My hypocrisy

Several weeks ago we had a pretty passionate debate with some friends of ours about appropriate responses to injustice in the world. In this case it involved the mega loads destined for the tar sands of Canada that will soon take place on a scenic byway connecting Idaho with Montana. But really...this conversation could have been about anything. I know that throughout history there have been injustices and tragedies that the typical person had no control over. Living in the information age tends to amplify these feelings of impotency...and leads to general frustration and angst. Within my own state's borders there seems to be serious corruption at top levels of Idaho state government. How else to explain the fact that the mega loads permits were essentially approved with no public input? That politicians admit stealing timber from land dedicated to funding schools and then refusing to pay the amount back? Or that some politicians feel that they don't have to pay taxes? Just the rest of us that pay their salary? That gubernatorial candidates feels free to poach at will? What an odd state. But realistically...what an odd country...what an odd world.

So what is the appropriate response? Ultimately the mega loads are a symptom of a much larger problem in our country. In many ways we are a democracy in name only...because I don't have the money huge corporations like Conoco Phillips have...or Exxon Mobile. My voice isn't as loud. Recent Supreme Court decisions on a national level make this even more of an issue. I feel as if the average citizen is like the tiny community in Horton Hears a Who. How can we be heard if there are no Hortons?

We didn't go protest the mega loads. Not because I don't think it is worthwhile...but because I wasn't sure driving my SUV down was the point I wanted to make. The fact is that our country is built on oil...Idaho receives 9% of its oil from those dastardly tar sands in Canada. What does that make me? How do I inform future development in such a way that I won't need to rely on my vehicle so heavily? Would it be better for me to park my vehicle as a form of protest? What about 0 degree weather and five young children? These questions are never easy and it is something I struggle to work out in my own life.

Neurosis 101: The Heather Files

Today started off pretty slow...Jon let me sleep in. Again. Dylan had spent the night with the boys so after a breakfast of sugary cereal they had fun doing god knows what in the family room...wrestling probably, watching movies and playing on the Wii. I had coerced another couple to come for dinner...haha. I say coerced just because I have made it my mission to be more outwardly friendly this year...as in spending time with new people and putting myself out there.

After finding out for sure they were coming to dinner I spent most of the afternoon wondering how dull of a hostess I would be, whether my children would let us visit and whether they would like dinner. I kept reminding myself that Jon is a really likable guy. Sometimes I am just too weird...too neurotic...and too self absorbed. :P Another friend of ours told me the other day when I apologized for possibly offending her that I was always worried about offending someone. Very astute! I do worry about offending people. I worry about people not liking me and I want to be liked. I hate that about myself. I hate that I want people to like me. I hate that I think I am unlikable and obnoxious...this of course going back to previous blogs where I hated myself for being loud and opinionated. Even though I am. And even though I blogged about accepting those things about myself.

Right now. I don't. Unfortunately, you can't take a vacation from your own neurosis.

Abbreviated

One evening last fall I randomly typed in my birth father's name, Tyson Harman, into the Facebook search box...and poof! There he was. I knew it was him the second I saw him. And I had never seen him before. My first thought was not, "Great!" my first thought was, "Now look what you've done Heather". I had to decide what should be done or what I needed to be done or what I could live with being done. After swearing profusely I remembered my birth mom had told me I had two sisters. I found several women...and wrote them all. I introduced myself as the possible daughter of this man and gave them relevant facts I knew about him.

I was not going to give him a chance to reject me.

Then I waited.

And then I had one. My sister, yes I had a sister! Gayle writing to tell me that if what I wrote her was true then she was my sister! And in fact I had two! And an aunt and new cousins...and still there was him...who I hadn't written yet. I was angry at this man I had never met.

Angry and indifferent.

This particular blog is abbreviated. And in many ways that is the way I feel about him...abbreviated. I have spoken to him once on the phone and he seems very nice. On an intellectual level I would like to meet him. To learn something about him so that I can learn something about myself. To have something more to pass on to my children about their grandfather.

Emotionally I feel nothing.

I think I should meet him. I want to meet my sisters. I want to meet my aunt and cousins. I want to form a connection.

I'll think about these things.

Identity

Growing up I knew exactly what I wanted to be. I wanted to be Cyndi Lauper. I wanted pink hair. I wanted to sing...LOUDLY and I wanted to dance and I wanted to wear Rainbow Brite's clothes and I wanted to be loved...for all of it. I remember living in Southern California...summer days were endless and hot. White heat. The air smelled like oil and dirt and humidity. I played with ants. I played with cockroaches. I spit on people from our second floor apartment. I made prank calls to the operator at the public pay phone...late into the night as my mom spoke with my aunt on the adjacent phone. I was convinced that I was convincing the operator that I was a 50 year old man asking for the time. I was that good. I was going to be an actress. I was going to be loved. I remember running barefoot up the fake green turf carpeting that lined our apartment stairs. The dirt. The grime. The smell of burning carpet when I laid the hair iron on it. The time I washed the cat...in the toilet. The time I followed a little girl home from school and missed the bus...the bus that would take me back down to the poor neighborhood I lived in. The abandoned gas station across the street...with the homeless camped behind it...between the walls of buildings...their drunken caterwauling at night. The lights. The sirens. Riding in the back window of our vehicles...orange street lights flashing by...the night life of Los Angeles. Sucking on butterscotch candies my grandpa gave me. Hiding under my uncle's bed while playing solo GI Joe...discovering nudie mags. What IS this? Watching Annie...I remember feeling sorry for her...sorry that she had no family...sorry that she had to be adopted.

And then I was. Aren't our lives like this? Don't we all have stories like this. Stories that are probably all a little dirtier then we would like to remember. Not quite so airbrushed they exist in the back corners of our mind. Most of the time we can ignore them...but they have made us. We are a product of these experiences. My experiences are gritty. I am gritty. I am emotional. I am compassionate. I am disgusted. I am sad. Who I am lurks beneath the surface and is insecure. I am that 7, 8, 9 year old girl...I am the girl that slept in a car.

I have noticed when I blog that I want to appear a certain way. I take many pictures of happy events. I don't take pictures of myself pinched and silent during dinner. I don't take pictures of my house and the mess. Because I want to appear at least remotely put together. I don't want to show it at all if it can't look better then it normally does. I don't take pictures of myself wasting time online. I don't take pictures of myself feeling smug and self satisfied. I don't take pictures of myself judging.

So I will rectify this. I can be distracted and lazy. I can be a procrastinator. I am not organized. I like bright colors. I like music. I like to dance. I like to walk. I like to laugh. I am that little whirling dervish girl.

Being a mother now lends itself to all sorts of expectations. It is a battle for me to overcome my desire to socialize with the need to keep house. I thought I would dispel any myths that may exist for those that don't know me well on any supermomness. We are our harshest critics and I know so many moms that think the worst of themselves. We don't love ourselves...we want to be like THAT mom...the one that is beautiful, the one that makes time to exercise or knit or do any assortment of things we don't do and frankly don't want to! I want my house to be organized and beautiful! But it isn't.

What is this blog about? Being myself. Allowing myself to be strong in some areas and not others. And appreciating the things I have to offer that are unique to me. The grit.

Isla is our standby paper shredder...very energy efficient.

Breakfast. Check. Coats. Check. Library movies. Check.

Shoe rack that Jon made...not currently being used.

New bike kept out of the rain...glider rocker as stool, probably not the best idea.

Note tiara on dresser and guns in corner...unmade bed, box of things to dispose of.

5000 minutes

Today I recieved a text from my birth mom Marilyn that said this:

Mom went to att to increase minutes five thousand minutes for the weekends good news for us
love mom

We had just discussed her new phone plan and I am happy that she was able to increase her minutes in order to control costs...she has had a problem with going over her minutes in the past. I did laugh...really hard...and so did Jon when I read the part about good news for us. I guess I should set some time aside?

January weekend

I always wait to title my posts until after I have written. Mostly because I never know what will pop out.

This weekend was a three day weekend with the kids...it was pretty tiring after a rainy Friday but we were fortunate to have Katie, Dylan, Eva and Sylvia stop by for an afternoon visit. Jon was pretty busy on Friday meeting with clients and working on a proposal with Harmony Engineering and Design from Driggs, ID. I am pretty proud of him, he has never waited for something to fall in his lap and instead goes for it. Hopefully, they will win the project...fingers crossed.

Saturday Jon worked from 9-1 at the wood shop up on campus...and had enough time to read through and edit most of the proposal since not many students came in. I had the kids help clean up and Josiah watched Isla while I tackled our mountain of dishes. I swear they reproduce. I was listening to NPR while washing dishes and heard a short story by a woman who considered bread making meditative. I agree. And decided that we would be making honey challah for cinnamon rolls for Sunday morning breakfast and for a treat to take to church. But first we walked to the Winters Market and back where this funny exchange occurred:
On the way home we came across a group of 7th or 8th grade boys...a pack of them...riding their bikes towards us. One kid stayed on the sidewalk and jumped off the curb right before he got to us. Ethan said, "He must be showing off", I said, "Maybe" and then he said, "He must not know you are married."

Because we were tired Friday we had told the kids we would do family night on Saturday night. Jon made soup, we mixed up the challah and had a pretty fun afternoon overall.

        Iris mixing it up.

      Sevrin holding the bowl while Josiah tries to mix in the flour.

                               

Ethan's idea of kneading the dough.

Ready for the movie to start.

       Putting the filling in.

                                                     

This morning the kids were very excited for the cinnamon rolls...as can be seen below. We ate cinnamon rolls, made a mess of the house again seemingly dirtying every dish overnight and went to church at 11 am. We took some cinnamon rolls with us...which made the people very happy. After church I took some cinnamon rolls over to the neighbor across the street to pay her back for lending me powder sugar last week! I remember how much my Grandma Negaard baked and how she always had some sort of treat, stale or not, to offer to guests as well as to take places. I think I would like to do that as well...as long as I can avoid weighing 300 pounds.

This afternoon Jon had the boys help  him stack more fire wood and clean up the yard. It was pretty balmy out there...over 45 degrees and blue skies! I took Lemon to the dog park where she enjoyed playing with the other dogs and getting filthy. Not as filthy though as the long haired, pure white dog that came and promptly laid in the mud. Later Jon put Ethan's Christmas present together, his bike, and he took it for it's virgin voyage. I love our flat street and sidewalks...I love that the kids have a safe place to roller skate, skateboard and bike ride right outside our front door. Now I am off to eat the pizza we bought from Safeway...we are tired and tomorrow is the beginning of another week full of play co-op, preschool, school, vaccinations and doctor's appointments.

Waiting for the cinnamon rolls to be done this morning.

                                     

         Lemon waiting for the cinnamon rolls to be done this morning.

                                  
       

I can't imagine a better smell then fresh cinnamon rolls.

The weather was finally nice enough for Ethan to ride his bike.

                            

Iris

Josiah

Isla Jane

Student Loans

What an ominous title. Jon and I are really conservative with purchases...always pay our credit cards off, paid both of our "new" used vehicles off the same year we got them, etc. But taking a look at these student loans equals feeling overwhelmed. When we decided to go back to school for landscape architecture the world was a different place economically. I planned on letting Jon bring home the bacon and myself getting a part time job to pay our student loans off quickly.

Instead, we have gone from deferment to a payment plan that is essentially $0 a month but with the knowledge that our interest is building and building and building. Our business has been supporting us...and maybe would or will support student loan payments...but I have no idea how to budget as a self employed family when I don't know what we will make this year. This is a post that is really about venting, about feeling frustrated that our plans to be responsible have hit yet another roadblock. Unlike many people think, student loans can be an impediment to buying a home...I hear plenty of people poo poo paying them off or stressing over it...because they haven't had to look at the bill or take into consideration they may spend the rest of their life renting.

Bah...enough complaining.