do, so he had won twice ... and when he went home for tea, he had won thirty-six and lost twenty-eight, which meant that he was - that he had - well, you take twenty-eight from thirty-six, and that's what he was. Instead of the other way round.

And that was the beginning of the game called Poohsticks, which Pooh invented, and which he and his friends used to play on the edge of the Forest. But they played with sticks instead of fir-cones, because they were easier to mark."

--A A Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Everytime we walk around the lake, we have to stop and play Poohsticks.

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Spring in Minnesota

Oh, how I adore spring. Everything is green and vibrant. Flowers are blooming, and the smell when it's raining? Divine. And winter is still months away.

We have really been enjoying a path through the woods very near our house which has been preserved because of a creek that flows through the area. I love the feeling of an alternate world, seemingly so far away from the suburbs, that is just outside my front door. It's like a secret place, which few people visit, and where signs of civilizations are rare. Mr T has been my partner in exploration.

This is a conversation we had on this path. The context was what we would do if we needed the bathroom when we were on the trail.

Me: "Did you know that astronauts can't take all the water that they need for a trip into space, and so they have a machine that can convert pee into water to drink?"

T (with a twinkle in his eye): "That is so gross...but so awesome at the same time!"

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Schizophrenic Weather

Monday and Tuesday this week were HOT. Very hot for the Twin Cities. It seemed like our lawn went from lush green to seared brown overnight. The high here on Tuesday was 103. That is the hottest day in the Twin Cities in 23 years! Today, it's chilly out--53 degrees. I chose a dress and sandals, and when walking in to work realized that I had underdressed. Luckily, I had a hoodie in the trunk. I'm sure I'll be wearing it all day.

Weird. Very weird weather.
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If you take a kid to soccer...

All my kids have liked the "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" books. One small thing happens, which leads to something else and then to something else, until you have a whole wacky string of events. Sometimes real-life random events with kids feel like they come directly from these pages, but not in a fun kind of storybook way.

Here's ours from last night and this morning:

• If you take a kid to soccer, he will run around a lot and need to drink a lot of liquids.
• When he comes home, it will be time for bed. If he and his little brother can't go to sleep in the same room because they goof around too much, he will go to sleep in his parents' bed.
• If all the kids finally get to sleep before 10, mom and dad will bask in a quiet house and try to get things done.
• If they take a long to come to bed, they will leave the soccer boy slumbering in their bed without taking him to the bathroom one last time. And just seconds before they come to bed, the soccer kid will expel an amazingly large amount of urine all over himself and his parents' bed, all without waking up.
• If the soccer kid wets all over himself and his parents' bed right before his parents are about to collapse into sleep, the dad won't feel like taking the time to find a entire new set of pajamas and will put soccer boy into the lower bunk bed with his little brother in only his underwear and with only one blanket.
• If soccer boy is sleeping only in his underwear in his brother's bed, he will try to steal the blanket because he is cold.
• If the blanket stealing happens early in the morning, little brother will not be sleeping deeply enough to ignore it and he will wake up and start screaming "My blanket!" over and over even though he went to sleep far later than he should the night before.
• And if your kid wakes up at 5:30, chances are you will not be able to go back to sleep, even if dad got up to take care of him. And even more likely, chances are that your kid will be cranky all day.

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I want a relaxing weekend!

May is a crappy month for Mother's Day. There is too much end of the school year stuff going on to really be able to relax. I think I would prefer the third Sunday in June. Why did they pick May anyway? So we could all wear our spring hats?

We have been going full speed ahead for a while now and I don't feel at all ready for another week to start. This is a summary of our last 8 days.

• The day before Mother's Day: Dance Recital, two performances. All in all, the total time committed there was from 2 pm until 10 pm
• Several soccer practices/games.
• Soccer pictures.
• Belt testing for karate.
• Karate tournament.
• School dance festival.
• Piano recital.
• Stake Relief Society meeting.
• AJ out of town for two days.
• And then there's just the normal: work, homework, practicing, feeding, clothing, and church stuff.

I'd better go do something relaxing right now so I don't simmer with resentment all week.
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