tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140118622024-03-07T18:02:04.758-07:00Space Age HousewifeRedefining midlife and the modern housewife; or, talking to quiet the voices in my headSpace Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-23823781728538390182008-05-18T18:20:00.002-06:002008-05-18T18:29:11.097-06:00ContentmentIt was unseasonably warm - hot, really - and the kids ran through the sprinkler, smeared with sunblock and laughing over the sound of the running water. The dog chased a tennis ball, occasionally running through the path of the sprinkler just in time to avoid being doused himself.<br /><br />The screen door slammed, and my son burst into the kitchen, asking for a peanut butter sandwich.<br /><br />"Supper will be ready soon," I said mildly, slicing zucchini and yellow squash on the wooden cutting board.<br /><br />"But I'm hungry," he protested. I gestured to the table, indicating the snack mix sitting there, and told him he could help himself. I handed him flatware from the kitchen drawer, asking him to place the forks and knives by the plates I'd already set on the table.<br /><br />Munching snack mix, he agreeably did as he was asked.<br /><br />Mustard, ketchup, sliced pickles...corn waiting to be heated...zucchini and yellow squash sauteeing in a pan with some olive oil.<br /><br />The smell of hamburgers wafted into the kitchen as my husband slid open the screen door and stepped into the house carrying a half-empty glass of Summer Shandy.<br /><br />"Will supper be ready soon?" my son asked.<br /><br />"Yes, in just a few minutes," I told him.<br /><br />"Then I think I'll go swing." He fixed me with a grin and ran back outside, again pulling the screen door shut with a clatter. I walked to the door and looked out, watching him pump his legs to sail higher and higher, the grass a rich green beneath his feet and the sky bright, cloudless blue behind him. His toes seemed to reach to the tops of the ash and oak trees, and then he stopped, jumping from his perch to run inside just as his daddy slid the last of the burgers onto a plate.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-53484461731508294952008-04-18T16:41:00.003-06:002008-04-18T16:43:34.308-06:00One of THOSE days...I burned my hand.<br /><br />I made a cake, a beautiful cake using vodka and Kahlua, and it smells like warm heaven.<br /><br />The hot pad slipped when I was pulling it out of the oven, and I have two burns on the palm of my right hand. It stings, and I'm a big baby. It's also hard to type when one's hand is wrapped in bandages.<br /><br />No, I did not consume any of the vodka before pouring it into the batter.<br /><br />No, not the Kahlua either.<br /><br />Now, perhaps, would be a good time for that drink.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-87086244604546018202008-04-14T19:42:00.001-06:002008-04-14T19:44:22.964-06:00It's a Space Age Grandson!My older daughter had her ultrasound today, at eighteen weeks of pregnancy.<br /><br />"There's no doubt," she said breathlessly afterward. "It's clear. We have pictures. It's a boy!"<br /><br />The Space Age Grandson is expected to make his appearance the second week of September or so.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-20803700529268295992008-04-11T14:19:00.002-06:002008-04-11T14:34:58.304-06:00Wonderful, Wonderful CopenhagenChoose a city in a country other than your own, and tell us why you would like to visit there.<br /><br />That was the blogroll topic this week. Despite the fact that it was I who came up with this theme, I was stumped on the subject of my own entry.<br /><br />Would I go to Greece - Athens, perhaps? Corinth? Would I sail the Mediterranean and bake in the hot Greek sun and eat lamb and stuffed grape leaves? Would I choose Paris, with its laundry list of cliches: because I wanted to see the Eiffel tower, eat cheese, and buy hats? Would I go to London? Glasgow? Dublin? I could go to Oslo or Stockholm and see the countries from which my roots sprang, or I could see the mountains from Salzburg or the beautiful architecture of St. Petersburg. Perhaps I'd leave Europe altogether and head to Christchurch or Wellington or Sydney or Brisbane.<br /><br />In truth, I would gladly visit any of these cities - <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> of these cities.<br /><br />The other day, I watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Hans Christian Andersen</span> with my daughter, a favorite movie starring Danny Kaye, one I'd seen many times already.<br /><br />That's it! I thought later. I'll go to Denmark and visit wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. I'll go in the summertime so that I can attend the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. I'll bike along the island and lie on the beach. I'll have my picture taken in front of the Charity Fountain, and I'll spend days prowling museums and admiring architecture and trying to lose myself in the history of the centuries-old city. I'll recreate scene after scene in my head, daydreaming my way along well-worn streets, and when I've had enough, I'll cross the bridge over the Sound and continue my tour in Sweden.<br /><br />Some day, maybe. Some day.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-59507904715929959942008-04-08T23:12:00.003-06:002008-04-08T23:15:25.169-06:00SadMy girl left me a text message earlier. We had talked on the phone this evening, and some time afterward, she sent me the message. She wants her Mama.<br /><br />She hurts.<br /><br />I hurt.<br /><br />We are separated by some 1500 miles, and while she is halfway through her first pregnancy and in the midst of planning her wedding, I am much too far away. She wants to share these experiences with me. She wants me there.<br /><br />And I want to be.<br /><br />How could I not? She's my baby. Her message was anguished, and I felt it acutely. We talk all the time, but it's not the same. It will never be the same. It hurts like hell to have one foot in Idaho and one foot in Minnesota.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-44549902159504191332008-04-05T21:47:00.002-06:002008-04-05T21:50:21.466-06:00New Story At The Writer's BlockI've joined a fiction writers' blogroll, forcing me to hit the keyboard a little more often for the made-up stuff. The elements to be present in this week's assignment were a blue car, a man named Dominic, a clock, and 2:00, AM or PM.<br /><br />Check out my new story posted at <a href="http://thecamdens.blogspot.com/">Writer's Block</a>, and click on the blogroll links to read the other stories as well!Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-46743379053204397572008-03-24T19:53:00.002-06:002008-03-24T19:56:39.841-06:00Baby Update!The Space Age Grandchild is well on his or her way now. My daughter had a doctor's appointment today - she's almost 16 weeks and has lost another pound, but as she put it, is "expanding in all the right places." The baby's heartbeat was 160-ish. The old wives' tales will tell you this is a girl, but I'm an old wife, and I'm not sure I believe the tales.<br /><br />This Gramma business looms ever closer. It's really a baby!Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-65011014668846159352008-03-19T20:48:00.003-06:002008-03-19T21:09:26.711-06:00They say they can make dreams come true...And maybe that's a little bit true.<br /><br />We went to Disney World last week. It was a Space Age family reunion, including my parents, my siblings, and their families. I had once visited Epcot many years ago, for just a couple of hours at the tail end of a business trip. I had never explored fully, nor had I ever been where dreams are supposed to come true: the Magic Kingdom.<br /><br />I'm over forty. I wondered if the magic would still work for me. It's just princesses and cartoons and silly roller coasters...or is it?<br /><br />Though I will never see the Magic Kingdom as a child, I did get to experience it through the eyes of four children - two of my own, and two of my nieces. I had the once-in-a-lifetime privilege of soaring through the skies and space next to my own father, just as we might have thirty years ago when I <span style="font-style: italic;">was </span>still just a kid.<br /><br />We flew on magic carpets, roared through mountains, sang with pirates, and rocketed beyond the stratosphere. We found volcanoes and singing birds and dancing horses and glittering carriages. We walked on stones trod by millions before us, their collective history making real what our own eyes saw.<br /><br />Somehow, it worked. If there is such a thing as pixie dust, it drifted above and around us for that one week. I'm left now to wonder if my original family - scattered to the winds once again, living our own lives - will ever be together in such a way. Maybe we will, and for that I can hope.<br /><br />For now, I have warm and balmy memories of a few days spent suspended in a magical time warp that dissolved the barriers of time and distance. We are lucky, and even better: we know we are lucky.<br /><br />Some dreams do come true.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-54861448073483486992008-01-24T20:50:00.000-07:002008-01-24T21:02:37.074-07:00The moving finger writes......and time marches on. Or something like that. I'm mixing my poems and axioms.<br /><br />Age will do that to you.<br /><br />I've often written about my parenting exploits. I've been a mother for almost exactly half my life, and nearly all of my adult life. Much of my identity is tied up in the apron strings of motherhood. "Mother" is a title I'm happy and comfortable with.<br /><br />I'm about to get a new title. A new and unfamiliar title, heretofore reserved only for women of another generation, women older and wiser and even more motherly than I. Women like my mother and her mother, whose ranks I am about to join.<br /><br />"Grandma."<br /><br />The word looks suddenly odd to me.<br /><br />When I think of Grandma, I think of my own Grammas, women born very early in the 20th century, women who had gray hair before I knew them, comfortable women who wore dresses and tiny curls in their hair, who knew all sorts of history before it was history. I'm stuck on that. Those are grandmothers. I'm only a mother.<br /><br />A mother whose daughter is about to become a mother.<br /><br />From where I sit, her becoming a mother is even more surreal than my becoming a grandmother. My baby? The darling toddler who sat on a dark-stained wooden chair in front of the washer and dryer, waiting for her cloth doll to be freshly laundered? That little girl with the blonde curls cascading down her back, wearing a blue denim jumper and little white Mary Janes?<br /><br />When on earth did she get old enough to have a baby?<br /><br />*sigh*<br /><br />I don't remember.<br /><br />She'll be 21 when the baby comes. She lives in a townhouse with her significant other, her intended, and it's there they will bring home their baby. He works and she works, and they buy groceries and keep house and cook. They aren't children, but they seem so young.<br /><br />I was just shy of 21 when she was born. I don't think I felt as young as she seems. How our perceptions change. Twenty-one years ago this month, I donned my first maternity blouse, awaiting the day when my baby would come.<br /><br />Now, full circle, we wait for hers.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-23244933095002238112007-10-10T22:00:00.000-06:002007-10-10T22:06:05.868-06:00I LiedOkay, well, I didn't lie.<br /><br />I changed my mind.<br /><br />I'm back.<br /><br />It was hamburger and onions that brought me back, rereading an old entry inspired by a thread on a forum I visit. Hamburger and onions and kidisms and Dean Martin and a feeling that something's not quite with out practicing Space Age Housewifery.<br /><br />Right now I'm relaxing with a nostalgic candle scent in every room and recapturing that elusively comforting autumn ambience that is the essence of October.<br /><br />You don't have to welcome me back. You might say "I told you so," and that would be all right. It's better than lying the couch with my feet up playing Bubble Breaker and wishing there were something to say over a slice of pumpkin pie and a late-night decaf coffee.<br /><br />Good night for now. I hope it rains tomorrow, so I can feel guiltless about making leaf-shaped cookies and hot cocoa with real chocolate marshmallows.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-63450782480004723832007-04-29T18:56:00.000-06:002007-04-29T19:01:38.471-06:00Goodbye...The time has come for me to close up shop here at this version of The Space Age Housewife. These pages have served their purpose for me. I'm not going to delete the blog or its archives, but I will no longer be posting here.<br /><br />If you are still interested in the midlife crisis of a Space Age Housewife, you can find me at my new location: <a href="http://blog.myspace.com/spaceagehousewife">Space Age Housewife.</a><br /><br />I have also created a new blog, a place I'd like to use for writing fiction, essays, articles, and whatever else comes to my brain. You can find it at <a href="http://thecamdens.blogspot.com/">Writer's Block.</a><br /><br />Thank you for reading.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1175230329217440322007-03-29T23:51:00.000-06:002007-03-29T23:52:09.230-06:00Yeah, it's a mid-life crisis!Turning forty was fine for me.<br /><br />Okay, well, there was a little anxiety.<br /><br />A little.<br /><br />I decided to be thirty-ten for a while, but after only a few hours, it had gotten old. It wasn't cute. Neither was I.<br /><br />Still, it was fine and not too troubling. Inside I still felt twenty, so what difference did it make?<br /><br />That was before my daughter's twentieth birthday began looming. It's still more than two months away, but I find myself flashing back more often to my pregnancy with her, the unusual warmth of that spring, and my own innocent youth.<br /><br />I've occasionally struggled with the idea that I am my mother's age (isn't she 40? 38? Something like that), but this is the first time I have struggled with the idea that I am my daughter's age. Those who say that age is "just a number" are partially right. Age is also in the perception. Old is relative. We all know the old saw - you're only as old as you feel. How do we perceive ourselves? How do I perceive myself?<br /><br />I find it odd and fascinating that I can consider myself a peer to both my daughter and my mother when 48 years separate the two of them. Perhaps that's what they mean by "sandwich generation." I can relate to Kayla; I can relate to Mom. I feel the experiences of both and can nod and smile and say, "I know just what you mean."<br /><br />This feeling is not unwelcome. I'm glad to know there are still new feelings to explore, that the dusty past can become new again seen through someone else's eyes. How, though, to reconcile that my oldest, my first baby, is about to leave her teens? She has her own life, her own chapters to write, her own feelings to explore and sort. She has dreams, beautiful, blue-skied dreams, and my only dream for her is that she's happy.<br /><br />No one has ever been able to adequately define a mid-life crisis for me, and I've thought fleetingly in recent years that I was having one. I wasn't. I am now. I no longer need others' definitions, because I'm grappling with the bewilderment of mid-life right now, myself, trying to figure out where I fit in.<br /><br />Mom turned sixty-eight yesterday. Kayla's careering toward twenty. Somewhere in between, I'm still the middle child.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1171947334081429472007-02-19T21:54:00.000-07:002007-02-19T21:55:34.146-07:00Ever had a roommate?I wrote this as an exercise on a message board, and it's all too, too true:<br /><br />Dear Former Roommate:<br /><br />You know, it's been almost 22 years, and I'm still a little angry with you. Maybe a lot angry. Maybe I should get over it, but the way you treated me and my belongings was horrendous, and I hope you have managed to grow up and learn some responsibility since then.<br /><br />That jewelry you took with you when did the fly-by-night move? That was mine. You know - the earrings and necklaces that were in my jewlery box on my dresser in my bedroom. I know, I know. They weren't labelled as mine, but I had thought perhaps the location might give a clue to ownership.<br /><br />Remember the rent? That monthly charge for living in the apartment that you never paid? The one-third that I kept covering, along with my own one-third, because you hadn't been "able" to find a job yet? Can I get that back yet? You did, after all, set up that complex repayment plan so I'd be sure to know you fully intended to make good on taking advantage of my <del> stupidity </del> generosity in paying your share. Just to show you what a stand-up woman I am, I'll forgive the grocery debt. I didn't really want to eat the food I bought anyway. It was just for looks.<br /><br />The new outfit, though. That really hurt. I had my first credit card - a Dayton's store charge - and I had bought a perfect pair of jeans and a gorgeous purple sweater. When I brought them home from the store, you wanted to know if you could borrow the outfit. Never mind that you were one jeans size bigger than I was, and that you wore a D-cup bra as opposed to my A-cup and therefore would have stretched out my new sweater. Never mind that I hadn't even worn my new clothes yet. You wanted to borrow the outfit, and I said no.<br /><br />I should have guessed when I left for the evening that you would have just gone ahead and taken the clothes anyway. I should have known, so I suppose it was my fault that you stole my jeans and my sweater. It certainly wasn't my fault, however, that you decided you didn't like your date after all and thought that crying "rape" would be a good way to get attention. That you admitted to me that that's what you had done was unbelievably insensitive and offensive, considering you knew that I'd been an actual victim of such a crime just a few years earlier.<br /><br />When you told me the police had taken the clothes as evidence, I know I exploded. And you deserved it. "I didn't think you'd mind," you said about "borrowing" my clothes. Didn't think I'd mind? <i> Didn't think I'd mind? </i> I specifically <i> told </i> you not to take my clothes. How could think I wouldn't mind.<br /><br />Your night flight wasn't long after that. I suppose you "didn't think I'd mind" about your taking my jewelry either.<br /><br />You don't know this, but I went to the police station to recover my new clothes. Because I was not the one who signed the paperwork as the owner, the police would not release my property to me. I couldn't prove that it WAS my property. Your false rape case went nowhere, you disappeared, and I never, ever got those clothes back. They were my first purchase on my first charge card, and when the bill came later, I was bitter over writing out the check for a sweater and jeans I could never wear.<br /><br />But it's not thanks for nothing, old roommate. I learned more life lessons from a few months sharing an apartment with you than I could ever have thought possible. That venerable old teacher Experience surely did sock it to me, didn't She?<br /><br />'Bye.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1170622316718852312007-02-04T13:50:00.000-07:002007-02-04T17:46:33.183-07:00Who am I?For years, I was a WOHM.<br /><br />For years, I was a SAHM.<br /><br />Now I have a job again, and I've gone to M-F noon to 3, with the occasional Saturday thrown in. That makes at least 15 hours a week, putting me solidly in the part-time arena.<br /><br />So does that make me a PTWOHM? But if I'm a PTWOHM, and I also spend many hours each week at home or school doing SAHM stuff, does that make me a PTSAHM?<br /><br />I seem to recall that one of the "rules" is that you can't work AND be a SAHM, so while there might be a designation for PTWOHM, indicating that she does not work full-time, there can be no designation for PTSAHM.<br /><br />Now, if I calculate the number of hours spent at home, school, and children's activities, and they overwhelm the number of hours I am at work, am I a SAHM or a WOHM. Whoops, no, there again is the rule that any amount of work negates the SAHM label.<br /><br />Does it change if I can bring my children to work with me? I work during the hours that Space Age daughter is normally in school, but it's after Space Age son's school hours, so he comes with me.<br /><br />Does that make me a SAHM? No, because we're not at home. Does it make me a SAWM (stay-at-work mom?)? Does it make Space Age Son a WOHS (work-out-of-home son?)?<br /><br />Maybe I am a PTSAHWOHM?<br /><br />:)<br /><br /><br />(As a note, I really don't want or expect answers to my questions - this was just a bit of fluff meant to poke fun at the labels we often insist on giving ourselves and how, unlike men, our identities seem to be wrapped up in parenting vs. working, as though somehow the two were mutually exclusive.)Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1168404247925669202007-01-09T21:41:00.001-07:002007-01-09T21:45:21.556-07:00We interrupt this program for an important message<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/picturechick66/olddutch.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/picturechick66/olddutch.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It goes without saying that what I miss most about Minnesota is proximity to my family, the important people who helped shape my life and love me no matter what.<br /><br />I must admit, however, that there is something else from Minnesota that I miss with a startling amount of regularity. I want some right now. I want Old Dutch potato chips. And some French onion dip. And a Dad's root beer in a glass bottle.<br /><br />I don't want much. Just Old Dutch.<br /><br />We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1167599581407181002006-12-31T14:06:00.000-07:002006-12-31T14:13:01.420-07:00Happy New YearStrange days it's been recently.<br /><br />December was busy - we threw a party, the oldest Space Age daughter visited for a week, we traveled over Christmas, and we spent three days in a row feasting and celebrating with large crowds of people. There was no one quiet, moving moment, no tiny break in the action when I could allow myself to be washed over with peacefulness, if even for a minute.<br /><br />I'm going to try to take that minute tonight, somehow, at some moment.<br /><br />The Space Age husband is spending the afternoon cleaning the garage. It's his mental cleansing time, his fresh start for the new year, his way of feeling organized and grounded and strengthened for new challenges.<br /><br />The Space Age children are playing with puzzles upstairs. All they want to know is when we will break out the rootbeer and potato chips for their New Year's celebration - for them, we do the countdown a few hours earlier than the calendar change actually takes place.<br /><br />Me? I'm cleaning. I need that fresh start feeling too. So many pressures and stresses have been weighing on my brain. I wasn't able to enjoy the Christmas season as fully and wholeheartedly as I would have liked. I've made a new resolve to work more on my own physical and mental health and my own peace of mind. My husband must have sensed this - two of my Santa gifts this year were jigsaw puzzles. It was his way of saying, "Take some time for yourself."<br /><br />Cleaning helps. I'm putting away most of the Christmas decor, though I'll leave up some remnants of festivity until the Ephiphany. I like a clean house for New Year's. Later, when our work is done, we'll make some fondue, open a bottle of wine, give the kids their treats, and celebrate the new year with music and games and enjoying each other's company. I will try to grab that moment of peacefulness my mind and heart are craving.<br /><br />To you and to yours, my best wishes for a peaceful, prosperous, and very happy New Year.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1167406846290620152006-12-29T08:36:00.000-07:002006-12-29T08:40:46.333-07:00SevenThe middle Space Age child turned seven yesterday.<br /><br />Seven!<br /><br />When time speeds by at a dizzying blur, and the baby with the side part and the plastic barrettes, just learning to sit up, is suddenly a first-grader with three missing teeth and a stack of books to read. That's age seven.<br /><br />She spent the day making bead crafts, coloring, and decorating her own birthday cake (it was chocolate with chocolate frosting, pink sprinkles, and tiny colored marshmallows). She chose spaghetti with salad for her birthday supper and afterward we had huge squares of cake with cookies and cream ice cream.<br /><br />I never tire of looking at her face. It's a small face, tiny-featured, delicate and expressive. Her eyes seem older than seven; behind their guileless innocence lies a gentle wisdom. My chubby baby has grown into a tall and gangly girl with enough love and caring to embrace the world.<br /><br />She is beautiful in so many ways. And she is seven.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1167275910272547682006-12-27T20:16:00.000-07:002006-12-27T20:18:30.286-07:00Space Age Progeny...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5903/1254/1600/762528/smcathykayla.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5903/1254/320/738578/smcathykayla.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It's been too long since my last updates - busy season, anyone? - but I'm going to recommit to the Spage Age Blog.<br /><br />A bit of a small start here, after a week traveling for Christmas. This is the oldest Spage Age daughter, the apple of my eye, and me, on Christmas Eve...Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1162923353449326822006-11-07T11:14:00.000-07:002006-11-07T11:15:53.466-07:00Don't Forget to VOTE!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/picturechick66/vote_image.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/picturechick66/vote_image.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It's Election Day in the United States. Don't forget to exercise your right to make your voice heard: Vote!Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1162319295249803342006-10-31T11:25:00.000-07:002006-10-31T11:28:15.263-07:00Happy Halloween!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5903/1254/1600/rrHweenSign820.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5903/1254/320/rrHweenSign820.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Happy Halloween to all who celebrate!<br /><br />I'm looking forward to ham soup for supper, trick-or-treat, then some warm cider with kettle corn and apples while we watch "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"<br /><br />Stay warm and be careful.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1160495030726037632006-10-10T09:43:00.000-06:002006-10-10T09:44:50.126-06:00Six YearsHappy anniversary to me. We've been in Idaho six years now. We left Minnesota early on Saturday morning, October 7, 2000, arriving in Idaho late in the afternoon on Monday, October 9, 2000.<br /><br />Six years ago today, I was arranging things in our temporary corporate housing, setting up cell phones, talking with the real estate agent from the relocation company, and enrolling my middle schooler in classes. She started school that week on Thursday, after I jumped through hoops to get her admitted 'to a school in the neighborhood in which we hoped to buy a house; our temporary apartment was not within the district boundaries for that school.<br /><br />We did find and buy a house before the end of the month, the house I'm sitting in even as we speak. It looks a lot different than it did six years ago - window treatments, carpet, paint, landscaping, and a deck. We've gradually stamped our own personalities on what was once and empty shell of sheet rock and plain putty-colored carpet.<br /><br />When we arrived in Idaho, I thought perhaps we'd be here two years. Maybe three. While I was pregnant with my son in 2001, I thought certainly he'd be born in Minnesota. We'd move back before his birth.<br /><br />He's more than four-and-a-half now. We're still here.<br /><br />As the years have passed, my angst over leaving Minnesota has lessened. I still miss it. I miss living within shouting distance of my parents and my siblings. I miss standing on the soil of my grandparents and great-grandparents.<br /><br />Somehow, though, it doesn't hurt as much anymore. We visit, and the roads travel both ways. We've established new, fledgling roots here. We have friends, our children have friends, and for lack of a more colorful term, we have a network. And finally, finally - I've come to love the house that once felt cold. I achingly longed for the house we'd left behind, the 1964 rambler with the basement and the real woodburning stove and the built in bar lovingly sanded and finished by my husband. That was home. This was...something else.<br /><br />For years - two or three, maybe - I felt as though I were visiting in someone else's space. Not mine. Something different somehow, and I never felt settled.<br /><br />Today, six years after we pulled out of my parents' driveway in a green minivan, bound for parts unfamiliar, I can say that this two-story house with the brick-red front door feels like home.<br /><br />If you drive up today, you'll see the autumn harvest wreath hanging on the front door, the jaunty scarecrow in the yard, surrounded by the biggest pumpkins we could find at Albertson's, and the planter boxes on the front porch festooned with pumpkins large and small. The mums have grown big, and the pear and juniper trees stand three times as large as they once did.<br /><br />Home has more than one definition, I've learned. I've also learned that there's enough love and affection in my heart to embrace them all.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1160431601369797042006-10-09T16:06:00.000-06:002006-10-09T16:06:41.393-06:00Still thinking of JonI can't help but continue thinking of him, particularly in light of the recent discovery in his case. I don't want to appear as if I'm obsessive about the life of this young man I barely knew, but my brain has yet to make sense of his apparent death.<br /><br />I can picture him as clearly as yesterday, sitting at my table, joking with my children, wearing his green t-shirt, thoughtfully listening to his camp colleagues describe their lives and their goals. He remained quieter than the young women; seemingly content to listen and observe. His manner with my children - treating them as intelligent beings, equals and friends - earned their respect and regard, as well as that of my husband and me.<br /><br />My six-year-old daughter still asks about Jon and the other camp counselors.<br /><br />"Will they come back next year?" she asks, eagerly awaiting another week of vacation bible school and in particular the water games with buckets and balloons.<br /><br />"Somebody will," I answer gently, wondering if I can avoid ever telling her about what happened to Jon.<br /><br />It seems incomprehensible that we spent a genial Tuesday evening with Jon, bid our farewells that Thursday, and then on Saturday he went up a mountain from which he would never return. It's incomprehensible that this mountain took Jon, plucked him from the arms of his loving family, took him from the work he so obviously loved, and kept him, refusing to give him back to the dozens of searchers who blanketed the area in the last two weeks of July.<br /><br />The world was blessed to have Jon Francis, and my heart aches for him and his family and all those for whom and with whom he worked and lived and prayed.<br /><br />I can't make sense of it. Perhaps I never will.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1160066017364396942006-10-05T10:31:00.000-06:002006-10-05T10:33:37.386-06:00Jon Francis NewsFor those who remember the story of <a href="http://thatsloanegirl.blogspot.com/2006/07/jon.html">Jon Francis,<br /></a> there is news. Please see the <a href="http://www.jonfrancis.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1">website </a> established in his name for updates. My prayers are with the Francis family and all of Jon's loved ones.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1159561578681941042006-09-29T14:20:00.000-06:002006-09-29T14:26:18.703-06:00Evil dwells in the supermarket...<p>During today's grocery shop, I found an evil beyond all evils. Something truly decadent, something that has the potential to wield unfathomable power over me.</p><p>It is Pumpkin Spice Egg Nog.</p><p>Things were bad enough when the retailers sold egg nog only during the Christmas season - remember when the mistletoe-and-holly cartons began appearing in supermarket refrigerators no sooner than December first? Then they started pushing it back to Thanksgiving. Now? Egg nog is becoming as much a Halloween tradition as it is Christmas, the September and October versions of the cartons featuring pumpkins and silhouettes of witches. I try to avoid buying egg nog before Thanksgiving. I'd like to at least make a pretense of keeping it for Christmas.<br /></p><p>But this stuff I had to have. It called me with its spicy siren song, "Take me home!"<br /></p><p>It's rich. Creamy. Cinnamon-and-nutmeg-y. An evil to transcend all evils.<br /></p><p>And so, so, so good.</p><p>It's too early for pumpkins and homemade cinnamon sugar doughnuts and popcorn and hot apple cider in front of the fireplace. And it's much, much too early for egg nog.</p>Isn't it?<br /><p><br /></p>Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14011862.post-1158964027893848202006-09-22T16:19:00.000-06:002006-09-22T16:27:07.913-06:00It really is autumn......And I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Gymnastics. Girl Scouts. Two PTA committees. Sunday School. Beyond that, a wedding to attend and at least two major scrapbook events.<br /><br />Who <span style="font-style: italic;">am </span>I, and what have I done with myself?<br /><br />I have two corkboards above my desk - one for the children's school activities and one for the various extracurriculars. Two calendars. Two coupons tacked up that I will probably never use, one haircut appointment card, and a reminder to call the dentist.<br /><br />I re-upped at the gym and my husband bought an elliptical. I'm into two books at once, one fiction and one true crime.<br /><br />All I really want to do sometimes is sit here and goldbrick.<br /><br />I made pumpkin bread the other day. Two loaves from scratch. It was delicious. I wanted more today, but my trip to the mall during school hours (a vain search for a dressy fall jacket for Little Miss Space Age), five big loads of laundry, and a grocery run with The Boy in tow precluded my cooking it from scratch. Anticipating this, I bought the Williams Sonoma Pumpkin Pecan Spice Bread mix. The whole house smells of it now. I'm saving it for supper though, to be served with chicken chili. Mr. Space Age would never forgive me if he came home to the smell of pumpkin bread and I had eaten it all!<br /><br />The laundry needs to be finished, and I did leave one of the bathrooms upstairs in half-cleaned fashion, blue Lysol still doing its best to cling to the side of the bowl. I'm wondering how long I can sit here before I give in to the call of anti-bacterial duty.<br /><br />I'd goldbrick some more for the moment, but The Boy is at my elbow. "Now can I have my Danimals, Mom? Please? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now?"<br /><br />PTA, pumpkin, Lysol and Danimals.<br /><br />They'll get you every time.Space Age Housewifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18061997178234504558noreply@blogger.com1