magic tricks for adults with too much on their plates

Want to know how to turn this...

into this?

Well, you need a whole lot of this:

We had a wood stacking party, or an earn-yourself-pizza-and-beer party, yesterday and wouldn't you know the brawn and determination that showed up.  Personally, I think the wood slide had a lot to do with it.

(Maya would only slide her wood down if Matt was there to receive it which meant that she would pause and yell insistently to him while the adults had arm loads of wood scraping our arms to pieces while she held up the line.)

Every year we get 2 cord of wood and it takes a month or more to get it in, arm load by arm load, into the basement.  I remember the year that Sandi was pregnant with Maya I did it all by myself.  Patti installed the handy slide down to the basement but when you are working alone it is just easier to walk down the stairs rather than drop the wood and then pick it up again at the bottom of the slide. 

Can I just tell you how FAST the 3 cord of wood disappeared this year?

Maya and Anna stood in wonderment over it.

Truth be told, though, you do get very dirty.  And sweaty too.  When I finally made it to the shower and peeled my sports bra off, wood shavings and dirt dropped all over the floor.  It is never less than 80 degrees with full humidity when we load wood and yesterday didn't disappoint in that regard.

Just in case anyone is inclined to call the child labor law enforcer, rest assured it wasn't all work for them.

I had hopes we might get it all done in one day but I had no idea we would be so speedy.  Mindy and Charissa came right at 10 when we planned to start (god love 'em).  Mindy, pregnant with twins (!) made us delicious food while the three of us filled the upstairs wood closet and then started on the basement.  By the time the Smiths and Manharts came around 1 we already had 1 cord in and we had stopped for lunch.  Two more hours and all those hands and the other 2 cord was done. 

Sandi said she and Charissa, working the end of the slide, noticed that my loads got a lot bigger "after the boys showed up."  What can I say?  I'm inherently competitive, although I am sticking to the story that my back felt more capable the more wood I loaded.

We had music blaring and laughter in the air.  We were a perfect example of "many hands make light work."  Loading wood was never so much fun.

We were quite proud of ourselves.

We paid the kids in cookies and dollars and they were quite proud too.  (And don't you love the way Brady is holding Ella in this picture?)

The adults sat around on the patio for another 2 hours after the tarp was folded and the lawn raked clean of all the wood debris.  The kids played so contentedly it almost didn't feel like they were there.  As we sat there soaking up the last drop of a summer weekend, I looked around with immense gratitude at my friends and had two thoughts.  How is it that people love us enough to spend their Labor Day weekend Sunday helping us load our wood?

And why haven't we asked before?

When everyone went home, and I was scrubbing the girls clean in the tub, Ella asked, "When is our next party?"

Girl after my own heart.

Jamis

Our trip to Trader Joe's in Portland last week yielded an awesome and surprising result.

I got a road bike!

No, not at Trader Joe's (although they have so much cool stuff there I wouldn't have been at all surprised to see a biking section) but at Eastern Mountain Sports next door.

I have been talking about getting a road bike for a while, since my hybrid mountain bike with road tires and no clips is heavy and wasteful on the bit of athletic output I've got.  The born-again road bikers have been trying to convert me for a while and I had just started thinking about giving up my old way of pedaling and moving toward the light.  ("You will feel like you're flying on a road bike!"  "You will get so much more power with clips!"  "Your position will be so much more conducive to speed!")

The problem for me is, while I wouldn't say I am exactly cheap, I would say that I don't feel good dolling out a ton of money on something unless it is a major life improvement. I struggled to buy a bike since I already have a bike.  And, truth be told, I only really enjoy buying things when I don't have to pay full price or feel I am getting a deal of some sort.  I had been looking around at my friends about my height and asking them if they wanted to sell their road bikes.  I figured I could happily spend $500 on a used road bike and be able to live with it.

I was blissed out at Trader Joe's when Sandi moseyed over to Eastern Mountain Sports and found me a 54 cm road bike ON SALE and brand new for $540.  Not super fancy but very usable with a carbon fiber fork and WAY lighter than my current bike.  They told me to take it for a ride.  I, not prepared for bike shopping, was wearing sandals and a skirt.  I took a spin around the Trader Joe's parking lot, trying not to flash my underwear, nearly crashing into an elderly lady because everything was so unfamiliar and came back converted. 

Eastern Mountain Sports was also having a 20% off sale on all bike accessories which meant that I also got the clip shoes, the clip pedals, a much safer helmet and the bike shorts that had been the intended target of my birthday cash.  (I had been told not to buy bike shorts that cost less than $100 and I can attest that this is true.  The padding in the $50 pair I got for my birthday last year always moved around as I rode and was distracting and uncomfortable. These high test ones are awesome.)

I also convinced the guy to give me 30% off instead of 20.  AND he threw in a free water bottle cage.  I was wheeling and dealing with the best of them.

A couple of thoughts on my first ride: 

1.  I DID feel like I was flying. Like pushing a self-propelled lawn mower instead of a regular one.  The bike feels like it has its own forward momentum.

2.  The clips ARE scary to get used to.  Everyone says that you will be afraid of falling initially.  I only fell once so I figure I'm going alright.  After 2 rides I still don't have a good feel for how to clip in and I feel like a teenager learning to drive a stick shift. I sweat when I approach a light and take routes to avoid stopping altogether.

My speed has improved but not as dramatically as I thought.  On my old bike I averaged 14-14.5 miles an hour.  On my new bike I averaged 14.9.  I also was on a 5 day clean food cleanse (to purge the summer's "special occasions") so that may have slowed me down.  It will be interesting to see as the fear leaves me if I get faster.  That bike is SO fast that going down hills I brake because I feel I might spin out of control.  The bike and I are not yet ONE.  The gears and brakes are very different than my other bike so for now my main goal is to come home in one piece.

When I told her I got a road bike finally, Emilie asked, "What brand?"

Ummmm..... no idea.

Jamis!  It's a Jamis bike.  That still means nothing to me.  I know that it is a speedy devil and I pray it won't kill me.

My first ride Sandi and I rode together.  I took her on a route I knew well but later realized she did not.  There was a big hill that had a curve at the end followed by Route 1A.  I waited for her at the intersection at the bottom.  She came screeching around the corner at full speed and then had to swerve and brake fast to avoid going into traffic.

"You could have told me the road ended after that hill,"  she commented.  (I honestly hadn't even given it a thought.)  "Just because I have half a million in life insurance doesn't mean you have to try to get it."

new funnies

Not surprisingly, these are mostly from Maya:

Turning to Ella in the car, with no pretext at all: "I think I love you Ella."

Drinking from my Camelbak water bottle and observing the small rumble of air exchange after she sipped: "Momma, your water bottle snores when I sip it."

Donning a purple tutu outfit from her older cousin and having Ella and I tie the tops of her ballet slippers, she announced, "You two can be my servants."

Randomly while we were driving in the car (and said with her little lisp): "I sthink I sthaw a puty cat."  (I realized later they had been watching Looney Tunes.)

These are Maya's sweeping statements of grandeur lately and they are said with such frequency that it is hard to feel they are entirely authentic anymore:

"I love everyone!"
"I love everything!"
"You are the best in the world!"

She is also big on deflecting responsibility.  When she spills her milk she says, "It spilled all by itself!"  Last night she peed the bed for the second time in three nights and she said, "The pee came out all by itself," which I'm sure is exactly how it seems.

Maya is REALLY into rocks.  She has umpteen baggies, pails and piles of rocks and sea detritus all over our house.  There are rocks on her headboard, the bathroom sink, in her purses, in her pockets and in her dresser drawers.  After a particularly fun seaside adventure with her aunt and grandmother last week, I found a piece of sea glass in her underpants. 

Her rock obsession also means I overhear myself saying things like this, "Maya, don't play the ukulele with a rock. You will break the strings."  Which leads her to say, "It isn't a ukulele, it's a guitar."  (It's a ukulele.)  And so I have to say, "Maya, please don't play the guitar with a rock."

And, lastly, one good one from Ella.  Driving in town we passed a statue of man (I confess I'm not sure of whom) and Ella asked, "Is that statue the Statue of Liberty's husband?"

when the math doesn't work in your favor

Sandi and I have been spending our summer playing like we have a terminal illness.

I'm not suggesting that is funny, more that it is accurate.

We planned our entire summer around the inevitable end that Sandi is starting full time graduate school in Nurse Anesthesia in the fall.  I think I have had the most fun summer of entire life (despite all the packing) and we seem to have really squeezed every last drop out.

In preparation for school Sandi had to read a book called "Study Without Stress" which is geared to help medical students and the like prepare for the grueling course loads and stay organized from the get go to prevent drop outs. 

Let me tell you this book has only caused me stress.

The book works on subtraction to undermine everything meaningful about our lives.  First, you have a total of 168 hours in a week (24 x 7).  Of that you minus 49 or so for sleep, 35 for hours spent in class, 30-35 more for studying,  21 per week for meals and maybe 7 or so for personal hygiene (luckily it doesn't take Sandi and hour to shower and she has all her meals made for her by me). 

I think I may have left out a few subtractions but it leaves you with about 2-3 hours per day and 9 hours on the weekend for everything else.  Everything else means exercise, getting you teeth cleaned, mowing your lawn, paying your bills, cleaning your house (luckily I do all those things too) and PARENTING YOUR CHILDREN.. 

This is our schedule for the next nine months. Sandi is in Portland (2 hours away) Tues, Wed, Thurs for all day classes in her 19 credit/semester program.  She will attempt the impossible by studying as much as she can during her non-class hours while she is away from home.  During the other days she will get up early and spend the day studying, taking her break after school and for supper and then resume evening studying.  All this is an attempt to free up Sundays for a day off. 

The three days gone is going to take some getting used to since she will be out of town, but that feels like the easy part.  It is taking on every other blessed thing at home so she can study all the time that will be the crunch. 

Sandi's mistress (she hates when I call it that):

The Portland UNE campus is small and quaint, mostly devoted to graduate programs, and right in Portland which means she can shop at Trader Joe's before she comes home.  I'm all about looking on the bright side.

At the library where I predict she will be spending a lot of her time:

Last week we went to Portland to help get her settled, meet the woman in whose house Sandi will rent a room (we LOVE her), and have a night away.  We had a session with our beloved Naomi who does really cool energy work called  holographic repatterning and always helps us get ourselves and our family system on the right track. 

We stayed at a beautiful hotel, ate the best meal of our lives at The Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro (another plus: Thursday night take- out), went out for a beer, ran together the next morning and just thoroughly enjoyed time to function without clocks and demands and children.

So here we are. Sandi left this morning at 5:45 to embark on her new adventure with a heavy heart. Last night she said she felt sick to her stomach and thought I want to go back.  To work, to normal.  I don't want to go to school.  This morning she had her pillows in tow and her clothes and her toiletry bag and I tried not to think too much of the fact that we will be sleeping apart so much this year.

She said, "Have a good day."  I said, "Good luck today."  A kiss and a hug and all the words you want to say but don't need to and can't anyway because they would be too sad just sit unspoken between you.

I love you.  I'll miss you.  Are we sure this is a good idea?  How will we keep it all together?

blogger on a binge

I am feeling the effects of my anemic posting for the month of August. 

I have so much to say!!!  I am the blogging world's biggest liability, I think.  One of those people that prattle on and think people care.

To prevent such careless self-expression I am going to stick to one topic.

Hurricane Irene.

Okay, so by the time it hit Maine, it was demoted to a Tropical Storm but STILL.  The third day of the Folk Festival was cancelled for it (a SERIOUS bummer) and I saw rain falling from the sky like I had never seen it before.  It was rain with turbo boosters.

As a child I always experienced a thrilling fear at the idea of major storms and can remember clearly when Hurricane Andrew came through and my parents dug out the D batteries and filled the tub with water for the impending loss of power. 

As a parent it is a whole different ball game. 

I felt a small thrill in my stomach as the wind picked up and branches came down but mostly I was plagued by these thoughts: what if one of the pine trees falls down on the roof over the girls room? what if the basement floods and our freezer gets fried? what if our brand new fence is blown over?  what if a branch falls on the electrical lines and starts a fire?

We are incredibly dependent on power to operate an elaborate sump pump system in our basement.  The water from the perimeter of the foundation empties into a basin that is pumped up and out of the basement.  Without power the basement would flood in a matter of hours.  It isn't finished but we have lots of stuff down there we would prefer not to have swimming in water.

Because we like to live life on the edge, we didn't get the generator Patti gave us a year ago up and going until after dark when the basin was mostly full.  Guess what?  It didn't work.

Tricia and Brock came over to try to problem solve and as we all stood there donning flashlights on Brock as he reconfigured a spark plug in the whipping wind, I had a sudden realization.   All I wanted to do was run inside and throw together something to offer them to eat for their trouble.  I was utterly uncomfortable with the handiness of fixing a generator and wondered instead about how I could manage a batch of cookies without an oven.  I am more Betty Crocker than MacGyver.

I guess what I'm saying is that when the hurricane comes, only come to my house if you want some baked goods.

As if to follow suit with our string of bad luck with all devices with a pull cord, after multiple failed attempts to start it, the pull cord pulled right off into Sandi's hand. 

Luckily Trish burst out laughing and we high- fived and came up with a new plan.  We called the Manharts and they were kind enough to lend us their really awesome generator with an intact pull cord.

Once operational,  it took the really awesome generator nearly 2 hours to pump out enough of the basin so we could go to bed. (Normally the pump is so fast and powerful it drains the basin in under a minute.)  Sandi set her alarm for 3 a.m. and got up to fire up the generator and drain the basin again.  We had only 6 inches to spare before the water reached the top of the basin and came flooding onto the basement floor.  Thank you Sandi. 

I realize that countless people had real and true emergencies in the hurricane, unlike my little faux crisis without power.  But I can say that I am grateful to not be slogging in inches of basement water today and so thankful to have people to call on for help.  I mean, Trish had a tree fall on her roof and STILL came over to do spark plug manipulation. 

If only I had been able to offer cookies...

folk festival - a decade of fun

This was the tenth year the Folk Festival has been in our town. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the most fun weekends of the year. We always loved it before we had kids and now our kids clamor to get down to the Bangor Waterfront before they miss a second of the action.

I sure do love them for that.

One of their favorite parts, beside the culture, the international music, the sheer magic that our little city can pull off something so big...is, of course, the bus ride from the parking lot to the festival.

Their second favorite part is seeing their friends. I do believe, by some miracle, that the french fries fall somewhere in the forth category rivaled only by getting to stay up so late!

We met the Stonyfield Farms milk man and partook of all of his free samples, at least once.  As if we don't know we like Stonyfield.  But we had to be certain.

Maya definitely had some dancing to do:

We even took the girls at the start and then took them home for a nap.  (Are we hardcore or what?) Both nights they were up until 10:30 PM which might as well be the middle of the night for them.  Our beloved baby sitter and friend, Becca, even came down Friday night with us before college snatched her up again on Saturday.  My mom always comes up and volunteers and spends the weekend at our house.  It is an annual event that we all look forward to.

Our girls were so flippin happy I myself was giddy.  (A rare event for sure.)

New favorite picture:

Up way past dark, Ella kept exclaiming "The stars are out!!!  The stars are out!!!"  Poor kid.

wrapping it all up

I just can't resist posting the last of the Schoodic pictures for this year.

This amazing place we get to spend so much of our summer is made possible by Patti and her brother who own, run and maintain the camp and are so generous to also let us use it. They grew up spending their summers at the camp and now we are so lucky that our kids get to call it their favorite place too.  A big thank you to Patti especially who makes so much of our Schoodic summer fun possible. 

Wow, is leaving there ever a sad good bye.  As we were packing up to go, Patti said, "Well isn't this a sad turn of events."  Yes, indeed.

But look what we get to remember:

Ella doesn't so much jump off the dock as simply run off it.  We never tired of watching.

Kristi and her husband Mike (who NEVER comes to Schoodic- no, we can't understand why- and came 2 days in a row!)

My mom and Sandi's mom, laughing over something:

One night we had a campfire on the beach and then the kids lite sparklers.  The fire had been popping and throwing sparks as it plowed through the 2x4 kindling so Sandi put the metal cover over it.  Shortly after, spinning her sparkler in the air, Ella backed right up INTO the fire.  Thankfully the cover was on it and her tender, bare skin landed on hot metal rather than open flame and Sandi was very nearby and threw her promptly into the lake.

This is Ella about 10 seconds before her fateful event.

Luckily, Sandi is a nurse with all sorts of cool, nursey supplies she had those second degree burns cleaned and dressed before you could say "burn unit" and they are healing nicely.

I may be able to sneak the girls out for one more day trip to camp before school starts but it will be chillier, windier and with a touch of September in the air.  And so we are left to pine until next year, knowing that the distance and the seasons make it all that much more sweet a return. 

The hardest part in leaving is not even in the missing of this place.  It is in the certainty that nothing next summer will be exactly as it was this summer.  When you measure your kids lives day by day time passes at a more natural pace.  When you measure it year by year in a place like this, somehow the passing seems cruelly unfair.  And, I suppose, so is life as a parent.

So I leave with this on my heart:  Enjoy this moment.  There will never be another one like it.