Gratitude Journal #188

Today, I am grateful the red-bellied woodpeckers are back. Our nesting pair has been hard at work all weekend making its nest, pecking out a bigger hole, spitting the shavings out of the hole, and generally getting ready. What fun to see them hard at work!

Today, I am grateful for the goldfinches that visit our feeder, looking so brilliant in their summer plumage.

Today, I am grateful to have my voice back, even if it is uncharacteristically deep and hoarse.

Today, I am grateful for my husband's talent at barbecue.

Today, I am grateful for Nick's comments as he tries to figure out life. He recently tried to explain his short attention span: "I like lots of things." George and I both told him that is a wonderful way to live. I immediately thought of this quotation:



Source

I decided not to tell Nick this. I hope his life turns out a little happier than Van Gogh's did!

Today, I am grateful for bird song, breezes, and blossoms.

Today, I am grateful for this reminder:

Source

What are you grateful for today?

Things on Thursday: Still Life of My Parents' Desk

Having easy-to-use technology means you never know who uses your device and for what nefarious purpose. New apps magically appear on my iPhone and Nook...apps I would never download, such as Marvel Comics and Subway Surf.

Boys and my toys.

So I was not surprised to download pictures from my camera yesterday and find a photo essay (of sorts) snapped by my younger son, who has been home sick for three days. He's not been very sick...just sick enough with a head cold and pink eye not to go to school.

It's always interesting to see what Jack considers photo-worthy. Over the years, we have collected several hundred digital photos of Jack's hands and feet. He also likes taking pictures of rocks, the dog, shows on television, and furniture.

His photography style is unique. He likes shooting from odd angles, moving around in space and aiming his lens at any ordinary thing, finding sometimes brilliant new ways of looking at something entirely mundane.

One of his photos from this week captures a moment in the life of my desk and my husband's desk. This one shot of our messy desks says a lot. Which is sort of scary for some reason.

Still Life of My Parents' Desks

1. Two computers. Our desks face each other, and every night, we sit at them and do the important work of surfing Pinterest and sharing funny pictures with each other. The screen you see belongs to my brand new computer George bought when my old one crashed. I'm lovin' that new computer. It's fast.

2. My beautiful Mother's Day pop-up card from George. It's different from his hand-made Mother's Day cards, which have occasionally featured a stamp of a B-1 bomber. I delivered two payloads of bouncing baby boy, and George well remembers how both of them were dropped when he was sleep-deprived from flying that bomber. I love those handmade cards because he makes them.

But I also love the water lilies and dragonflies of the pop-up card a whole lot. And the glitter. Ohmygosh, it has glitter! George bought the card at the Dayton Art Institute, where his team from work went for a day of enrichment and fun. George isn't exactly the type of person who uses the words art institute and fun in the same sentence (unless there's a not thrown in). But he actually really enjoyed the day spent looking at art, which goes to show the value of breaking out of your comfort zone every now and then...although I think it unlikely I'll get him to the Dayton Ballet's next performance. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his day at the Art Institute and bought me a cool card. Thanks, honey!

3. Two phones. Yes, we're still hunting wooly mammoths and using a land-line phone, which should be in the cradle in another room, but there it is on my desk. The iPhone in its purple case will win the phone war hands down simply because it's the coolest gadget I've ever had in my formerly Luddite hands. Eventually, we will get rid of the land line. Very eventually. Two-timing is easy, but breaking up is hard to do.

4. A single K-Swiss running shoe, size 9.5. George is the Imelda Marcos of triathletes, at one point hoarding owning 36 pairs of running shoes. That's down to about 12 pairs now. He couldn't get rid of the old ones ("They make great grass-mowing shoes!") so he had me cull the collection a few years ago.

When you have a man who never puts his shoes away and a golden retriever who must! retrieve! when! excited!, then you end up with random single shoes spread all through the house. Daisy brought this one to us when George came home from work, and she moaned and whined and wiggled her joy until he took the shoe out of her mouth and placed it on the desk.

Because, of course, that is where it belongs.

5. A copy of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. That's the paperback I use to prop my computer. When the computer is flat on the desk, I hit the touchpad constantly and unpredictable things happen that make me say bad words. I looked into buying a tilt-board for the computer but can't bring myself to pay for what a fat paperback does for free.

6. My ergonomic mouse pad. I just glanced at it. It's filthy, which means that I have really dirty wrists. It does NOT mean I spend too much time at my computer.

7. My camera cable. I use that a lot to download pictures of cards for my stamping blog and pictures Jack has taken of his feet.

See what I mean?

8. A pile of papers on George's desk that have been there for about six weeks. I know this because the pile coincides with his new job, which started on April 1.  

9. A box of Kleenex and a notebook. Pretty self-explanatory.

So, what is on your desk? Are there any stories in the detritus of your workspace? Do tell!

Gratitude Journal #187

Today, I am grateful for my mother and George's mother and all the mothers who care about their children, love them, and teach them how to love.

Today, I am grateful for my husband, who did a triathlon on his birthday and smoked a bunch of guys on the bike (13 out of 80 on the bike, 22 overall!). I am grateful for this good start to his triathlon season, for his finding good running shoes that are easy on his knees, and for his new bike that makes him fast and happy!

Today, I am grateful for my children. Jack is home sick today, and I am grateful that he just has a head cold and cough and nothing serious.

Today, I am grateful for Judy and Linda, both of whom offered to get Jack another Nebraska pencil. Our nephew Eli has it covered although it remains to be seen if Jack will accept the replacement!

Today, I am grateful for Great Horned Owls in general and the two who visited our trees early Sunday morning in particular. Listening to their slow, low Morse-code conversation was such a blessing in the dark. To hear a recording that's close to what I heard (my owls were very mellow!), click here, scroll down a bit to Great Horned Owl, and click Listen.

photo copyright Ashley Hockenberry

Today, I am grateful no one died in the New Orleans shooting yesterday. May all the wounded recover fully both physically and emotionally from such an awful experience.

What are you grateful for today?

This Is Motherhood

I wrote the following last night at Barnes and Noble after a lovely dinner at Bonefish to celebrate George's birthday.




This is motherhood. I'm waiting on hold, clearly forgotten. Someone will notice the blinking light on the line eventually. I called the restaurant we just left to see if Jack's prized possession, his woobie, his precious, his University of Nebraska pencil, fell under our table.

The minutes tick by. I should just hang up now, right? But I can't. Autism does this to us. If the pencil is truly gone, Jack's world will stop spinning. The tears. Oh, God, the tears and screams.

Right now he's a ten-year-old wandering through children's books muttering about a pencil. He allows himself hope that Mom will find it. Mom will solve his problem. She's got his back.

No, I don't. I secretly hate that pencil, which has been lost so many times and found by me or other adults (my sister searched the longest, after I'd given up that time). My sister-in-law gave Jack two pencils, but for some reason known only to Jack (something to do with the eraser), that back-up pencil will not do. He must have the one that is lost.

There might be a biblical reference in here somewhere, but I've got no patience with that right now. This isn't a sheep. It's a pencil. An unsharpened pencil. Jack self-stimulates with it, calming himself by waving it. He can't do this at school, only at home. But he brought the pencil tonight because he didn't want to go to the restaurant. Restaurants are crowded and noisy and unsettling for him. The pencil calms him.

Until he loses it.

That pencil stands as a symbol of Jack's disorder to me, but it is precious to him. He is precious to me. So I sit on hold minute after minute, pouring out words that won't stop the tears (his or mine) and decide to convert this experience into something I can share.

Somewhere out there someone else whose child with autism just lost his special bottle cap or rubber band or random rock will breathe deep and think, "Thank you, Jesus. I am not alone."

No, honey. You are not alone. And neither am I. It just feels that way.

Welcome to motherhood. Not the soft-focus promise of the religious right and motherhood books, or the happy faces we put on for public consumption. This is the real deal.

Some days are like this. Some days simply suck. Others blow with the storm of tragedy. And others will blow your mind with miracle after miracle.

This is a week of tied shoes (miracle!) and lost pencils (tragedy!). Peaks and valleys and no map in sight to navigate your way as you and your child are pulled along by forces neither one of you understands. It's cliché, but there's no instruction book for dealing with the tragedies or the miracles. You do your best and cling to faith that God's got your back.



The restaurant staff couldn't find the pencil. Jack handled the news fairly well in the car but fell apart as soon as he was safe in his room. Usually, he takes a little comforting and then wants to be alone. Last night, I started to leave his room, and he clung to me, screeching, "Don't go! Don't go! I'm hopeless!"

Such a silly thing to get so upset over, don't you think? Yet how many times do we all feel that tragedy of loss over something silly? How important are things, really, in the grand scheme of life.

Pretty darn important, sometimes.

Today, after church, I will go to Bonefish to search parking lot. I'll either be Jack's hero or his storm anchor in the tragic winds of life.

This is motherhood. And thank you, Jesus, we are not alone.

Bad Grammar Cauldron Bubbleth Over

I love Pinterest, and I love reading quotations there.

Except when there are egregious typos or grammar errors.

Then I wince.

Oh, how it hurts to see flagrantly bad grammar used amidst such pretty ideas and pictures. The pin I shared yesterday has a missing comma, but the impact is minimized by a convenient line break and graphic elements. I could overlook that error relatively easily.

I am not nearly as persnickety as I used to be, and I never feel offended by grammar errors in blog comments or Internet forums...casual writing will have errors, and pesky errors creep into the best formal writing on occasion. I sometimes make errors on purpose for rhetorical effect, but I certainly make unintentional errors, too. We're all sinners, and forgiveness usually comes easily for me.

But not always.

Consider this offender:

I'm sorry, but I just can't let this go. Let's itemize the errors here from a purist's perspective.

1. No beginning quotation mark. There's a quotation mark at the end, but not one at the beginning. Both or neither, please.

2. Comma error. Generally, do not use a comma before because. It's a subordinating conjunction, not a coordinating conjunction connecting two independent clauses.

3. Pronoun error. Most properly, he/she should apply only to humans, but I've always felt that was rude to animals. I like anthropomorphosis and give the world permission to anthropomorphize to its heart's content. If you're going to make the bird a girl by using her, however, you may not change to its in the same sentence. Her/her or its/its would be correct. Her/it's is most definitely not.

4. Its/It's usage error. It's is a contraction of it is. Its is a possessive pronoun. You wouldn't type her's, would you? I know this is confusing because apostrophe s usually indicates possession, but pronouns violate that rule. Remember that we're writing English. It often does not make sense unless you spend a few semesters studying linguistics, and even then, it does not make much sense.

5. Preposition choice. Perhaps this is nit-picking, but usually we trust in something. We do not trust on something.

"A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not in the branch but in her own wings. Always believe in yourself."

That's so much better.

I feel better.

I hope you do, too.

Words, Words, Words about What's Missing

Source on Pinterest

I love this quotation. So much of our bitterness and anger comes when the world and other people don't deliver what we think we need. We yearn for kindness, for connection, for warmth...and we save it up until we receive it. But it withers and grows old and dies in us.

All of our goodness and love grows only when we give it away freely and generously, without expectation of return. And then, miraculously, it comes back to us multiplied. 

I know a couple who wanted but could not have children. Instead of getting bitter and resentful, they decided to do volunteer work with children. If they couldn't love children of their own, they would channel that love into other people's children. How generous and good that decision was! And also, no doubt, hard and courageous.

What do you feel is missing in your life? How can you be that for the world?

Yay! May Is Mental Health Awareness Month!!!

This is my second post for today. Please scroll down to read today's essay.

Y'all who've been reading for a while know I experienced an episode (okay, years) of severe depression in my teens and early 20's. Y'all also know I got the help I needed to get out of that black hole and, praise the Lord, have not been dragged back into it.

I had the weirdest conversation a few weeks ago. An electrician and construction supervisor were in my house doing warranty work, and we struck up a conversation. Both men freely admitted to having suffered anxiety disorders. One was still on medication for it, and the other said he would go back on meds in a second if his symptoms returned. Their comfort in discussing their problems openly warmed the cockles of my heart.

BUT, too many people still believe that mental health problems are a choice. No. They. Are. Not. People who suffer from anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia, ADHD, et. al. do NOT choose to be ill. Nor are they weak.

They need help. Professional help.

If you want to learn more about Mental Health Awareness month, please click HERE.

If you want to read Heather Armstrong's words about it, please click HERE. The many comments on her blog post will show you that you are not alone, whether you suffer from mental illness or have a loved one who suffers.

If you are suffering, GET HELP. Please. Just get help.