Bah

That last post.

frickitty-frakkity.

Since I have last written, my Birdy and Pearl both have been diagnosed with the same thing I have. I just can't even. There is something heartbreaking in a 10 year old crying real tears over a toasted bagel that she can't have, because gluten.

Bagels and doughnuts... there really isn't any kind of decent GF substitute for those two items. I have decided that GF stands for GrieF.

Yeah... guess I'm not really ready to write about all of those changes and struggles just yet.

I am pondering lately about heartbreak, pain, and struggles. I mean, I have my fair share, but I know many people who have dealt with worse and ARE dealing with worse.  It isn't a competition, and I'm not interested in laying my heart out right this minute, but I tell you, my struggles are making me brittle where I had thought I would be strong.

Which makes me feel like the biggest weenie. Makes me think about the book A Town Like Alice. The start of the book chronicles a bunch of European women and children in a seven month long forced march from one part of Malaya to the other at the start of WW2. Along the road a goodly number of women die off from one thing or another... many just aren't hardy enough physically or mentally.

I used to think of myself as tough. Now, I am pretty sure I would be numbered among the women who just couldn't hack it.

Bah.

Sacrament

I have an auto-immune disease that was diagnosed when I was thirteen. Over the course of my life this disorder has caused me all sorts of grief, but as long as I keep up in treating it, it’s not likely to kill me directly. 

As one doctor who helped in diagnosing and treating a recent manifestation of the disease said, “it’s not life-threatening, but it’s certainly life-altering.” 

A little over four years ago I stopped eating gluten in an attempt to get some of the sideways mess of my health a little more under control.

And it has help exactly that much. A little.

But it has helped, and as far as I understand it, my situation will only get worse from here on in unless I stay off gluten… so, yeah. 

Yay.

It’s not like I have Celiacs, just to be clear. My body reacts to the gluten, but it does it over time with joint pain and rashes and a few other phantom-like symptoms, rather than a violent, instant sick. 

Unfortunately, even when I am eating like an OCD monk I still have eczema and arthritis, so I’m always on a spectrum of discomfort to one degree or another.

I could probably just eat the bit of bread that comes with the sacrament with little to no immediate health bomb, but I have always been in wards with at least two or three Celiacs, so it has been easy to skip the bread and have whatever substitute they are already using for them. I just mention I need to have whatever GF fare they are already bringing to the Celiacs, and the Deacons add me to their list of people to deliver a Rice Chex, from a separate tray.

At least, it seems simple until the sacramental prayer has been said over the bread that has been torn and blessed by a young man holding the office of Priest, along with the tray of GF cereal bits.  Then the twelve and thirteen year old boys come streaming down the aisles. A solemn procession to pass the Sacrament to the waiting congregation. 

That’s when I get a little anxious. If the boy who has the tray is new, or doesn’t know who I am, or simply doesn't see me, should I just take a bit of bread along with the rest of my family as the tray makes it’s silent way down the row I am sitting on? Should I wait and hope the kind of sacrament I should be partaking will make it’s way to me? Do I just trust that it will get figured out?

I’ll be honest, when I am visiting other wards on vacation I just take the bread. It makes me dizzy to even contemplate making a fuss or introducing myself before the start of the meeting to ask that they bless and serve me some gluten free item or other that I provide or see if they have something they are already passing for Celiacs.

I would rather suffer a little illness or increased pain than go there.

So every Sunday I wait, trying to catch the eye of whichever young man is holding two separate trays in my own home ward.

It has been years of increased anxiety every Sunday as I navigate this. No making it up. I get a little weepy. 

I don’t mind being the special snowflake that I am, but I do mind calling attention to myself and requiring special treatment. Especially at a time set aside for sacred reflection it bugs me to feel like my needs make passing the Sacrament logistically difficult.

The past few months have been this; the hyper-vigilance over the passing of the bread, the weepiness… but with a lessening of the anxiety.

Maybe because I have been in this ward for two and a half years now, and I have gotten comfortable with an increased trust in the boys who live here. Maybe it is just the fact that I have been making a conscious effort to increase my spiritual living.

There is now something sacred about scanning the procession for the bearer of my Sacrament, and he, upon catching my eye has a moment of recognition. He was looking for me, among just a few others. I, personally am one of a particular few that he has a special duty to take a sacrament to. Along with the regular bits of torn bread in the tray in his other hand, he is looking for me.

That He might feed me that which will nourish and strengthen me as I renew my covenants. 

The past few weeks this realization has had me bawling like a baby, because I see that it has always been thus. 

The Savior of the World has always been there to serve the congregations of this world, but with a personal Sacrament just for me. He ministers one by one.

By the time the the water is blessed, and I take a cup from the same tray as all those who sit on the row with me, and drink, I ponder on the things I have learned. 

I miss bread, I do, but I am grateful for the tender mercies held out to me by The Good Shepherd. I am grateful for this example of how the Atonement works one individual at a time. It is a good reminder. 

This lesson. It is not a trade, but it is a consolation.

Hoo-sus Poo-sus

We've been homeschooling for almost two years, and that means that Henry is the only one of my kids I have watched learn how to read from the start. At least... that's what I thought.

After witnessing the process, I think I can't really say I "taught" him how to read. At best, I escorted him through the experience. Language is such a funny thing... the speaking, and the reading, and the writing... it is far more organic than I had realized.

I suspect that none of the girls' teachers actually "taught" them to read any more that I taught Hen.

One of the interesting things is the part where the reading level of the brains of the kid outstrips the words they actually know. That happened to Henry the other day.

We were on our way to the Land with our little Yorkie dog, Alice. She'd just gotten a haircut the day before and was shivering a little. Henry was sitting behind me in the van, trying to warm her up, and I overheard him say, 

"I'm gonna warm you up, Alice!" He waved his hands around and pronounced  "Hoo-sus Poo-sus! You're WARM!"

"Hoo-sus Poo-sus?" I asked. The words sounded odd, but right at the edge of my understanding, the way that he'd said them.

"Yeah! Hoo-sus Poo-sus! Abracadabra!"

"Where did you read that?" I was laughing by now.

"Calvin and Hobbs, he says "hoo-sus poo-sus and does magic!"

HOCUS POCUS! 

It's the hazards of not enough Bugs Bunny in the lives of children.

I admit, I've been saying it as a pretend  swear word ever since.

Knife

The words
of your life
have been written,
but those words
never touched
on my grief.
That sorrow
I wear in my back
like a knife.
A burden
I cannot shift.
It twists
between my wings
on its course
to my heart.

Brandon's Eulogy

Good Morning. I was asked to speak today by Brandon’s mother and father, they both seemed to be pretty sure that I am the person for the job. But I am no Andrew Wiggins. Not even a standard issue Speaker for the Dead, I’m just his Aunt Bonnie.

I really wish I was a Speaker for the Dead. I wish that I could stand up here and explain the life of Brandon Christopher Butler in a way that would help you understand him, or help you heal or even just explain how we got here today.

But I can’t. Probably because this isn’t fiction. His life wasn’t neat and tidy, and the mysteries of Brandon’ life eluded not just those that loved him, but they baffled him as well. To talk about Brandon, I need to talk about the opposites and contradictions that he was made of. While I guess that most of us humans are made up of these contradictions… it has to be said that Brandons were right there in your face. He wasn’t able to hide much. To his credit and as a testament to his humility he rarely tried to hide even the harder stuff much.

He had natural gifts and trials both. Brandon was handsome man with a strong, well made physique. He was tall and broad shouldered. He suffered hyperhydrosis, the excessive sweating of hands and feet that made him feel freakish. He was always aware of it, and it bothered him.

He was a talented swimmer and athlete, but he was uninterested in the culture of competition, and as a teen, when swimming no longer was fun he was done. He was a healthy guy who loved the outdoors. Camping, hiking, long boarding, mountain biking. He was also the guy who would turn around and use hard drugs.

Of his drug use he said the following in a letter to his parents; 

“I could touch heaven, and I can delve in to hell, but I cannot return with a piece of it. I could only ever return with less and less of myself.”

He was a happy go lucky guy, well…except for when he wasn’t. From a very young age he has suffered through bouts of depression, making it difficult to keep up with his life. Of his depression he said this:

“But a feeling of languor has crept into my bones. And it is but a shadow of the demon of depression and indifference that I now sense I must face soon. I remember thinking then, marveling at how it is I ever came to be so weak. I, whose passion and life was like a great fire, consuming and lighting the way, now my soul is but a small flame on the wick, sputtering, flickering in the violent winds my life has aroused. I am proud of my many aspects but these past couple months, hell past couple years I just can’t summon up the will to follow through. It is all I can do to get by, my life is shrouded in fear.”

Brandon had all the makings of a really cool guy, He was blessed with humor and charisma and was confident in his ability to forge his own paths. All of that cool, and hIs sister will tell you that he was still a dork. He was a complete nerd-pants. He was the guy who regaled the neighbors with loud and elaborate “poop scooping raps” as he cleaned up after the family dog in the back yard. The guy who would make up and belt at the top of his voice, operatic narration of whatever he was doing at the time. He was the guy who would skip through a parking lot on the way to Walmart, with great galumphing skips, wearing shorts in a snowstorm, all by himself and he wouldn’t care if you saw. And I’m betting that’s part of why you loved him. If you are here, there is a very good chance that you are a part of that tribe as well, just sayin’. You know who you are.

Brandon was a friendly guy. He would look you in the eye and smile his infectious smile. Sometimes he could come off as cocky or even intimidating in his confidence and his barrage of ideas and questions when you first met him, but the fact was, he loved people and ideas and he wanted to understand others and really connect with them. So as briefly off putting as he could be at first meeting he really just loved people and that shone through. His lack of guile won him friends time after time.

He had no use for authority, and he really hated it when Authority, with a capital “A,” “Authority,” was used to control him, or even try to control him. But he had principles that he lived by. Sometimes he lived by them in a way that caused him problems for no good reason.

Like the time when in the 11th grade he interviewed for a job at a pizza restaurant and the interviewer asked him if he saw a co-worker stealing from the company if he would say something. He told them that he probably wouldn’t.
Then, the interviewer asked if he, Brandon, would ever steal from the company and Brandon told them that he might. If they were terrorists. Then he would steal their guns.
I guess they probably had to ask all the questions because the person doing the interview continued on, like there was ANY possibility of Brandon getting hired at that point! That there was a period of training that lasted 4-6 weeks, and would Brandon have any problem with that? Brandon answers with appalling honesty, that he really intended to head off to Snow college in two months, so yeah, he could probably fit the training in.

Brandon had a strong intellect, he loved logic, science and words. He had a huge vocabulary and had an easy way with speaking and writing. His conversation would range seamlessly between philosophy, quantum particles, world religions and ancient civilization. He loved ideas and he understood complex concepts and histories and could hold forth with the best conversationalists, but he also struggled with ADD, which scattered his thoughts and energies, but it did make for some fascinating conversation. Unless he was high, then he’d still talk, it just wasn’t nearly as much fun to listen to.

He was amazingly intelligent… and yet, he could be frustrating to deal with in an academic situation. That might have had something to do with his “Authority” thing. Or possibly his “ADD” thing or sometimes the “depression” thing would shut him down mid-semester, but even when he would GO to the class and DO the work. He just couldn’t seem to make it back to the teacher WITH the homework. Take the test? Please! He did it and he learned it, why would he have to prove it now? It even made him kinda mad that people expected him to toe that sort of a line.

Show up to class with a pencil and paper?!? Who do you think he is? Back to the authority thing!

He never stole from his family or friends. He would suffer through detoxing and withdrawals and intense personal discomfort rather than steal. He had a couple of times been accused of stealing from a friend or doing them dirty, and it just devastated him that others would think him capable of it. He treated women with respect and kindness and he was a wonderful big brother.

Oh. How that man loved Breanne and Ethan. He loved his friends and family and he really never left it up to chance whether you knew that. You could tell by his hugs, by his words and many other tendernesses. And I think that’s all I am going to be able to say about that.

In conclusion, Brandon has not always believed in life after death, but after losing a good friend in his early twenties he revisited his beliefs. He sought a spiritual experience, something beyond mere logic, something to hold onto. He writes of his experiences, and this is how I’d like to close my remarks to you, in Brandon’s own words,

“As I lay in bed that night, and this has been the goal of my writing, to reach this night, I was sure we are not alone in death. Thinking of you, Father, of you Mother. Though your days may eventually reach an end here, I know you will be with me, giving some logic to the ever present feeling I have always had that I am being watched. I believe you will get to see everything that I have done, everywhere I have been! Though your mortal temperaments may not now approve, I know your eternal perspective will see me true, and have always been very proud of me. All my wandering days. I am so incredibly glad that all lost to time is not truly lost! I cannot begin to express the relief that has gripped me. It comes in a great rush of euphoria!… I know it will be hard to keep my rapacious mind at bay, but I will try to always believe, that we are forever. Amen.”

Burn

I'd always thought 

I handled stress well.  

Had a picture of myself

in my head 

of a woman who 

could walk through fire… 

till I took a stroll once or twice 

in the furnace.

Abednigo, I am not.

Now.

I am well fired clay.

Strong but brittle.

Not scorched, 

but damaged 

in that I can

never be made into

something other 

than the form I was

when I entered the kiln.

Fragile

I’d envisioned getting older 

as a toughening process.

I believed that when I was matured, 

when my grey hairs had arrived,

my heart would be mighty.

That each beat and each thud

would be audible to those

who claimed a bit of my love.

Instead I find I'm brittle and worn through, 

that those things which did not kill me

most assuredly did NOT make me stronger.

I suspect I 'm doing it wrong.

That Hole

It feels like you wish 

that I was different,

perhaps, 

more perfectly suited 

to help you feel better. 

I don't think the person 

you wish I was 

exists anywhere. 

The hole you are trying 

to make me fit in 

is not 

a person shaped hole.

Grief

I’ll admit, the voices in my interior Committees have some pretty brutal things to say to me.  But, let’s be clear, they don’t say anything that has not been said by someone before.

My Committee Members are not creative… they just parrot back the most unkind assessments and judgements that I have ever heard or read in RL or on the Internets- and they direct them at me.  They do it in a way that there will be no one to defend me… but myself, and I have a lousy track record of self-defence.

...and my Committees are currently in session.

I am a woman of unseemly sorrows.  I grieve for the loss of my helpmeets and friends; my long lost love of coffee, my daily, hourly, prayer of nicotine.  

That is where the lament starts, but it goes on to the aching loss of alcohol and last, but certainly not least, crystal meth.

It is grotesque but inevitable for me to grieve for these killers and distorters.  I think it may be something like the anguish that a mother of a mass murderer might feel when her sweet boy is dealt the death penalty.  Certainly, I don’t talk about missing these poisons with the sweet ladies of my church congregation; many of whom have never so much as touched a Dr. Pepper let alone a wine cooler.

I have only ever met one other active member of the LDS church who cops to having ever loved Crystal.  Other mourners may be out there, but they aren’t talking- just wearing their black armbands in private like I do.

Yet today, it’s autumn time and as the trees burn and blush, I will say out loud how I am swallowed up with grief and shame in equal measure.  Shame for who I was and also for what I have become.  

My body.

I love most of who I am, and what I do…. but my body…

People look at me and see an undisciplined woman.  A fat-ass.   A lazy cow.  Perhaps someone who could use a little bit of education on nutrition.  A girl who could stand to put down the spoon, already.  Go for a walk around the block.

Maybe you don’t see that, but some do.  I can read.  I have ears.

Undisciplined.  Lack of Willpower.  Lazy. Unorganized. Disgusting.

You have no idea, whatsoever, of who I am and where I come from, what I battle or what I have lost… but my Committees do.  

- and they think I'm a lazy fat-ass too.

I feel the shame, but strangely... not much regret.

I know I shouldn't post this, but right now I need... something. I think I need to be heard.

When I Used to Blog

So much has changed since the time in my life when  I blogged regularly.

For one, my folks moved from New Mexico, to a town just an hour or so away from us... so that doused one of the flames that used to be part of the proverbial fire under my butt to blog.

For two:  My kids are growing up.  My Birdie has a real-and-for-actual gmail account that we let her get to keep in touch with her friends from our old town.  The girl turns twelve in one week.  This drives home the fact that I what I am blogging is not just my own story, but the stories of people who may object to being players here some day.

The Bird has not actually found this blog and trolled the archives.   Yet.  

I know this, because if she had?  The questions would not end.  Not sure how I feel about that.... wait, yes I do!  Freaks me right the #@$% out!

For three:  I have known for a while that I apparently have only a certain amount of writing in me.  I turned my writing time toward a novel.  I am now on my first re-write.   Go ME!

No.  You can't read it.  Seriously.  You don't want to.  Not yet, and maybe not ever.

For four (yeah, I know... this pretend-bullet point thing is not funny or clever, but I'm gonna just go with it,   LOOK!  First-draft-I-don't-care!): I had gotten a pretty big calling working with children in my church congregation, and for better or for worse, it shut me down in many ways for two and a half years while I poured energy into serving.  Plus, I felt awkward being real, or real-ish here on the blog, and having children find it and read it.  Or parents of children reading it.  Enough people in my ward knew about the blog and that was... too weird.

Then we moved, and that shut me down in some other ways.

I had some health things that scared the hell out of me, and stole some of my vitality and a year and an half of my life.  I haven't really bounced back physically OR emotionally from the surgeries and subsequent recoveries.  I just haven't.  Can't pretend like I have.  I look older, feel older... I am older.

Probably in the same way that I only have a certain amount of writing in me (it has gotten better with regular practice) I appear to have only a certain amount of social energy.  I am not the same gregarious woman I was three or four years ago.  

I'm... 

I 'm just not.  I have lost some of my resiliency.  

I feel like I should apologize to someone for that.

At the same time, however... while I am no longer as ebullient, neither am I as heedless.  Guess all I am saying is, I am unsure as to whether it was a fair trade; but, fair or cheat, I am trying to get a handle on what kind of a woman is left of me.

Some of what is left:  Yesterday I got a big order from Amazon that still has my brains reeling and my face goggle-eyed from the pure... awesomeness?  I actually don't KNOW what word encompasses the deliciousness of the three books I got.  I cannot decide which book to devour first!

At least my brain still works!

Enough

Spoiler Alert:  Birdie has been working on a Christmas album as gifts for the relatives this year.  

She can do this because shortly after we moved here (uhhhhh.... we moved to a town about 20-30 miles north of where we had been living) I found her a voice coach.  I like this "coach" because her approach is purely practical.  First she finds out what the student is interested in learning or wants help with, and then she jumps right in and coaches from that angle. 

Yes, she assigns vocal conditioning a scales and the like... but the serious focus is the style and songs that the student is interested in developing.  In late summer we attended a recital of her students and while at least half of her kids tend toward the Taylor Swift, Katy Perry or Sara Bariellas thing ... a goodly chunk of the rest had a range from spiritual to Broadway musical.

Along with preparing her students to perform, she has a little recording booth/closet in her studio, and this lady wields Garageband like a boss.

So... she has sent me three of the four songs Birdie has cut so far... and when I listen to the tracks when no one else can see me, I weep.  

It is so beautiful. 

It amazes me. 

I am stunned.

Not by her voice exactly.  Her voice is amazing, and she has really worked hard to get the skills and abilities she has developed...but  her voice is also simple at it's very heart.  Her voice is very similar to mine.

Confession: I have always admired the amazing singers... the Aretha's, the Alicia Keys' and the women with powerful and stunning voices that make the walls shake and blow my mind.  I have grieved the fact that I do not have such a voice and no matter how much effort or training, could never have such a voice.  Seriously.  Grieved.

I weep when I hear my daughter's voice because I now understand so much better, the love that our Father has for us.  There is nothing small or deficient about her voice, which sounds, in it's simplified version, so much like my own.  The sound that comes out of her mouth is glorious and captivating and touching.

I have misunderstood.  I have always been enough.

We are enough.

If I am cool, I will post the Christmas songs after she is all done.... but here is this one.

15 Again

What do you say on your abandoned blog, when you finally realize that you are falling to the bits and the pieces because you feel like you have no voice.  No voice, and you have abandoned one of the few places that helped you feel like you were not voiceless.  Hi!  Bloggy!

Don't know, but I think I'll begin with a nice...
"Y'all, I am as angsty as a teenager these days."  

...and more than a little OCD.  Well.  Maybe it's not exactly OCD, but it's not exactly not OCD.  I don't know what it is, a syndrome of some sort I suppose, but I don't dare go googling around on the Internet for the accurate name for it.

Because google is the delivery system for my insanity.  The viral packaging that my personal brand of freakout gets delivered in.  That,  and the old FecesBook.  I just want to go see who is doing what, and check any messages or events, but then I run up against  this, that or the other political whats-it, and BAM!  I am sucked into a link festival of horror.  

Like the fact that....  Whups!  almost left you a link to the kind of crap that is eating my joy.  News about Executive orders and statistics and civil rights and oohhhh....  Done.  No more.

I will do you the kindness I cannot seem to do for myself, and refrain from exposing you to information that will make your brain bleed and keep you up at night.  And yes, I vet the heck out of everything, so it's the real deal info, and not the crack pot crap.  But that also means that I wade through a ton of alarmist crap and nut-job BS.... and that does not help to take the edge off.  The fact I end up with stuff that is straight up hard news that still sounds like whack-job conspiracy theory crap makes it worse.

Let's just say that the older I get, the more Libertarian I lean.  A stymied and ineffectual Congress is a good Congress in my book.  Less legislation equals public good.

It does not help that it is a generally held belief by most sane people, that as an American Citizen of the voting age, I should be well informed.  I am coming to the conclusion that my mental health would be improved if I spent more time trolling Netflix for rom/coms, or seeking out the best the internet has to offer in terms of grumpy cat memes.

Or... y'know, walking away from the computer.

I had been doing better for almost two weeks, and then I relapsed yesterday.  I won't get into the details, not that I don't think you, if you are an American who can vote, shouldn't know, but it will send me back into the spiral of link-and-find which leads inevitably to quiet panic.  

...and the last thing I can afford to do it get into some sort of "discussion" in the comments of this post.

Tinder

I prayed for rain

But

I burn on

Uncontained

He hears my prayers

Yet

Allows me to burn

Undone, unrestrained

Cheat-grass, sage

And juniper heart

Consumed as

I burn

Tween!

It's finally behaving a little like January, what with the snow and ice and such.... so today I threw Henry in the van to pick up Pearl from Kindy-garten. On the drive home I go over the rules for when I go get my hair done. I go to the same lady who's been doing my hair for about nine years now, she's in our congregation at church, and she has a salon in the basement of their split-level home. It has been in this home that all four of my kids have had their first real haircuts.

It so happens that her six year old daughter is in Pearl's Kindy class, and they have been having some great play dates. In the past they mostly just ignored each other or played around each other when I went for a hair appointment, but I could see that now they will probably continue one of their epic LPS games... and Pearl might be invited to range past the playroom and into the upstairs where the rooms are.

"So.. I expect you to stay out of their kitchen. And don't go into her brother's rooms or her sister Myra's room. OK?"

"OK, mama." She pauses, thinking, "Her sister is a teenager, huh, mama?"

"Yes, she is. She would not appreciate you guys messing with her stuff."

"Is Birdie a teenager?"

"No, not yet. She won't be a teenager for three years or so."

"Oh! That's right! Birdie is a..." I'm driving so I cannot actually see her furrowed brow as she searches her memory, but I know she's got that look. "Birdie is a... uh... a TWINKLE!"

The heck? "Oh! You mean a TWEEN!? Technically she'll be a tween when she turns ten."

Huh. I think I like "twinkle" better.

Cake!

The cakes I have made since last Feb....

Lilac turned seven, she had a Zhu Zhu Pet Party.

Blue and Gold celebration for the Cubs.

Pearl turned six in November, she had a Monster High party.

Henry had himself a Digger Truck party... and turned three. I cheated just a little, and made him a dirt-cake in one of his dump trucks. Those are some darling little orange cone candles and gummy worms. So that sorta makes up for it.

Well HE loved it!

...we had a little Thanksgiving dinner for just our family the day before the usual TG. Mostly so's we could have some leftover turkey and taters. But also to make up for everyone but me having to miss my mom's early TG, due to a whole household worth of the barfs. It's fun to have a formal table every now and again!

Nuts!

I have been eating gluten free for around a month and a half. The reasons I have gone GF are complicated, medical and sort of boring. And confusing. To my knowledge I am not exactly a Celiac... but I am not exactly not a Celiac. Confusing.

And if you are not me... boring.

If you are me, then it just is a new sort of reality. One that I was not entirely sure was doing me any particular good. Until today.

Backstory: I am not new to the "dietary restriction" world. I have been a little allergic to tree nuts most of my life, and ever since my early twenties, I have been really allergic to raw nuts. Itchy throat and mouth, swelling, mucous, general unpleasantness.

Upon reflection, I now realize that the increased level of tree nut allergy started around the same time as the lactose intolerance. And the arthritis.

Holy peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. Even if you are me, this is BORING.

So one of the things people have been assuring me, is that after eating GF for a while, that I will be able to have dairy without the intolerance reaction.... that perhaps even the tree nut allergy will go away.

My response to that? I'd rather have bread than milk any day of the week, so why would I make that trade? I would rather have cookies than ice cream, hands down.

I went GF in the end, because I hoped I could get the arthritis under control and be able to run again. I would trade bread, and cookies, and cake, soups with a roux, and white vinegar to be able to do that. Apparently I will even trade flour tortillas. Y'all. Seriously.

So I have been GF, and the only thing that I have been able to see that has happened is that I had to give up doing Weight Watchers. Between all of my dietary restrictions and the Points Plus counting, that is just tooooo much brain power spent on thinking about food.

For a short time I thought that the arthritis was backing off, so I stopped taking my meds. But it turned out to be just a fluke, or wishing or whatever. I am back on the meds.

Aaaaanyway. Are those tears of boredom I see rolling down your face? You must be family to stick with a post this tedious. I will give you the upshot before you disown me... I haven't tried any milk yet. Pretty scared to, if ya wanna know the truth. But I ate the following this afternoon with NO reaction:

2 raw almond

1 raw filbert

1 raw brazil nut

MORE than enough to have me hacking and clawing my eyes out. Normally. And I had no reaction. Zip. Nada.

Am I thrilled beyond belief that I can eat raw tree nuts now?

Meh. S'ok.

Am I thrilled beyond belief that I am seeing what I now believe is the first of several health benefits? Heck to the YEAH! I am hoping for a cease-fire in the pain department. Please. Oh, please!

Plus, I think I will try this pie crust!

Star

"My mission president (I never know if that should be capitalized?) once told us missionaries that there are two kinds of people:
Folks who walk into the room with the sense of "Here I am!"
and then there are the folks who walk in to the room with the sense of "THERE you are!"

Then he invited us to decide for ourselves which kind Jesus was.

Also, this most definitely falls under the "just do it till it works" header. If you don't like the "fake it till you make it" saying, then think of it in terms of tithing. I think it was President Hinkley who said if you want a testimony of tithing, first you have to pay the tithing and then the testimony will follow. You have to first do the activities of a "there you are" person, then you become one."

I just left the above as a comment to this post.... and I deeply regret leaving it. Not because it is untrue, but because is comes off as preachy and ass-vicey... and it's incomplete.

The interesting thing is that as the mission president was talking about the latter kind of person, I recalled a friend of mine from back-in-the-day who exemplified this sort of behavior. I didn't just recall him, turns out I flat cannot think about what it means to be a "There you are" person whith out hearkening back to this guy. His name is Mark, and I am actually still in touch with him via FecesBook... only now he is a Karaoke (DJ? MC? Host?) in the Denver bar scene, and he goes by Mark Star-mijo. The man has not been able to run a quick errand in his life, he always knows someone or meets someone everywhere he goes.

You find Christlike attributes where ya find them.

He sees you, and you have his full attention and he wants to know how you have been and what is going on. He wants to figure out what make you you and he somehow communicates that he thinks "you" are great! As far as I could see by watching him in action, that went for pretty much anyone that cropped up on his radar, not just females.

Except when he was drugging hard he was this way and from the sounds of this article, he's back to his amazing "THERE you are" activity.... and I am glad. And as far as his ability to interact with people and SEE them and HEAR them... well... I wanna be like Mark when I grow up.

A Minecraft Birthday!

So my baby Birdie turned 9 just last week, and she wanted to have a Minecraft themed birthday party. Minecraft is a computer game that is all kinds of fun, her new obsession, and the source of several very important life lessons for her. Maybe, if she gives me permission, I will tell y'all that tale... but suffice it to say, she got a good lesson in giving out info online, Griefers, using her mama's YouTube account without permission, and general Internet safety and protocol. Luckily, no actual damage was done during the experiencing of those lessons, and I am quite frankly glad to have had that lesson so well learned at such a relatively low cost.

Anyways... the Bird-day! First off, the invitations: the top looked like this...

That's a Creeper, one of the monsters that you battle in-game. It hisses, then it blows you up. This is clever, I promise.

The inside of the card said:

My name is Birdie, I am turning 9!

You are invited to my party

being held in a Mine.

We will battle spiders and zombies

and creepers so sneaky

we will eat cake and slime balls

you might think it's geeky

but it's really a

MINECRAFT PARTY!

Next, even though in the game Minecraft, you can actually make a cake that looks like this, what she wanted was a Creeper Cake, so after much planning and research I made one. It took three 9x13 cakes, and two batches of buttercream frosting to do the job... but I did it!

(Pearl loves Creepers too! Especially French Vanilla Creepers!)

I used a can of spray-on food coloring to make the subtle block pattern on the frosting, and a little bit of store bought fondant dyed black for the face and toes. The homemade fondant tastes so much better, but I was already up to my ears in stuff to do.

Next I used some electrical tape to turn our kitchen table into a Minecraft "Crafting Table" where the cake was consumed and also where the kids made their "sword", "pick", and "torch" for using down in the "mine."

(also pictured are an example of a pick and sword)

Let me tell you how the party went.... Yes. You do get the blow-by-blow account because I am excruciatingly proud of this party that was a labor of love by all of us in Chaos, mostly Birdie and I.

First, the guests gathered, and since not every one on the planet knows what the heck Minecraft is (the game is still in it's Beta mode) we let the kids watch a short, introductory clip about how to survive your first night in the game. The clip also was a good explanation for how the party proceeded. First, we had them go into the kitchen where they harvested a block of wood (a piece of brown paper from the "trees" on the wall), which they then took to the crafting table to trade for a packet that included a cardboard pick head, a cardboard sword and four craft sticks.

They covered the pick and sword in foil and then we "crafted" the items using the covered cardboard forms and some of the sticks with tape and leaving one "stick" left over.

Next we went to the "coal" pinata that I had made by filling an empty Costco size Cheerio box with crumpled black paper bits of "coal" and some packs of Poprocks, just for funsies. (Hint: next time I would skip the poprocks! Messy! Garrr!) Since it is February and cold as the dickens out there, we tried to minimise the damage of doing this indoors, and so did not blindfold the kids for this activity!

(the green box is a Zombie Helmet used for Zombie Tag)

Afterward, the kids traded their last stick and their bit of "coal" for a dollarstore flashlight and some batteries. Viola! Torch! And the kids got to use all these items for the party and take them home as well.

Next, we tanked them all up on cake and milk drunk from silver cups (metal minecraft buckets), and green slime balls (scoops of lime sherbet) to replenish all of our energy and "life" before we ventured downstairs to "mine" and "do battle" with the monsters down there.

There was Zombie Tag, Pin the Skull On the Skeleton and Spider Races.

(Birdie made the Skeleton game herself!)

Open gifts.

Lots of leftover cake.

The End.

Except for Lilac's birthday party that is next week. Zhu Zhu Pets. Whuf.

I did it... yes, I did.

Soooo.... we got a very lovely couch and chair combo. Wanna see 'em?

Second hand. Beautiful. Amazing condition. Priced right...

...and we cannot get the sofa down the stairs to the family room, cannot even fit it through the door at the very top. On the flip-side... we are gonna be needing a couch to replace the one we currently have upstairs, it's a loaner from my folks who will be coming home some time in Aug or Sept. But that's a pretty looong time to live with that many big couches in the front room. But it looks like that's exactly what we are going to do. Yay.

Will I sell the couch and chair? Are you CRAZY!? I love those things!

All of which does nothing to solve the problem of seating in the basement. Sigh. Looks like it's time for us to get comfy on the carpet.

I am considering the cheap leather-ish (bonded leather?) sectional that comes in a couple of pieces so that we could slide them downstairs and put them together and then never move them again. Ever.

Unfortunately "cheap" is still $700. On top of the $450 we just dropped on our early replacement couch (and chair) for upstairs. NO T MADE OF MONEY here, people!

I did the following too, and that's all the segue ya get:

The other night I walked around the corner to the hallway to discover Lilac trying to teach Birdie how to climb the hallway walls by propping her hands and feet spread eagle on each opposing wall. Seriously, the girl can apparently wedge herself all the way up to touch the ceiling.

OBVIOUSLY the thing to do is stop such dangerous and potentially destructive behavior. But I could hear the note in Birdie's voice, and easily see the way she was "trying" to learn to do this climby/wedgie thing. I could see that she didn't trust her own body or ability to learn this. Like she "couldn't" do it, so she was sort of flailing about and getting frantic, and feeling like a failure. This bugged me more than the footprints that Lilac was leaving on my walls, so I ... ahem... well I coached Birdie a little.

Yeah. I encouraged my kid to learn to climb the walls. Whaddah schmuck I am! In any case she DID learn and now I have all kinds of sizes of footie-prints all down the hallway walls.

Whatevs. Better than boogers, and I have wiped more than my fair share off the hallway walls, so I know of whence I speak.