Germany! Day One

Our oldest daughter is studying in Germany for the spring semester. A couple months ago that statement conjured thoughts of Covid restrictions and difficulties with testing and vaccinations. Now it raises questions about the stability of political institutions and potential violence. 

But two weeks ago, neither of these concerns troubled us. We had our booster shots, we had negative Covid tests just in case (which may have been a mistake - more on that later if my fears come to fruition. We made the mistake of going to a clinic to get tested that may bill us an exorbitant amount - but I'll worry about that when the time comes.)  We had plane tickets, a hotel reservation, a rental car reserved, KN 95 masks, comfortable shoes, and a daughter to visit.

Here we are setting off for international travel only momentarily maskless on our 14 hour journey. My parents came to watch the younger kids, as we again took advantage of a child studying abroad for an excuse to travel.  Travel from Texas to Europe is overnight - we left midafternoon and arrived midmorning in Frankfort. 

A credit card perk - visiting the airport lounge for a meal and free

Welcome to Heidelberg!

We rented a car from Frankfort, thinking it might be just as economical as taking public transportation (I don't think it was, after paying for gas and parking), more flexible (it was), and safer from Covid (another perk). However, we did not rent the GPS - thinking we could use our daughter's cell phone to navigate and only rely on our international plan, which charges per day of use. I had printed some google maps and directions from the hotel, but they didn't provide a lot of detail, so this was a source of marital discord over the first couple of days, because neither of those options provided reliable cell service while driving. We finally reduced the stress of trying to get where we were going by buying a map, which was not quite detailed enough, and checking the directions at our lodging places the night before or at a cafe with free wifi, and then screen shotting them, so we could read the directions without cell service. How did we ever navigate in the 90s with just a Let's Go, Europe! and vague notions of the locations of train stations? We never felt as lost then as we did the first couple days of this trip with more information at our fingertips than ever. Perhaps because of that false sense of being able to access information immediately, I did not plan very much for our journey, knowing that our daughter had ideas that she hadn't completely committed to yet.

Finally checking in to our small hotel.

The view from our hotel in Heidelberg - overlooking the Neckar river from high on the hill above the Heidelberg castle, or schloss. Hence, the name of our hotel - Schlosshotel Molkenkur. In spring when there isn't a covid outbreak, this patio has dining tables.

Gummi bears on our pillows

Junk food requested by our daughter and her friends, whcih took up precious space in our carry on bags, which is all we were allowed (plus personal item, of which we brought the maximum size, of course)

Here she is! In front of her accommodations - an old mansion on the hillside. Twenty-four students and a few staff, including the residence hall parents, live here.

The walk from her house to the town was downhill through a small, wooded park

Loved the moss covered walls.

Universityplatz. I'm bungling the spelling here,

Time for cafe cremas.

Loved the flower shops - more photos to come. The flower ships in each town were better than the last. 

A closer view of the Marian statue in the platz

Some almost familiar stores along the Hauptstrasse

Small details along the way

At the Jesuit church in Heidelberg

The interior of the Jesuit Church

A recognizable image

An image not quite so recognizable - this is Ruah, an incarnational represenation of the Holy Spirit in as a woman.

The sanctuary of the Presbyterian church was decidedly quieter.

The building where our duaghter has class.

Our first dinner out was at a restaurant called "The Potato" (Kartoffel?) in a little town about 20 minutes away down the river. It took us about 20 minutes longer to get there as we bungled our way along without a map. But the meal was worth it - meat, potato, salad, beer, and apple strudel with ice cream.

A hunk of raw meat which we cooked on a burning hot lava rock was the star of dinner.

Good night, little town on the Neckar River, whose name I can't remember!

Recent recommendations

 A little time today to catch up. Here are a few recommendations from recent watching/reading:

The new season of All Creatures Great and Small is airing on Sundays on PBS. I think if you subscribe to PBS, you can watch them all at once, but we are enjoying the anticipation of the Sunday evening family viewing time once everyone is in their PJs and ready for school Monday morning. The seven year old starts counting the days until the show on Thursday. I loved James Herriot's books as an elementary student. I wanted to be a country vet for a number of years. The show derivates from the books, but it is excellent escapism. This season is all about James trying to discern whether he should stay with the Farnons or return to Glasgow. The theme of finding a home resonates a little too close to my own sense of rootlessness/desire for rootedness.  Ready to emigrate to Yorkshire. 

We also watched Ted Lasso with the older kids over the holidays. It is adult viewing, for sure - not just because of the terrible language - but the relationships between the team and staff are warm and forgiving. Wounded people finding friendship and acceptance makes for heartwarming viewing. I think I could also make a home in England. 

We also saw the box office hits Encanto and West Side Story recently, the first at home, the later in the theaters. I think I prefer Coco to Encanto, although the theme of Encanto of appreciating everyone's gifts in a family is a good one to celebrate, although I thought the plot was a bit thin. It's getting a lot of positive press, and the music is super catchy - almost too catchy. I'd prefer to alternate the playlist with the songs from West Side Story, but only the 15yr old went with me to the show. We went while waiting for her to compete in a track meet in College Station. It was a reward to her for coming with me to the George HW Bush presidential library. I'm a fan of presidential libraries - lots to learn about contemporary history: the stuff you live through and don't know how it will be remembered, if you even realize you are living through history at the time. 

Finally, my reading in 2022 is off to a good start: I think I mentioned that I finally read Edith Shaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking. It made me feel nostalgic for our early parenting days, when I was both more intentional about parenting, and less bombarded by images of what parenting should look like. I was not nearly the artful and intentional homemaker that Shaeffer was - partly because I didn't enjoy the art of a good deal of it. Reading it made me feel slightly guilty - we'll never have musical evenings as a family, nor will we sit around and read Shakespeare, much as I'd enjoy that. But I can get the laundry washed and folded and set candles on the table and put up some curtains and practice hospitality when we can. These days that mostly means providing taquitos and ice cream sandwiches to the teenagers. 

Next, I turned from homemaking to historical fiction. I binge read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee over the weekend. It is an excellent portrayal of the Korean experience in Japan beginning before WWII up to the 80s as it follows a Korean family that had to emigrate from their island country to that of their colonizers. They struggle to make a living in a country where they are despised, but because of their poverty and the conditions in Korea, they are never able to return. It is a novel full of heartbreak but also strong depictions of family devotions - sometimes to the point of tragedy. The book is long, an epic about a family whose hard work eventually pays off, but with a price. We have friends who are Korean, and when we had dinner with them a few times they commented on how they prefer Korean to Japanese ramen and Korean soju to sake, etc. Until I read this book, I didn't consider that the preference was more than just taste. 

I also finished  Tish Harrison Warren's Liturgy of the Ordinary which was the Chritianity Today book of the year in 2017. Warren and her husband are both ministers in the Anglican Church, and as I mentioned, she is the writer in residence at a church in South Austin. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Kathleen Norris's Quotidian Mysteries, but with childcare and marriage added in. Norris's work focused more on the idea of making every moment holy, while Warren looks more for the holiness in every moment. Is there a difference? Perhaps only slightly. Several themes stood out - seeing each day as a gift from a loving God and honoring that gift instead of wasting it, as well as being content with the way things are instead of wishing them to be otherwise - which is my great failing. Her connection of dissatisfaction with being a consumer of life, instead of a grateful receiver, was pertinent. She also reflects on our attitudes toward work being oriented toward production rather than gift, reminding readers that Christians have a different perspective towards time, success, suffering, communion, etc. What we do should bless others - whether it's meal prep, sending emails, or some other form of what she calls "vocational holiness." There are lots of good quotes in this book, but not enough time to share them, because now I need to head to sleep, because glancing through this book again has reminded me that her last chapter on sleep is probably the one that was most necessary for me to read. She present sleep as something we do for others and as a response to God's generosity and our incarnated selves. I often, as in right now, skimp on sleep to do something I want to do instead of getting enough rest to serve my family and God tomorrow. 

So it's off to bed, even though I have a list of other things I wanted to write about, and a list of other things I should be doing. Maybe tomorrow. 

Reading Wrap-Up 2021

 It may be a couple weeks into January, but I still am motivated to review what I read last year. I counted 69 books - just added a few I read while researching my paper on Wendell Berry's poetry - just barely down from last year's 70. And I did not include literary journals or magazines like Plough that I subscribed to last year. I only skimmmed a local lit journal - Bat City Review  and a children's local publication - but I really love Plough.  I'm still reading my winter edition. It is only a quarterly, but a bargain at $18 a year, and I love the topics, the writing, the poetry, the photos. I'm not sure if a subscription supports the work of the Bruderhof, but it is worthwhile work. 

But I'll shelf that thought and move on to an accounting of my reading hours.

This year I read:

Nonfiction: 14 not counting spiritual books, but counting collections of essays

Favorite:  A Continuous Harmony. This early collection of Wendell Berry's essays focuses on connections between literary criticism and social commentary.  I enjoyed reading Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed for its local history and the author's honest assessment of her home state. She can accommodate the complex condition of loving a place and disapproving of some of its history. I've only just started to learn more about our local area - which makes me think I should include the books about Walking Austin and 60 Trails Within 60 Miles of San Antonia and Austin a friend gave me as a going away present. I didn't read them straight through, but I have read through all of the first, and most of the second, looking for places to explore.  (just boosted my number...) I also liked The Hidden Life of Trees and the Post secular religious fiction for teens book, as well as WSJ children's lit specialist Mary Gurdon's The Enchanted Hour, about reading aloud.

Ficton: 25

Favorite: Busman's Holiday and The Squire. Things Fall Apart. Jayber Crow. I also was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading Octavia Butler's Wild Blood. I read more fast fiction this year, like Liane Moriarity books and Malibu Rising, which are imminently entertaining but like junk food. Yum. Serious fiction reading was Elena Ferrante - I never did get around to reading Bleak House or any real classics this year. The Great Believers about the outbreak of AIDS in Chicago was also really good - well written, interesting, engaging.

Poetry Collections: 7

Fav: New Collected Poems or Blue Horses. Berry and Oliver are easy poets to read. I did like a couple of the poems in the Bat City Review, but many were unintelligible. I read some of Sally Thomas's Motherland, and loved what I read, but did not finish it, so not counting it toward my total. I also enjoyed a number of W. S. Merwin's and Galway Kinnell's poems, but I didn't spend a log of time with them.

Children's Chapter Books: 12
Winner: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Always fun to read, even the 4th or 5th time around. Bobbsey Twin books, Penderwicks, and Narnia. See below. I feel like I may have forgotten some titles here - did we read Cupcake Cousins this year? Did I forget them because they were forgettable? I also enjoyed Randa Abdel Fattah's two books about a Muslim girl in Australia. Interesting topical reads. 

Spiritual reading: 9 

Best of the bunch: This is a tough call. I thought I would like Acedia and Me better. Barking to the Choir  was very similar to Fr. Boyle's first book.  I was fascinated by the Enneagram book, and I finally read a Richard Rohr book, but this category needs an uplift next year.

Classics: 4 Achebe, Sayers, St Francis de Sales, Bagnold?, and 3 Narnia books - 3 Bobbsey Twins

Rereads: Children's lit series: The Penderwicks, The Bobbsey Twins, and Narnia books - which I have loved reading with our second grader. She loved the first two Penderwicks, but we paused after book 3. I know what comes in Book 5, when the sisters move away, and I know it will make her cry. I'll let her read those on her own. The Bobbsey Twins have been fun to read for the nostalgia factor, but they may be quietly removed from the shelves of many libraries for their portrayal of Dinah and Sam, the black couple who take care of the Bobbseys' house and gardens.  For instance, Dinah is compelled to spend a week with the Bobbseys aboard their new houseboat in order to cook for them even though she doesn't want to go because she gets seasick. I couldn't help wondering how big this houseboat was that it had room for a family of six and their cook.  

On the other hand, the seven year old began to lose interest in the Narnia books after the Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  We read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Prince Caspian, but I also was ready for a break after those four. I was not an enormous Narnia fan as a child, either, I think because the later books are not as charming as the first. 

I totally forgot Things Fall Apart. I think I confused it with another book because I was thinking it was a play. Maybe I confused it with something by Wole Soyinka, whom I read for the same modern lit class in college?  At any rate, in comparison with the new book by Nigerian author Abbi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice, Achebe's writing shines brighter. Dare's book was a good read - entertaining and thoughtful, but it seemed a little like magical realism that this girl would continue to have such good luck, whereas in Things Fall Apart, the good fortune of Okonkwo at the beginning of the book is obviously doomed. Is it personal taste/outlook that I find it harder to believe the book about good fortune?  Achebe is obviously a master storyteller, also. His choice of details and dialogue are complete enough to impact readers' imaginations with a movie like depiction of pre-colonial life, but spare enough to convey a sense of loss and longing. 

I have enjoyed my book clubs for introducing me to new books - hoping to keep up with some of the Book Riot Challenge again this year to keep up with my San Diego group virtually, but some of the challenges don't appeal to me at all and would require some effort to find. But I do appreciate the challenge to read outside of my comfort box.

Right now I am finishing Tish Warren's Liturgy of the Ordinary and have to finish Lab Girl, which I started months ago. Warren is writer in residence at an Episcopal church in south Austin, which I didn't know when I picked up the book in a little Free Library after seeing it recommended on the internet. This city is home to a fair share of creative people. 

Time to run! More to come!

Welcoming a new year

 Ah, 2022. Who has a birthday on February 2nd or February 22nd? It's a great year for you. 

For me, I hope that it will be a quieter year than 2021. Last summer was surely full of enough changes to last a couple of years. While we have a couple of graduations this spring, a First communion, and some travel (we hope), we don't have any major transitions like a son getting married, moving, and starting a new job to look forward to. 

As for those changes, they are still taking some getting used to. Our oldest and his wife were here for about a week at Christmastime. It was wonderful to have them here for an extended visit and to have the whole crew overlapping for a few days. We filled it with a trip to a light show, decorating the tree, a little shopping, a dinner out at a wellknown local restaurant, the Oasis.  The weather was mild, and we had a couple dinners on the back patio with good food and wine and laughter. The kids enjoy each other's company most of the time, which pleases my heart. Our second son who now lives in Boston was here for almost a week as well. On the eve of Christmas Eve, the kids exchanged gifts, and we gave our presents to our married children. My mother in law created a new stocking for our daughter-in-law, so we had ten to hang from the mantle. And then on Christmas Eve morning, the newlyweds flew off to see her parents. So Christmas morning was a little quieter.  Santa Claus may have been unmasked for the youngest, although she persisted in a narrative, perhaps out of the belief, as my older children admitted, that her parents were much more frugral than Santa, so he must be the one to deliver presents, even if Mom returns all of the ones that don't fit. Our first Christmas in this house in this new state of being was different, but it felt like a baptism of sorts of the new place. Chalking up the door lintel on Epiphany Sunday felt like a new start, also.  

As usual this time of year, I've been thinking about new starts and trying to break bad habits and start new ones. I've been working on the 7 hours of sleep again, although this week when school started up again, 6.5 was the average. I could tell over break that I was a much pleasanter and more productive person when I slept more, so that supposedly easy change should result in others, like biting my tongue before saying something negative. It bothers me that my children and husband accuse me of hating our new house - and of hating our old house, although I can understand why they think that. I didn't hate our old house - I hated living on a busy street. And I hated that it was an odd shade of green inside. And I didn't like dealing with the pool. But I did love the weather, the beach, the proximity of the mountains, the ease of getting around, the closeness of our friends, our parish, the library, walking everywhere.  The family thinks I hated it, as I've mentioned before, because I would often point out flaws when they talked about staying forever, because I knew we could not stay forever. Although now I question that - and that is the number one thing I have to stop doing to have any inner peace. We made a decision and now can only go forward and not back. And my tendency to question choices and experience regret is evident to the family, I'm humbled to say, so they think I hate it here, too, although again "hate" is too strong a word. I might hate driving around. I might hate how much debt we took on. But I don't hate the place or the people, the nearby parks and trails, the great sunsets, the way everything in the house works, at least mostly for now.  I don't want to be a regretter or a resenter or a hater.  So my biggest goal for this year is to work on thinking less about the past and being more grateful for the present. This attitude is a habit of mind I have been working on for years....  but I've pulled out a little journal again for writing down positive things that happen, and I'm trying to remember to stop my mind from wandering to dark places by repeating, "Jesus, I trust in you" or "have mercy on me, a miserable sinner."

Reading Edith Schaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking during Advent has helped remind me of the responsibility I bear in helping my own children experience thanksgiving and joy and beauty. I long ago said I believed in spending money on beautiful things, but I have not put that into practice. Nor lately have I done a very good job of doing even small aesthetic acts, like lighting candles at dinner or keeping flowers in the house. But that is one of my goals this year also - let go of my cheapskate tendencies and get some new, clean furniture, plant more flowers, and keep the counters tidy (struggling with this one in between Christmas cards and FAFSA and tax season). Because our last three homes were places where it was difficult to buy or place new things, I didn't put much effort into decorating. Now it's time to be a grown up about housekeeping, so to speak. We left behind our worn -out couch, and I have been shopping new chairs and a new kitchen table and new patio tables. We have been lugging around a huge old kitchen table that was a hand-me-down from my roommate's parents when I was in grad school. My roommate didn't want it back when she moved out of our little apartment just before my wedding.  The kitchen chairs are from the thrift store, and the upholstered chairs are handmedowns from my grandparents and from an estate sale. I've been getting quotes for reupholstery for a couple of them - more than many new chairs, but I can't find what I love for less, so now I just need to finalize the fabric choices - a decision that is challenging me. (trying to think back to reading Don't Overthink It by Anne Bogel - another refrain I need to reiterate to myself...)  The patio tables we have now are from a Kmart closeout sale twenty years ago. I can't believe they have survived all these moves. They've come in handy when we've had parties. And because they still work, shopping for a patio table can wait, but it's on the list.

I also want to clean out the garage - even though we just moved. We didn't have time to go through the boxes of mementoes before our move, and now there are just too many of them. I need to shred some financial documents and then just reorganize so that each kid has one momento box, and that's all there is. Goodbye taxes from 2008. Goodbye sweet scribbles on copier paper that were created by who knows which child. Goodbye folders and folders of bureaucratic nonsense from my husband's old jobs. And goodbye old trailer that needs to be sold and extra bikes and box of posters from high schoolers. Someday I want to be able to park two cars in the garage. And I want to have space to make garden boxes for raised beds in the back yard. That day is coming this spring, I hope.  

Family goals? I want to get everyone out for a hike or camping trip before the heat arrives - a tough call even though we are a smaller group because of various trips - right now I'm typing in the student center at Texas A and M while I wait for my daughter to run in a two day track meet. We have a couple college visits planned with the son who is a senior. We are trying to plan a trip to Heidelberg, Germany, in February or March while our daughter is there studying abroad. She was not excited about going with Covid restrictions looming. Some of her friends cancelled, not afraid of losing a $3000 deposit. But she arrived and spent a week with my brother-in-law and his family in Nuremberg with her middle brother - whose semester abroad was supposed to happen in 2021 and didn't. They had a wonderful week just hanging out with cousins and getting to experience life in Germany. Now we're all tempted to move abroad. Or at least I am... 

Goals for Faith formation: working with the second grader on preparation for First Communion. I found my old Catholic Heritage Curriculum materials for second grade (getting recycled or passed on after this year...), and want to do some of the activities. We have done a good job of preserving read aloud time in the evenings, so I should incorporate more religious titles - the saint chapter books haven't been off the shelves for a long time. (except when they got moved this summer)

Also, I recommitted to a Bible Study for 8 weeks on the book of Exodus, and I started listening to the Bible in a year app - already a couple days behind, but trying to tune in while commuting. Returning to basics like scripture study for this year - and trying to avoid guilt inducing social media posts.

Finally, in a month or two, I'll make a decision about my own occupation for the next few years. I've really enjoyed substituting at the high school - I stepped into a long term position for five weeks and loved being around the teens. I also submitted one application to grad school - which has a very low rate of acceptance. And I start teaching ESL classes in 10 days. So by the spring I will compare all of my options - grad school likely will be eliminated - and decide whether to continue with adult ed or go back to school to get a teaching credential. 

Out of time. Posting without rereading or thinking any more about this... Reading wrap up in the next post...

Happy New Year!

2022 is almost here. It's hard to believe that another year has passed. A sign of aging - the slipperiness of time. Granted this was a busy year, perhaps one of the fullest we've ever had, and hopefully, the busiest we will ever have.  Blessedly, the past few months, although full, have given us time to breath. And although December was busy, it was a very normal Christmas season, almost quiet. We had all the kids home for a few days, which was wonderful. They enjoyed each other's company, and we enjoyed their company. We didn't do much - a light show and concert, a dinner out, a short hike, several delicious meals at home, Mass, gift exchange. We made some cookies for the neighbors, sent Christmas cards, and lounged a lot. A quick trip to visit grandparents and some of the cousins was made at the end of the month. And the two middle kids took off to Germany, a trip with a few bumps, for a week together, and then our oldest daughter will spend the semester there. All in all, the last few weeks were restorative. Now we are ready to start another year. Resolutions coming soon!

Photos of the last two weeks below: 

 

 

 

 

   

 

News in November

Thanksgiving week is upon us. I can't believe the end of the year is in sight, that Advent starts this week. What happened to all the time I thought I was going to have with all the kids in school? 

I filled up a good chunk of it by signing up to be a substitute teacher for both the elementary school and the high school. I did this as a test to see if I liked teaching enough to want to get certified and work in a grade school or high school. I've subbed a few weeks at both schools, and actually have a long term assignment at the high school, and the answer is yes and no. I do like being in the classroom. I like the kids. I think the kids like me.  I am surprised that teaching the high schoolers has been easier than the younger students. The students mostly want to do well and stay on task. As long as they finish their assignments, I don't forbid them from playing video games when they are done.  Their regular teacher, who is out having a baby, left videos and powerpoints with all of the information. Their assignments are all created and on timed release in the Google classroom. There is very little for me to do, other than make sure they are on task and in class. The hardest group to teach has been the middle schoolers. There are a few characters in every class that make teaching pre-teens difficult. There's the class clown, the class helper, that class chatterer, the class disrupter. They keep the classroom lively, but also keep me on task. 

A great deal of my free time has been spent working on my next project - applying to grad school. I'm only applying to UT, which is going to be a long shot because it is highly competitive. But I've always said I was going to do this. I would love to go to class, read, and discuss the topics I want to study. I would love to continue to teach courses in nature writing/environmental literature.  After struggling to write a conference paper this fall to present last weekend, I'm not sure writing is my strong suit anymore, and finding enough time for research and writing will always be a challenge. But we'll be down to two kids next year.

My other poject: teaching adult education. The training has started for this, although classes have not. I'll start as a substitute and teach either ESL courses or High School equivalency classes in preparation for the GED. I am excited about this opporunity to teach in a purpose driven way.  At some point, I will likely need to limit the scope of my interests - elementary, high school, college, or adult education? 

So I have much to be thankful for: These opportunities to work. My health, heart, and head to be able to work. The support of husband and kids to enable me to step away from domestic chores for a bit.  I am also still teaching in the military education program from the computer. And I am thankful for my earnest, hard working students.

I am thankful for my kids, for their willingness to jump into this community, to be outsiders for a bit, to work their way into friend groups. to do well in academics and athletics at the same time. The second grader loves her teacher - a newly professed Dominican. She is very gentle and loving, albeit very young. But she is succeeding in teaching reading and bath to reluctant participants.

I am thankful for my parents, who came to visit at the beginning of the month. We had lunch out at a hipster restaurant coffee shop.  We had their friends from New Braunfels up for a nice chatty visit over pizza and seltzer. Then one day we drove out to a bird sanctuary and a little town known for its pie restaurant. The pie was good, but I don't know that I'd drive an hour for it again. The hike - maybe. We didn't do much of it and I think we went the direction that is not more about bird watching that vista seeking. 

I am also thankful for our community. We hosted both the cross country team and the football team end of season banquets to make use of our spacious house. The cross country team dinner was about 35-40 people and was a pitch in. Lots of snacky bites left over. The kids laughed and lounged and presented gifts to the seniors and coaches, and the coaches said a few words, but nothing as formal. The football banquet was a 107 people We borrowed tables and chairs from a friend of a friend who had just purchased property with a party barn. I was baffled by how we were going to seat 100 people - I was orginally told 60 - but we found space for everyone, and to spare. Those coaches gave speeches and awards and the team mom gave speeches and awards, and the team captains gave speeches and awards. It was a rewarding evening... bad pun...

What I was grateful for was all of the help. I was never alone in the kitchen. My dishes were washed while I was taking pictures, and leftovers from the caterer were packaged up before I finished. Now we have tentative plans for all the senior moms to get together again for a happy hour with no work involved.

 

It hasn't been the easiest year, and the stress has manifested in many ways, including my own bad attitude. But although I may grumble and complain, deep down I am grateful. I know this phase will pass eventually. And I will probably miss it.  But for now I have captured this little snapshot to remind myself that even our difficult days contain moments that are priceless but brief.

Fall sweeps in

After all those blog flashbacks to the past summer, now it is time for more recent updates. I should be working on our moving claim and a paper and a job application, but instead I am procrastinating -or perhaps I should think of this writing session as warm up writing... 

Halloween decorations are up around our new neighborhood - lots of orange lights and inflatable ghouls. We've added our own strings of lights - the purple bat lights are happily at home here where bats are a local icon because they live under the highway overpasses - we just rescued one from our swimming pool. It must have fallen from the limb above the pool. Fortunately, our youngest saw it and called out before it had time to drown. I didn't think it was going to make it because it didn't crawl/fly out of the pool skimmer net for two days, but one day I came out and it was gone, either flown or eaten. I hope the little guy lived to eat more mosquitoes!.

The bat - glad Bert got his rabies shot

Until death do us never part... Ghouls in the hood

Our lame decor, as the girls judge it

Floating pumpkin tree - originality winner

Something scary at our window - plenty of food for it. Also killed a scorpion in the kitchen the other morning - kids wanted to rescue it, but I was not going to try to mess with it.

We've also draped some of our decade old cotton spider webs to our dying live oak in the front yard. A nice oxymoron there. I called three tree services to see about having it cut down. One was $1200, one was $750, and one was $400 cash. Guess who we are going to use? How much difference is there in the process of cutting down a medium sized tree? Perhaps it's time to buy a chain saw. It might add to the spookiness of the season.

Although that tree is brown and losing leaves, most of the trees around the area show no signs of changing color.  Nonetheless, the past couple mornings have had a chill in the air. The sun is rising as we drive to school at 7:20, and setting as we eat dinner.  The seasons are changing. I planted some mums along the walkway and bought some pumpkins. We've been here for over two months now. We hosted our first dinner party a couple weeks ago0 - a homecoming dinner party for about 10 kids and most of their parents. It's starting to feel more like home - other than it still smells slightly like smokers live here after I almost burned the house down. I accidentally left a pot of chickpeas boiling in a pot of water while I took our 7 yr old and the neighbor to the park. I completely forgot about them while the girls played for an hour until I opened the door to a billow of smoke when we returned. The whole house was full of smoke - but the smoke detectors were not going off - despite the fact that they were supposedly replaced as part of the inspection process. A bit concerning. 

The latest action in the "moving on" process has been switching our medical insurance and finding civilian providers. We now have two injured athletes who need care. First our son tore his ACL playing football - he's still playing, but will need surgery when the season ends. And then last week I took our daughter to get her sore foot checked out. Probably just a ligament strain, but the doctor ordered an x-ray. She detected a joint abnormality that could be a lisfranc fracture - a rare metatarsal injury - or it could be nothing. We need to see the orthopedist, but I am still straightening out the switch from Tricare West to Tricare East Retired, because the charges for John's care aren't covered yet. Sigh. We are so used to seeing doctors for free, that this change to a co-pay system has been a bit painful. Fortunately, the foot pain seems to be subsiding this week.

Finding a dentist is next on our list - a tougher decision because we have had such up and down experiences with dentists. Some dentists seem to want to fill every soft spot in our children's mouths and make me feel like a failure because I don't oversee their brushing and flossing. Other dentists we've seen have said nothing but "see you in six months" after our biannual cleaning. I'd like to find a dentist somewhere in the middle. And wouldn't you know that my son's retainer is not fitting right any more? His lower jaw has been growing faster than his upper jaw, so he has some alignment problems. Should I try to convince him that a strong lower jaw is handsome?

I shared pictures on social media last week of our high schoolers dressed up for homecoming. Several people commented that it looked like they were transitioning well. It's a process, I answered one. This is a good example of social media deception - not intentional, although did I share these photos out of a desire to prove we are settling in? To prove to whom? I need the reminder the most. Did I share them to prop up the kids? Peer pressure from all the other homecoming shares? After spending over an hour trying to decide which pictures and whether to post, I finally hit share, and then have second guessed all day the decision, as well as regretting the time wasted on media. The fact that people see the happy smiles and think all is well shows just how well a happy smile can cover the turmoil inside.  I've also noticed lately - maybe because Instagram is sharing more "You might like this" posts, or maybe because I signed up for a promotional giveaway not realizing all the targeted suggestions I might receive  --- that there are A LOT of Catholic mom instagram accounts that show young moms in beautiful spaces with lovely clean children and pretty dresses and cool coffee mugs by beautiful planners and journaling Bibles and thoughtful reflections about growing in holiness and being thankful.  What pressure for young moms! That is a lot of beauty to live up to. Perhaps one of the things I am most grateful for is that most of my child rearing of little kids was prior to the infiltration of influencer social media accounts. Even now I am susceptible to the envy, and I have to be careful around my youngest not to have the phone out often. I guess when the older kids were her age, they wanted to watch VCR tapes and veg in front of the TV, while she wants to watch PBS apps or other shows or look at pictures. But those tapes didn't link to other accounts -  she also sometimes looks through my instagram account to see photos of the cousins, and those "suggested for you" ads are all right there for her to peruse. Fortunately, they are mostly Catholic mom lifestyle pages or Travel Europe pages or Notre Dame sports reports or Bookshelf photo accounts ... following my clicks...

Back to my first point in that paragraph -- the kids. Comparatively, the kids are doing well. They aren't coming home in tears every day, although one day a classmate did tell our 15 year old daughter that she didn't like her - then a couple days later said it was just a joke. Not a funny one. There were some tears that day. And there have been lots of tears shed by the seven year old at odd moments. She tends to feel things strongly. Even the senior broke down a few times about his knee shortly after he tore his ACL, but not from the physical pain. Since the dr gave him permission to try playing with a brace, he is playing through the pain, and every game I am afraid he'll be pulled from the field with a his lower leg at an odd angle, but we've decided the few moments of glory are worth the risk. Perhaps one day we'll regret this decision, but the pain of watching him mourn lost dreams was excruciating. And amazingly, he has had some great catches and has scored a touchdown every game - so the pain has been worth it to him. 

  

Sporty and fancy photos

Meanwhile, I still do my own fair share - or unfair share, really - of mourning. I still have a hard time stopping the broken record of self-pity and self-recrimination about taking on so much debt for a house that isn't our dream house. I'm supposed to be writing a paper about Wendell Berry for an academic conference I signed up for in February or March - it's in three weeks!!- but I can't bring myself to read him because his words are like a knife in the heart. We had the chance to make a radical change and instead chose something that isn't anything like what we had talked about. I've decided it was temporary insanity. This summer was insane.  No one wants to read anymore about this little pity party I keep having for myself, but ugh, I can't seem to leave the party.  

My solution is to keep trying to remember things to be grateful for... the sunsets, the space, the new friends. I've got a new walking friend down the street, and the neighbors had an impromptu happy hour in their driveway the other night to celebrate the cooler weather.  And I'm working as a substitute teacher for the moment while I try to decide what's next - a teaching job? a new degree, either to earn a teaching certificate or to finally finish that PhD I started years ago? Is it too late for that? Any distraction or redirect is helpful, as the parenting experts say.  Shopping for bookshelves without buying any is my biggest distraction right now. One of these days perhaps I'll commit. 

In the meantime, we have been happy to host both our own newlywed children who came for a visit a weekend ago and then this weekend my cousin's newlywed children, who came to town for a wedding. With our oldest kids, we watched the high schoolers compete in football and cross country, suffered a car break down, and then spent a day exploring downtown Austin - walking along the other Colorado River for the first time, and shopping the hipster boutiques and bootshops on South Congress. My cousins' kids spent most of their time at the wedding festivities with their friends, but Sunday morning we had a lovely visit on the back porch lingering over brunch and coffee after Mass before they headed on their drive home.  As I mentioned in the comments section to Hope, it was nice to be able to pay forward the free place to stay, since we frequently received such kindnesses in our early days.   Much to be thankful for. 

 

Getting acquainted with our new towns with the "big kids." This was my penance last week - the priest said, "Enjoy it." Sometimes you get lucky in the confessional, I guess.

And now to look forward to the weekend's haunted festivities... the spooky decorations around the neighborhood likely foreshadow a lively evening on Halloween night ... much candy has been purchased. 

  

Fall colors