family pic for austin goes zero contest

finishing something means starting again

i passed my last teacher test (for a while) and emailed my professor tonight with the results. i should have my certificate in the next few days if all goes well.

i've been working the teaching certificate angle since 2008 and now i have a great job...a career, actually, and i am more secure than i ever have been. making more money, still renting the same house, working on a great marriage, got finny to the little boy stage, teaching him to read, feeling successful...but now i just feel like i should start another to-do list.

this to-do list will be crazy ambitious like i think i'll learn college algebra or paint the ceiling in my living room. i think about driving to california with finny or learning chinese online. i want to know which one is more difficult but i want to know from experience and not cause i wiki'd it.

i want to see rebecca in iowa and sit in on a grad school class with her. heck, i think i'll go to grad school myself.

chicago is on my top 5 list of places places to go...i think i'll drive there too, after california, before maine to see the leaves change. josh and i can get married there with all of our friends. or at the lady bird johnson wildflower center in april when the bluebonnets are in full swing.

how about don quixote? never read that...i'll write that one down too. and paradise lost.

i'll keep a journal again.

i might make it to one of those writing groups that i keep missing.

i'll drink water in the evenings instead of coffee and tea. i'll write blogs instead of philosphies of education.

be normal and fun. and not have so many mood swings.

i don't think much has changed except the teaching certificate thing but this feels like a new leaf.

ooo (a poem)

wine. drink. myself in the chandelier.

alone. gone to bed. the cats move around.

bugs hit windows and crickets.

ALONE.

I'm letting IT in.

Feels...

LIKE I CAN'T BREATHE. LETS HAVE A FUCKING ASTHMA ATTACK REAL QUICK. ITS THE WINE AND THE SODIUM NITRATES IN THE PRIME RIB AND THE SMALL CHILD SLEEPING AT MY SIDE I AM NERVOUS AND EXCITED. GET USED TO THIS YOU ARE COMING HOME FOR GOOD AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME BITCH. WAIT. YOU'RE NOT A BITCH THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT. I WAS SAYING THAT I'LL BITCH. ABOUT THINGS. THAT HAPPEN. THAT'S ME. AND THE WINE.

OOO...the moooon. alone. feels good. slow. down.

wow. that was quick.

feelings are strange.
<------------------------------->

Rumi--

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down to a flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

Word.

last day of momma time

today is my last day of self-vacation and i'm feeling time destructive. it started yesterday when i sat on my bed for three hours and colored a picture of a cat that i had drawn a couple of weeks ago. i had to go into finnegan's room twice to get different colors of crayons but that, with the exception of getting up to look for a random book that i thought might make a good background texture, was the only time i put my feet on the floor.

i'm gonna go ahead and blame it on hurricane alex.

before:


after:

one childhood memory of mine

So i'm reading Bird by Bird by anne lamott which is a book on writing and other things. i love the author because when i had just had finnie my photographer ex-roomate/friend gave me a book by her called Operating Instructions. It was a journal of her son's first year and i would recommend it to anyone even remotely considering have a child. lamott is self depricating and funny and an ex-alcoholic and completely in tune with her feelings in a way that is womanly-macho and honest as hell. she is able to take feeling like utter shit and completely hopeless and make it entertaining and useful. and i would sit there breastfeeding, in the midst of post-partum depression thinking that finnegan didn't like me, never would love me and that i was going to inevitably fuck him up royally and think...i am not alone. and that was so. very. important right at that very moment. anne lamott is, therefore, forever in my love map.

in bird by bird she says to approach writing like looking at a one inch picture frame. keep it small so that you're not scaling mount everest when you should be taking a stroll on the greenbelt. and she says to write down your childhood memories. here is one of mine that i love to think about. i tell this my way. this is how i remember it. i don't care how truthful it is to someone else. this i believe is my truth about the tarantula. so, back off, mom. this is my blog.

ok here goes:

when i was five my dad found an enormous tarantula in the bathtub. as you can probably guess, he didn't just happen upon it when he was grouting the tile or discover it when he was going to comet the tub, he was sitting on the pot taking a poo. we had just moved in to a house in a community where my grandparents lived, called Ransom Canyon. now, when we visit, the neighborhood looks like any other, houses practically built on top of eachother. a row of houses, a cul-de-sac, a row of houses, a cul-de-sac. but back then ours was one of the only houses on the block. behind us was a field full of mesquite trees and cacti and scrub grass and grasshoppers and obviously, displaced tarantulas.

so, naturally, my dad gave this tarantula a new home in a mason jar. and my brother and i pissed it off and watched it sleep for about three days before my dad decided to give it back to the field from whence it came.

the moment of the tarantula's reentry into the wild is probably one of the most vivid and telling memories i have of my dad from when i was young. i think i felt like i understood him a little better and i now knew why his friends called him jumper when they pitched horseshoes at the lake.
he was standing on the side yard with the mason jar when he opened it very slowly. i was scared the tarantula was going to seek revenge on me for the three days of torment so i ran across the drive way into the big part of the yard and turned around to watch from afar. and at the moment of my turn, i see my dad shake out the mason jar, wait a millisecond and then stick out his leg and flip his foot with a move classic to hacky sack champions the world over. the tarantula was stalled on my dad's reeboks. he wanted to stay with us.

i think my dad knew what my mom would say if the spider didn't return back to his natural place so he lowered his foot, let the tarantula walk off and hung his head and waved goodbye. we met on the driveway and recounted the tale with my brother who i'm sure was watching too. i just remember my dad.

so there. a one inch picture of my five year old life. that was fun.

a storm of words and contemplation

i looked at the post from june of last year when i talked about finny's first sentence. no one could BELIEVE the things that come out of his mouth these days. as we were leaving his school today he said goodbye to the gentleman sweeping the floor. i'll do this one in dialogue form:

Finny- "BYE!!"

Gentleman-"Well, goodbye there son."

Finny- "I'm going to my home."

Gentleman- "Oh, are you going to eat some dinner? What are going to have for dinner?"

Finny- "I'm going to have raisins."

Gentleman- "Really, raisins?"

Finny- "Yes. They're my favorite. Okay. BYE!! Have a good time! Sweepin the floor! BYE!!"

Gentleman- ( gentle laugh and a tilted head questioning look of 'how cute was that')

I'm going to attach a video camera to his head so noone, not nobody misses these things.

breaking silence again

i get so busy! that i can't write! but recently josh went out of town for a week and i did it all on my own here at the house. complete with dinner and to bed on time and baths and all that. so i have a new found independence and i'm not falling asleep on the couch every night right after i put finny to bed. and i'm cooking dinner all the nights this week. i have a list. and i'm not afraid to use it.

more to come.