creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

I have multiplying projects

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In fact, they are multiplying like bunnies, I seem to be unable to stop them, and it feels like a disease.

It all began last Thursday, when I realized that since my husband, who is lactose-intolerant, seems to be okay with lactose-free butter, cream cheese, and such I would be able to make a lactose-free Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (“Black Forest Cherry Cake”, I assume) for his upcoming birthday. I have never done such an elaborate cake (three layers, lots of whipping cream, chocolate batter, cherries, and decorating) in my life. So I had to make it into a project, complete with research, lists, the purchase of supplies, and a timetable to get it ready on time.

Then, on the same day, my mother-in-law approached me with a newspaper clipping of a fabric sale. Because my son had told her that he wanted to have a dolphin costume for carnival. Um. I really had hoped he had forgotten. I have tried to steer him towards nice pirate costumes, and books, and stories for months now, to no avail. Because the moment somebody told him the motto of this year’s kindergarten carnival party (above and under the sea) he wanted to be a dolphin. Now I’m stuck with the task of constructing, and sewing a dolphin costume. I thought I had found a clever way to make it easy when I found a how-to in a blog, but that costume was immediately rejected by my picky son. He wants one that looks like this. Which is for adults, has fans and ventilation and costs somewhat about 1,000€.

I spent most of Saturday researching dolphin costumes, thinking about construction, picking out fabric, and ordering some. Both my son and my husband told me they’d help with this but then, none of them can sew.

The third project was another upcoming family event. We have been invited to celebrate the birthdays of my husband uncle and aunt with them This shouldn’t be a problem at all, only I found myself worrying about every aspect of the whole thing on and off. What to wear? Will we go by train or car? (They’re living a little more than 100 km away.) When we go by train, how long would that take? Would they have room enough to take all four of us in their car from the station? How will the weather be? They are living in a place where people go to have skiing vacations. Our car isn’t exactly up to that. When we go by train how will we take the car seat with us? And on and on.

For once I decided to accept that I am a person who will worry about these things way too early. That telling myself not to worry doesn’t work. So I sat down, researched timetables, routes, printed out maps, ordered a lighter car seat for our son, discussed everything with both my husband and my mother-in-law, and now I’m set. I asked my mother-in-law to ask her brother-in-law if his car is big enough, and otherwise to please ask her other son if they could pick up one of us at the train station. Now I’m much more at peace with the whole thing, I have done all I can, for now.

I thought these projects were enough but then I got an invitation on ravelry to join a group planning the first ever German raveler meeting. I looked at it, and I could go because it’s the last weekend of summer vacation. Then I took a look at the workshops they offer. I wasn’t interested much. Then I saw that they are still looking for people to lead various workshops. And then I volunteered to hold one on sock construction according to Cat Bordhi. Then I started worrying again. Trains, hotels, workshops, what to wear (it’s in September, mind you). How to do the workshop. I even started mapping out a plan for the workshop, and again I found that I probably will continue doing this over and over again, until I write it down. So, today I might be doing just that. Sit down and plan a workshop I’ll be giving in September.

Seriously, my brain feels like it’s bursting. I’m longing for the promise of “mind like water” but I’m doubtful if I can achieve that in any amount of time. Everywhere I look in this house there is something screaming “do me!”, “clean me!”, “put me away!”. We’re slowly getting there but then there’s still the other things I already started like: the knitting projects currently on the needles, the knitting projects I just ordered the yarn for, the stories I started writing that aren’t finished yet, the finished knitting that still needs taking pictures of it, the 1,047 things I have to remember, people I have to call, e-mails I have to write. Things like “fill out this slip and bring it to kindergarten on Thursday”, “ask so-and-so about this”, “remind so-and-so of that”, buy this, take that away, go there, do this, and don’t forget anything.

It’s not so much about time management, it’s about brain management, and about emotions management. I have written about this in a post titled “How to be creative when you don’t have the time (part 3)“. Time to revisit myself maybe.

December Just Posts

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buttondec2008

Welcome again to the Just Post roundtable. After two years of this it is time for change, as you probably have read in last month’s post.

With things like this, like collecting links to blog posts about social justice, and writing about social justice, there always is a doubt whether it’s going to make a difference. Well, it seems that it does. When last month Mad, Jen, and I announced that we would no longer do the Just Posts, De wrote a comment saying,

This morning, right after I got up and affixed my re-usable menstrual pad, I packed my daughter her snack with an aluminum water bottle, and groaned that it was raining again on a Wednesday, when I go to walk dogs at the Humane society. Just the first five minutes of an average day, and everything about it was brought about by the Just Posts.

I also know that this project of ours has changed my life. That the bloggers I read change the way I think about things and people. You can see how much writing on the internet can do if you go over to the Mama to Mama project. This started as an idea, and words written on a blog, too. Amanda Soule, the woman behind this, asked people to donate handmade hats for newborns in Haiti, and now she has 5523 hats, and 169 blankets to send to families in need. It’s amazing and heart-warming to see how words on a computer screen move people, and then, sometimes, they even do something.

This project also shows why I am a bit uneasy about this form of charity. First, I have done nothing but write about it, and put the button on my blog, which feels like not nearly enough. And second, and much more important, while it is marvelous that there will be more than 5,000 babies with hats in Haiti, the real problem is that there is a place on this world (and more than one) where babies have to die because of a lack of hats and blankets. The thought of a nice little cozy baby makes me all fuzzy and warm but then I turn around and there are people who don’t have water to drink, people without food, without medical care, without much of anything in the middle of war. And a few hats won’t change that.

So I beg all of us to do what we can, send money, and hats, and write about things, and put buttons on our blogs, and maybe volunteer a bit, and in the middle of that, please, don’t forget that all of this is political and global. These are big issues that need to be tackled, issues that go beyond giving spare change to beggars.

In the world as it is now, the only way for someone like you and me seems to be to start small. See, De, and I and some others I know are using re-usable hygiene products, and water-bottles, and cloth grocery bags, and while it might seem futile, especially if you’re the only one you know who recycles, and buys organic food, and takes the train or walks instead of driving everywhere, and then there are all these people around you who say it’s all a sham anyway, and that you won’t be making a difference; I tell you: don’t listen! Really. It’s way better to start small, and try, and maybe fail than to shrug your shoulders and say, “I can’t make a difference anyway.”

And so I’m really happy that there still will be Just Posts in 2009 because Alejna from Collecting Tokens and Holly from Cold Spaghetti graciously stepped in and will be continuing the Just Post tradition that is all of two years old now. Thank you very much to you both.

Now here is this month’s list:

Alejna at Collecting Tokens with Coventry Carol
Atherton Bartleby with I think I hate you
Cecilieaux with Cut off Israel now!, It’s a Madoff, Madoff, Madoff, Madoff world,
Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican, Green and Why Conservatism Was Always Doomed
Country Girl with This is a Great idea
De with Mini Rant
defiant muse with harm here is harm there
Em at Social Justice Soapbox with Resolutions for a New Year
Erika with A Day without a gay (or making an actual impact)
girlgriot with Small World…Small City…Small Minds and Not Making People Invisible
Holly with Twelve STIs of Christmas
Jozet with “Redistribute the Wealth” My Hot Green Butt
Paul Newnham with The Day After International Day and Letter to the PM
Rebecca with Big Box vs Buy Local and Small is Beautiful and Affordable
Zoom at Knitnut with Bank Street Bully

The Just Post Brides Farewell Posts:
Alejna with Better for me than a scone and a latte
Bon with At epiphany
Emily with Doin’ it all for my babies
Holly with Example is not the main thing in influencing others it is the only thing Jen (ponderosa) with Fare Thee Well
Kate at Peripheral Vision with Doing More
Magpie with A Just Post Call for Help
Mary G with Resolution in 2009
Metro Mama with An Ongoing Offering
And please, do go over to Jen and Mad, and read their posts too.

Story of the Month: Surreal

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(Seems like I’m still not on top of everything yet, but this month I managed to write, um, half of the story for the writer’s group meeting. The prompt was “surreal”. Of course I only started writing at noon, helped my husband cook while typing on the computer, and then had to teach right up to the moment when I ran out of the house to catch the train for the meeting. I really hope to finish this, tie the two strands of the story together, ply them so-to-speak. I wrote it as stream of consciousness as I could.)

Falling

Diving into the night as a floating wind came by to grip me, cars on the highway passing by. The moon staring at us while we were heading for the shoreline; the green fish staring at you while we wove our way through the algae, downwards into the deep blue cool, threading deeper and onwards. The caves nearby whispering to us while we floated between the corals, creatures like jewels asleep in the liquid dark.

Out to the open, the ocean, the blue, the dark, the cool, the wet, outwards, and downwards, into the depth. Our eyes blind from the cold, the pressure, the lack of light, only illuminated by smallish animals, wearing lanterns, and luminecence. Down through the sand to the point where there’s rock, always rock underneath.

Resting there for a while, pausing the race, not moving, letting the cold streams run over us, resting, but not for long, onwards, and upwards, outwards, throught the deep, the blue, the cold, through where the water is calm always, up, and through, through the waves, the white crust of frothing waves, going up and down, right and left, never still, never at peace, drifting on. And on, always moving, riding the wind, the water, the dark.

Erin and Heidi at the mall, carrying their totes, their make-up, walking slowly because of their shoes. Very pretty shoes, there had been a sale, and so they had spent the last of their paychecks on these, sexy shoes with high spiky heels that made their ankles look pretty and slim. They looked very much alike from afar, their hair done into a puffy mass of curls framing their pretty faces. They liked make-up, those two, their eyes all heavy eyeliner, smoky shadows, and fluttering lashes, their mouths rose-colored glittering pouts.

Floating on the water, being rocked by the waves’ motion, waiting until the annoying moon starts to pale above us. More blue, more light, more warmth, rushing in, meeting the morning. Still, beneath us the dark, the cool, the deep, unchanged by light’s arrival. Onwards again, taking hold of the wind, merging, waving in and out, the air, the light, colors getting brighter, shiny. The water, sparkling with light, reflecting warmth, deflecting hearts.

The girls are speaking, endlessly, giggling, and gossiping, talking, never listening. Just an endless stream of syllables put forth with a meaningless smile. Both of them connected to the ether by invisible strings, their cell phones humming; shiny, sleek, bluetooth connectors at their ears and lips. Connected not with the world around them, with the people they see before them, with smells, and sounds, and sights right there but only with other people hanging from the same strings, never being where they are.

They walk slowly, taking care with every step; the sexy shoes demand attention, their totes getting heavier, the mall a whir of color and movement.

Onward and upward again, the air, the wind, the light, gliding, soaring. You and I, me and you, moving, sensing, now the sun is up in the sky, a one-eyed giantess bringing life and scorn, making the world bright, shiny, and slightly harsher. We know that the staring moon is still there but now he can’t see us anymore. Nosy he is but now he’s pale and in the presence of his big warm mistress he’s too far away to catch us. So we seize the moment, go on and on, rounding the globe, moving in, and out, up and down. Fear of falling isn’t hindering us. Going down deep we meet rock again, and again, going up there’s air and light, dust and sparkles, creatures big and small. Moving, moving, always moving. We wave in and out of the streams, the rivulets going down, the vapor going up, playing like dolphins. Come on my love!

2008 recap in first sentences

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I have seen this on quite a few blogs these past days, you take the first sentence of the first blog post of every month. The problem is that I tend to see my headline as the first sentence, so I try to make the headline exciting, and then follow it up with a very, very boring line. See for yourself:

January: As you probably have noticed I didn’t feel much like blogging these past, ahem, weeks.

Well, same old, same old. But I will get around to it someday.

February: It’s time for the just posts again.

Which means that I didn’t post anything for the first nine days of February, oops.

March: I think it was Terry Pratchett who said that if you read enough books you’ll eventually start writing because all the words filling up your brain will start seeping out.

That’s a good one, don’t you think?

April: Time for the Just Post Roundtables again!

See February.

May: The writer’s group I’m in has gone from writing really short pieces once a month to writing a story before each meeting.

This was an introduction to the first story I posted on my blog. The “Story of the Month”-category did not make a monthly appearance, though. I’m still trying, though. (I have to write another story until Thursday, stay tuned.)

June: First, thank you very much for your comments on my post about feeling fat.

Nice one, that.

July: I just spent fifteen minutes on my computer, changing the color scheme of my blog.

Changing my blog’s theme has been on my to-do-list for quite a long time because this one takes ages to load. Sorry about that.

August: Welcome again to the Just Posts.

See February, and April.

September: As I told you I ordered it the day that I sold my congas.

To understand this one you have to know that the headline was “I got my spinning wheel”. I’m still happy I traded the congas for it.

October: and I missed them both.

Again, this doesn’t make sense without the headline which read: “So, yesterday was Blog Action Day and Love Your Body Day”.

November: Again it’s the time of the month where we meet at our virtual round table and share what we found about social justice.

Just Posts again. That’s the fifth time in one year that I did the first post of the month on the tenth.

December: Sorry to let you hang for so long but just in the next 2 1/2 hours I should: take a shower, exercise, go grocery shopping, do taxes, write a real blog post, write a story for tonight’s writing group meeting, cook, and eat lunch.

This about sums up a) my life at the moment, and b) my enormous tendency to procrastinate and do things at the last minute. Needless to say that I didn’t accomplish all of this. I think I did taxes, took a shower, went grocery shopping, and ate lunch which my husband had cooked while almost keeling over because he was so unwell.

I really have high hopes for 2009. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get around to dusting the house once a week again. Or exercising. Or writing. I did quite well for the first few days this year, exercising, playing music, and doing housework but yesterday I hit a wall, and spent a lot of the day sitting around doing nothing. As I did today. when after a few hours of this I realized that, wham, it’s PMS-time again! Knocking me out for half the month. So I better get out of the house and get me some Vitamin B, and hope that will get me moving again.

No wonder I have problems meeting people like me

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I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m aTree Hugging Organized Extrovert

When I took the test it also said that:
0% of the 36086 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

Get that: no one out of 36,086 who have taken the quiz is like me. I wonder what my husband’s results would be…

I survived the holidays!

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Though I have to say that the holidays as such weren’t the real problem. Not even when my brilliant plan of de-stressing our Christmas celebration (on Christmas Eve as is traditional in German) by making the traditional Christmas dinner a Christmas lunch before putting up and decorating the tree afterwards, and opening the presents in the afternoon instead of in the evening when everybody is cranky and tired, went wrong because the wood stove acted up, and our Christmas lunch was three hours late. (I have to say that at least these days we know how to handle a crisis like this: when you realize that nothing is going right, let everybody have a sandwich.)

The holidays also weren’t the problem when on Christmas day we decided to have goose leg with red cabbage and my husband said that we needed to have potato dumplings with that. I keep forgetting because in the Northern part of Germany where I grew up people don’t eat dumplings much. Usually when we make dumplings we buy them almost finished, you just have to boil them, but this time I had to try and make potato dumplings from scratch. They didn’t taste that awful but the next time I try this I will put more flour in so that they actually stay dumpling shaped when cooked.

I don’t exactly know why but this year’s Advent was the most stressful I ever had. First there was my husband’s pneumonia which left him weak for weeks. Since he didn’t have a fever, and since my son and I had been coughing for weeks too we thought he just had a bad cough, and he didn’t went to see the doctor until just before Christmas. Of course he didn’t stop teaching (that’s the joy of being self-employed, you never stop working if you can stay upright, and still possess all your limbs). While my husband was mostly out of commission my son had the ongoing waxing and waning coughing-sneezing-tummy aching-fever having-malady. That added a bit of excitement to the last two weeks before Christmas because we never knew if he would be fit to go to the kindergarten Christmas thing, where the children did a play, or his own birthday party.

I didn’t feel that well myself, I had been coughing for six weeks at that point, and just when I felt almost human again (and hoped to maybe be able to sing again some time in the future) I got the next cold. On top of that I had to be Santa’s little helper and organized all the presents we gave anybody for Christmas, and all the presents anybody gave my son for his birthday and Christmas. I also wrapped them all, baked three batches of cupcakes, and organized my son’s birthday party which left me totally drained after having spent the entire afternoon thinking that now I knew why everybody always tells me that my son is so well-behaved and quiet – it’s the truth. And that doesn’t mean that my son really is that quiet, it’s only that all the other children are less well-behaved and much, much louder.

The party seems to have been a success with everybody, except for me and my son who told me that he doesn’t want to have a party next year. He was suffering from the noise and chaos almost as much as me.

I can tell that I was stressed out beyond what I’m used to at this time of year by the fact that my period was ten days late, something that never ever happened before. (No, never, not even when I got pregnant.) Of course that just added another layer of stress to these days, the whole panicking if I could be pregnant in spite of birth control, the buying of pregnancy tests, and the wondering if the tests could be wrongly negative, or what I should do if I were pregnant. So that in he midst of thinking about what games to play with my son’s friends I wondered if I knew anybody who wanted to get rid of their baby stuff, and whether my marriage would survive a second child.

As I said before, I’m not really sure what stressed me out so much but I think that it might have been the sheer amount of tiny organizational detail. I promise that I haven’t been a perfectionist about Christmas. This year I didn’t even put up the Advent decorations. I didn’t bake Christmas cookies.

The only things I might do better next year is:

  • Next year when I order my son’s presents in mid-October I’ll wrap them right away.
  • Instead of baking the cupcakes four to five days in advance and freezing them I will bake them at the beginning of November.
  • I will buy the special birthday candles sometime in January and put them away for next year.
  • I won’t volunteer to play guitar at the Christmas party. (That was my way of avoiding to have to act in the play the parents did for the children. Instead of meeting with the other parents three or four times I only had to play the songs through once before the event.)
  • I will make an appointment for my husband to get a flu shot in September.
  • I hereby give up the notion of baking Christmas cookies. Not even the ones I bought all the ingredients for in December 2007.
  • I will make hair dresser and beautician appointments in November.
  • I will make a list of games to play, and what to do at my son’s birthday party in November too.

Since Christmas I have been sitting and recuperating. At first I was at a point where I was too tired to knit but since the weekend I have been improving, started a new intricate shawl project, and might even do some housework. (Well, I already cleaned a bathroom for the first time in ages but I have great hopes for the future.)
I still don’t have to teach until next week so I hope to get some time for contemplation. I hope your holidays were peaceful and happy.

(I just re-read my list of things to do next year, and you know what that list means? It means I will have both a stressful November and December. Or maybe not. I’ll give it a try anyways.)