Vic Fontaine's = my happy plac…
Vic Fontaine’s = my happy place!
I knew I felt an aftershock! …
I knew I felt an aftershock! Thank you Belleville News Democrat, for confirming that I am not losing my mind!
Aftershock
I suppose it stands to reason that following an earthquake, there are aftershocks. But after hearing reports of two of them that I didn’t notice, I thought the ground shaking would be done for the day. You can imagine my surprise, then, when the bed, where I was sitting with the baby, starting shaking, and I saw the walls vibrating again.
You’d also think that after the first one, I would have realized right away what this was. Nope. I honestly thought at first that the washer was off balance and vibrating the upstairs, which it has been known to do on occasion. Then I realized that the washer hadn’t been running for about 20 minutes. After checking with my husband at work, and learning that he didn’t feel a thing, I thought perhaps the excitement of the morning had gotten to me, but when I checked the newspaper a little while later, I learned that I was, in fact, correct. A 2.6 aftershock, the strongest one yet. Still small beans compared to truly earthquake prone areas, but exciting enough to add a little something to my Friday!
At least this time I didn’t start listening for trumpets and looking to see if the Lord was returning. I doubt I could handle that kind of excitement!
This has been a very interesting day so far, and it’s not even lunchtime!
My children have a very intere…
My children have a very interesting idea of what school is going to be like!
Seven is the New Ten is the New Sixty!
It used to be that 60 years of marriage was considered the diamond anniversary. Then, the “modern” list of anniversary gifts came out, and all of the sudden, 10 years is a diamond year. That’s quite a jump, from 60 down to 10! Of course, the modern list has diamonds for several anniversaries, and any number of gemstones and luxury items where they didn’t used to be (gone are the days of paper, cotton and leather–now it’s clocks, china and crystal!), but even so, cutting off the wait time by 50 years seems extreme.
It does make one wonder at the change. Is it because our society is so impatient, and so used to instant gratification that we can’t stand to wait until we’ve been married for 60 years? Is it because, even though life expectancies are longer, people are marrying later in life, thus making it less likely that they’ll be married for 60 years or longer? Or is simply that, with the divorce rate what it is, people want to get what they can while the getting is good? Any and/or all of these seems to me to be a viable possibility.
At any rate, even though we’re only celebrating our seventh anniversary this year, my wonderful husband got me a beautiful anniversary ring. Now, I’m a fairly patient sort of person, so it really wasn’t a matter of not being able to wait until our tenth (or sixtieth, I suppose) anniversary. And we got married young enough, so that’s not a problem. I’m also damn sure we won’t be getting a divorce, so it wasn’t a matter of doing the ring thing now, because we might not be together in a few years.
No, it was simple math. Thanks to Uncle Sam, and the economic stimulus package, we had the money now. With four children, we are fully aware that we may not have the money in three, thirteen or even thirty years, but here’s the government, giving us blow money, which is our civic duty to spend to try and help the economy limp along. So, good stewards of our money that we are (most of the time) we rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and did some shopping, not the least of which is my new ring. I am very grateful for my new pretty, and while I would have been willing to wait until whatever anniversary was deemed appropriate to receive diamonds, I’m glad I didn’t have to!
From Boats to Trains
Very weird. For the second time since we’ve lived down here, I felt an earthquake. Now, I know to old pros out in places like California, this was small beans. But to a midwesterner like myself, any earthquake is big news.
The first one, a couple of years ago, was very subtle. I don’t know if it was the difference between being on the ground level (then) and being on the second story (now), but the first one just felt like trying to walk on a boat. The ground kind of rolled under me for a few seconds, and then it was done. In all honesty, had that quake not been confirmed by the news, I could have easily thought I was crazy, because very few people I knew felt it, and I could have easily passed it off as a moment of dizziness.
Last night’s earthquake was a little different to me. I’m sure part of it was because I was on the second floor of our house, and part of it was because it woke me out of a dead sleep, but this one was more jarring. There was no rolling this time, only shaking, and a lot of shaking. The windows were shaking, the walls were shaking, the bed was shaking (at first, groggy as I was, I thought it was a little girl shaking the bed, trying to wake us up), and my lamp wouldn’t stop shaking, even after it was over. The vibration must have been enough to set the lamp shade off at a weird angle, and once it started, it couldn’t stop.
Anyway, the fact that it woke up my husband, who I swear could sleep through a tornado, assured me that there was no way I was imagining it this time. When your mind is trying to sort out what it going on, it’s fun the possibilities you go through. Thunder aftershock? (No, not raining yet, but we knew rain is on the way, so it seemed like a viable possibility…) Train? (But we’re too far away from the tracks for that kind of shaking!) Low flying aircraft? (I’ll never forget the way the Sky Fox used to rattle our windows in our first apartment!) Explosion? (Not really sure where that one came from, but when you’re sleepy, your mind imagines all sorts of things.)
I think I should get an award for being the first one to properly identify the cause of the movement, but I suppose no such award exists. Funny, it never occurred to me to call the police department, but word on the street is that their switchboards were quite busy with calls from inquiring residents, trying to figure out what had just happened. I guess I just figured once my brain landed on earthquake, that’s what it was, and it was only a matter of time until the news reported it. (The nonchalant way my husband went right back to sleep also convinced me that it couldn’t be too serious, even if I was up for the day at that point!)
At any rate, I don’t see myself moving to California any time soon. 5.2 is enough excitement for me!
Small earthquake, not that big…
Small earthquake, not that big of a deal, I guess. Being awake since 4:30 this morning, very big deal! Is it naptime yet?
Nothing's the Same Anymore
I’m finding myself at a place in life that is not very comfortable to me. Everything around me seems to be changing, and from my perspective, very little of it for the better. I don’t know, maybe this is just what happens when you get older. I am losing faith in my church body as a whole, am beginning to feel like maybe they have lost sight of what’s really important. I know there are still faithful congregations out there, and thank God I belong to one, but overall, I am starting to doubt whether the higher-ups have anyone’s best interest at heart but their own.
I have come to expect feeling this way in the world–as though I don’t really matter, like I don’t have anything valuable to add, and that most people are concerned with looking out for number one, but I didn’t expect that I’d begin to feel that way about the denomination I’ve belonged to since I was baptized close to 30 years ago. But now that my voice has been marginalized as only 1/3 of 1%, I come to realize how little I mean here, even though I spent 14 years of my life in denominational education, supported my husband through Seminary, worked at the headquarters of the church, and at a congregation–still, my voice doesn’t count. And when I think of the decades long members and workers who have been told their voices don’t count either, my heart hurts. We have been trivialized and swept under the rug, just so that the boys in charge can save face publicly, not caring what damage they’re doing to the people who put them and keep them in office.
I also look at old friends, friends I thought we’d have for life, and realize I don’t even recognize them anymore. I don’t understand how people can change so much in such a short amount of time, or how they can end up opposite us on almost everything we believe, but there it is. The things and people I had come to depend on in life have become foreign to me, and if not for my family, and a few very select friends, I don’t know who I’d turn to.
My heart is heavy these days, as I come to better understand what Christ meant when He said He came not to bring peace but a sword. I guess I never figured the sword would hit so close to home.
The Great Skirt Experiment
As the week draws to a close, I have realized that I learned a lot from my skirt experiment!
- It’s kind of embarrassing when your children see you in a skirt on Monday morning, and automatically assume that it’s already Sunday again.
- Skirts of days gone by must have been made of much heavier material (wool? tweed? iron?), because I discovered that it doesn’t take much of a breeze to blow one’s skirt up.
- One a breezy day, it is not only smart to wear a heavier weight skirt (in my case, denim or a really heavy cotton), but one with a straighter shape, because even a heavyweight flared skirt will blow up, making walking quite difficult!
- When cooking or baking while wearing a dress, I realized that I paid more attention to how messy I was getting, and my apron, which has been on the shelf in my pantry since we moved in (and unworn for I don’t know how long before that!), actually got some use! And I have to say, the apron is a whole other charming piece of clothing that probably deserves it’s own experiment.
- Even though I technically have more skirts than I do pairs of pants, I have less shirts that are skirt appropriate, making it very difficult to feel like I’m not wearing the same thing every day.
- Wearing a skirt or dress made me feel kind of glamourous, and I think helped me look more put together.
- My new black dress is one of my favorite pieces of clothing ever!
- I missed wearing my casual, comfortable shoes (although, I’ll confess to cheating with my black Skechers when wearing my denim skirt–hey, they have some lace, so that makes them dressy, right?)
So, there are the results of my great skirt experiment. While I am looking forward to wearing my favorite grey pants again, I also intend to wear skirts and dresses more often. It made me feel more feminine, I got several compliments from strangers on my appearance (the sales clerk at Bed Bath and Beyond especially made me feel good with her blatant admiration of the aforementioned black dress!), and my children seemed to enjoy my attempt at dressing a little nicer, so good lesson for the girls! All said and done, I rather enjoyed being Donna Reed for the week (now where did I put my pearls?).
Playing Donna Reed
I’m trying out an experiment this week. I’m only going to wear skirts and dresses. No, I’m not going all crazy-Fundie, and I highly doubt that I’ll be giving up pants altogether. I do, however, think skirts and dresses are more feminine (and I’m assuming my husband agrees), and I would like to be more ladylike (if I can accomplish being ladylike at all!) so dresses and skirts it is!
I’d also like to model being more feminine to my daughters (no easy task–have you ever heard them belch!?!) and I figure that this is a good place as any to start. I think our society in general has become too casual–just watch some old TV, and you’ll quickly see how much more time and care people used to put into their appearance. I’m not saying I need a strand of pearls to vacuum or anything, but a little more effort can’t hurt, and perhaps it could have some kind of positive effect on my family.
I particularly find the way women used to dress in the forties and fifties to be endlessly charming. Dresses and skirts, both the full, needs a petticoat variety, and the ever sexy pencil kind, hats, gloves, heels and handbags to match. Man, did women used to know how to accessorize. Now, you go out to the store or the park (and I’m not judging, ’cause I do it, too!) and see an endless variety of track suits, yoga pants and t-shirts, complemented by running shoes of some variety. You can’t tell me that all of the women I see dressed that way are either on their way to or from working out!
There must be a happy medium somewhere. While I would love to wear a hat and gloves for some kind of special occasion, it’s not really practical for everyday wear. But I don’t think I need to schlep around in clothes better suited for the gym, either. I don’t really know how this will work out from a practical standpoint–it’s not easy to get on the floor and play in a skirt, but it must be possible, because I highly doubt that the past generations were neglected because mommy didn’t wear pants. I do know I was grateful not to be wearing a floaty skirt at the park yesterday (note to self: a breeze plus a lightweight, full skirt equals disaster!). Anyway, I’m going to find out what works and what doesn’t, and hope that I’ll start dressing a little nicer for things other than Sunday church. Besides, what girl doesn’t love to play dress-up? So, for a week at least, I’ll be pants free!
