Dirt and Sweat

    I am clearly in a funk, and not sure how to get out of it.  I don't write much when I'm happy, I'm not trying to get dialogue out of my head when I am happy.  When I am pissy I pour things out hoping to make room for the happy to come back.  I wish I ran.  I always think that if I liked to run I could go for a long run and clear my head.  Alas, I hate running.  I wish I was a shopper, I could go loose myself in a store and zone out but that's not me either.  If I were a guy I would go out and pick fights, punch out my frustration.
     I need dirt and sweat. I need to work myself hard enough to tire myself out.  I don't know if I found the gym or the gym found me, but it is as holy as any cathedral in my mind.  I can push and grunt and move weight til I feel better.  My favorite movie quote is from Legally Blond  "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't shoot their husbands, they just don't."   Elle Woods was on to something.  I work out to be a better mother and wife. I have a lot of mean in me.  I need to exercise my demons, its the only way they let me sleep.  Right now my steady work out just isn't enough.  I need dirt under my nails, an aching back, and sweat, lots and lots of sweat. 
    I raked leaves for four hours today.  I bagged twenty-two bags of leaves today, and it felt good.  I need to quiet my head, shut down all that is driving me mad.   My life feels out of control, no I don't know when I'm moving, no I don't know where I'm moving or if my husband will move with us.  This lack of control really sets me off.  So if I run out of leaves at my house, I may show up in your yard.  What I wouldn't give for a downed tree and an axe.
      Some of my happiest and most comforting memories are full of dirt and sweat.  I am six or seven years old walking barefoot down just plowed  rows of our garden.  I follow behind my Dad, he pokes planting holes in the top of the rows and I count out three seeds and drop them in then cover them with dirt.  It's hot and smells like fresh earth, and all is at peace in my life.  I am a fourteen year old girl and I work for my Dad surveying.  I have my own machete, I know how to sharpen it and what angle to swing it to cut a line through Louisiana thickets and briar patches.  We leave at day light and work til dusk.  It smells like tree bark, sweat, and hot musty air trapped in thick woods.  Saturdays are my favorite day of the week because I get to work and spend the day with my dad.  At the end of every work day I appreciate money and baths more than I ever thought I could, and all is at peace in my world.  I am a sixteen year old and I am at church during the summer, I am cutting the shrubs and hedges from around the church, raking and hauling off limbs.  Standing outside of the church knowing that its beauty, for most, is held on the inside where light streams through stained glass. But what I need most is the outside, the work, the feeling of sun burnt shoulders and a tiredness earned through hard work, and all is at peace in my world.
     Today I tackled my front yard, maybe tomorrow I will start on the back yard.  Maybe I'll sleep good tonight.  Maybe between the gym this morning, and the time spent cleaning out yet another closet, all added to the wondrous work of raking leaves maybe it's all enough to tire me out. 
     Thanks Dad for always letting me work with you, thank you for never treating me like a girl, thank you for letting me try to keep up with you.  Thank you for teaching me the value of dirt and sweat.  Sometimes the only way I can handle myself isn't by talking, it's by shutting out the world and working, thank you for showing me how.



It's Just One Summer in Phoenix...

   When Brad and I got married there wasn't much work to be found in Louisiana.  We got married on December twenty-ninth, and by April he was on his way to  a job in Phoenix, AZ.  I really didn't want him to go.  I was in school and had never thought about moving away from my family, but we were married and he was my new family.  So we talked and he told me "Just come on out here.  It's just one summer in Phoenix."  So I have been living one endless summer in Phoenix for ten years now.  I wouldn't go back and change the path we've been on.  We have had to rely on each other in a way I don't think we would have if we had stayed in Louisiana.   I have never regretted stepping into my one summer in Phoenix. 
      The end of Sweetness' job is here in Macon.  We've known since we got here that February 2012 would be the close of this chapter.  But I am having a really hard time because there doesn't seem to be a next page written.  We are living in limbo and it's very uncomfortable.  I have tried not to worry about where and when  we will be moving for most of our stay here.  But February is just two weeks away, I can hold the worry off no more.  Brad will close this job out, so he may be here as long as March, but then what?  We usually have somewhere to start thinking about moving to, hear of jobs, and have cities to look up on line and start learning about.  But I don't have a city to start piling hopes on to this time.  There aren't rumors of jobs in other parts of the US, there are only goodbyes being said to friends leaving for Canada.
      I am more than willing to move to Canada with my husband, that is not the problem.  The problem is the jobs going on aren't ones your family  comes with you to.  Brad tries to keep me from worrying, he told me "It's just a few months in Canada".  I can't hear that from him.  I want to stay in my summer in Phoenix.  I want to see him every night, pray and eat at the same dinner table, listen to him read bedtime stories to the kids and lay down next to him every night.  Our life is not a fairy tale, we fight, we get irritated with each other, but we joke that everything is just about perfect 92% of the time.  We are finally getting better at talking to each other, he can't be sent away now.  I am trying to concentrate on being thankful he has a good job in this terrible economy, but I am selfish and childish and I want what I want.  What I want is a home, no matter how big or small, no matter in what part of the world just as long as it holds my children and my husband we will be fine. 
     Everything in me is scared to death of "Just a few months in Canada".  What if that is how it starts?  He does one four or five month job, then gets sent to another temporary job again and again.  Yes I will see him every couple of weeks, but that a family does not make.  I can't see him every day, remind him to take his vitamins, fuss at him for not eating more vegetables and all the other things I like to do that annoy him.  He won't be here to make me go to sleep, check on noises in the night, or warm my feet up when it's cold.  Marriage is not a certificate or a box checked off on a form, it's a collection of mundane and ordinary shared moments that when all thrown together become wonderful.  My favorite times are Sunday afternoons in the summer sitting on the front porch talking with the kids, or when he puts the kids to bed a little early just so we can have a few more minutes of time alone.  How do you maintain that in two different countries? 
      I know I am borrowing trouble, as my mother would say,  but there aren't any other things to fill my hopes with.  I am extremely lucky to have the girlfriends I do, they listen, encourage and help me through this.  Two of them are living this with me right now, waiting to know where their husbands will go and what path their families will take.  I am struggling to keep the days going as normal as I can.  I'm cleaning out all of our house, getting ready.  Any day now Brad could tell me he's being sent or that we are all moving.  I feel as if I am pushed to the edge of a cliff  and I am blindfolded, I know I have to go over the edge, I am just waiting on fate to push and hoping the bottom isn't too far down.    Where ever we land I hope it is still summer, I hope the warmth of  Phoenix is still with us.  I am not ready to even try just a few months in Canada apart,  I need the that imaginary sun on my skin and my Sweetness by my side.



Seven Years

  How can my sweet boy be seven?  He was just a chubby little blue eyed baby boy.

His toddler years went by too fast, he was still a baby when we had another baby.



Will she ever know how lucky she is to have him?

Mommy is selfish and just wants more time, more hugs, more cuddles before he's too big.

He is definitely all "snails and nails and puppy dog tails"

So happy birthday to the man I didn't know I needed in my life. 

Turner you are an incredible man in the making.  I can not wait to see what you become, what ever it is you will be wonderful.

  You are my heart~  Love Mom

Finding a Fountain

    There is a huge house on the way to Tate's school, and I mean it is huge.  It's all manicured with gorgeous landscaping and it has a fountain right out front.  When we first moved here it was winter and the fountain was a big frozen ice sculpture every day as I brought Turner and Tate to school.  This sparked many conversations in our car.  The kids would cheer and scream every morning as we passed the fountain, it just looked so cool with ice sickles exploding from it. 
    Turner now gets dropped off at his school and doesn't get to view the fountain every day anymore, but Tate gives daily reports.  She knows when the house is coming up, and talks to me every morning about if she thinks it will be frozen, flowing, or broken.  We've discussed how water freezes, what we think the family is like who lives in the big huge fountain house, and Turner has even told me he doesn't want to live in a house that big because I would take all day to clean it and wouldn't be able to play.
     As we drove by the fountain this week I got sad thinking about not seeing the fountain any more.  Every time we move my kids manage to begin making their own rituals to make a new place feel familiar, the fountain was a big one here in Macon.  In Cartersville is was a little gas station/BBQ joint with an ever evolving garage sale out front.  Turner would press his face to the car window and tell me what all new junk was at the BBQ emporium. 
    Routine is king at our house.  I think it's my futile attempt to bring stability in to a very unstable life.  If my kids know what to expect every day they are happy, and feel secure.  They will never know what it feels like to grow up in the same house their entire life.  I try to remember to take a picture of the outside of each house we have lived in and keep it.  One day I'll put them all in a photo book and give one each to the kids.  My memories are of the same house my parents still live in.  I go home and it's still home.  My kids won't have that but I'm trying to make sure the feeling of "home" is right where we are at the moment.  So far Turner B. has five different houses in his home file, Tater has three.  When I write that down it sounds awful, like we do nothing but pack and move.  But each of the houses is so packed full of time spent, dinners eaten together, night lights in hallways, familiar smells, Christmas mornings, and so many other memories that I barely remember the houses themselves.  My memories of my past ten years aren't a fractured and scattered collection, but a cohesive span where only the background scenery changes. 
     I've already started talking with the kids about moving.  I don't hide anything from them or sugar coat it.  They know we'll be leaving here some time next year, they know it's going to suck.  I think they also know that we will get through it.  We've started adding things in our morning prayers asking God to start getting a house ready for us in the next town.  I ask for God to get our hearts ready to meet new people and not hurt too badly for the ones we have to leave.  I'm hoping since the kids are older that they will have lots of contact with their friends through my email, Skype and on my Facebook.  Maybe it'll help, it helps me anyway.
     Tate wanted to know if there would be a fountain in our next town that we could talk about.  I told her I don't know, but that we would find other things to drive by everyday and talk about.  Maybe I'll start adding a fountain to our prayers.  It is very surprising what little things my kids will get attached to.  Junky roadside gas stations and fountains in other people's driveways.  But I will search for the next roadside interest and try to make our next house and routines feel like home, even if it means driving out of my way to look for a new fountain.

All Jacked up

     While posting about my excitement over Turner's first football game tonight I got a comment from a friend: "I love how jacked up you are about Mite League football."  This made me stop and think for a second, because I didn't realize there was an alternative to being all jacked up.  I am fan full of ferocious joy when it comes to my family.  I think I do many things with ferocity, which can be less than good sometimes. 
    I love Turner and Tate.  When I watch them excel at what ever it is they are doing my heart swells and I can barely contain myself.  Likewise, when they are fighting or defying me I can barely contain myself.  I need to be more patient, but just hang on God because I am not ready to ask for help with that yet.  I'm scared of patience.  I need more of it , especially trying to parent a six year old son and a four year old daughter.  My kids are growing out of the sweet preschool stage and entering full on adolescence.  They are more independent than little kids, they have lives that exist outside of my influence.  They are smart, curious and both are sometime smart alecks.  This is trying my nerves. 
    Tate is really pushing my buttons lately.  She's emotional, whiny and loves to see how mad she can make me.  I'm not sure why this game is so fun?  I know she's testing boundaries.  I volley between waiting to pick her up,  hug her and hold her endlessly and trying not to choke her for disobeying me.  I realize gaining independence and pushing at boundaries is part of growing up, but it doesn't keep me from pining for when they were both babies.  When they needed me, when the sun rose and set around our time cuddling. 
    Turner is likewise going through his own growing period.  He's becoming a little man before my eyes.  My sweet mama's boy is slipping away little bits at a time.  I'm not allowed to kiss him at school, or around his friends, but he will still hold my hand.  He's learning to focus aggression on the football field and even embrace it.  Holding back tears when he's been stepped on by a cleat, scratched or bruised, he no longer needs a  kiss from me. 
    Even though my kids were absolute hellions this morning I remain "All jacked up" for Turner's football game tonight.  Nothing they ever do will stop me from being their biggest fan.  When I see Tate step on to a balance beam, strong and steady I watch her with my heart in my throat.  I can't yell and scream for her at gymnastics, but my heart cheers just as loudly for every tumble, just as it does when Turner is on the field.  I watch her and see powerful potential wrapped up in such a beautiful little girl.  Her head-strong nature will serve her well through out life, it just makes parenting her hard.
      Watching Turner toughen up in his first season of football lets me know he'll grow into the kind of man his father is.  I love watching him block, tackle, run, and even when he gets laid out by another player I know he's learning from it.  Thank goodness football lets me let out some of what is pent up inside me.  After his first scrimmage and the jamboree he told me he can always hear me cheering for him.  I asked if that was OK with him or embarrassing?  He said that I can always cheer for him.  I want to cheer for both of my children so much now that it will stick in their heads for when I am not around.  When they are adults and doubting themselves I want them to hear me  telling them how great they are, what wonderful people I know they are. 
     So for tonight I'm dressed in blue and white, from my shirt to my fingernails and toenails.  My cowbell is painted and ready.  I will have three cameras ready to shoot.  And most of all I will be all jacked up for the game.  Truth be told I've been all jacked up for each of my kids since the minute they were born.  I've waited six and half years for Turner to be old enough to play a sport that embraces insane loud fans.  I couldn't wait one more minute.  I've screamed at the soccer field, I've cheered as he rounded  bases headed for home, but tonight I get to let it all out and get ALL JACKED UP!   

Coppertone and Chlorine

     Today is my baby boy's first day of first grade.  I'm excited for him, and nervous too.  I know he'll be fine.  I just hate the adjustment of getting used to him being gone all day.  I have fallen in love with summer.  I want to start a count down til the last day of school already. 
     This summer Brad has been off just about every Friday by three.  We have spent so much time together, and loved it all.  I am not ready for my children to loose their summer glow.  Seeing their little tan bodies run around at the pool, watching them swim like fish while laying out holding Sweetness' hand is heaven.  We have packing the cooler down to a science.  Sandwiches eaten poolside are the best.  But now it's back to packing school lunches.  Soon it will be suppers eaten in the car  on the way to football games. 
     Why do I resist change so much?  Every time something in my life changes I think I'll never be as happy as I was before.  Thankfully I've been wrong every time.  We move, and I feel like we'll never make friends.  We end up making wonderful friends, I get comfortable and dread the next change.  My birthday rolls round and I think the best year of my life is ending, yet the next one always tops the previous. 
   My thirty-third birthday is this week.  I think twenty seven was my worst birthday, I had a baby and was fighting for a new sense of self.  My thirty first birthday was the best one I've ever had.  I was alive, out of the hospital, and could hold my husband and children every day and had never appreciated it more.  Who knows what my thirty third year will bring?  A new state, new schools for the kids, hopefully new friends. 
     Lots of changes this week, and I'm trying to look forward to all of it.  Turner will have an awesome teacher and the best first grade experience.  I will love being thirty-three, even more than I loved my entire life at thirty-two.  I won't say good bye to my favorite smell of Coppertone mixed with chlorine.  We will still go swim on the weekends, but weekends fill up fast during the school year.
      I think of the sentiment of  "keep Christmas in your heart all year long"  and smile.  I think I'll keep summer in my heart all year long.  I'll remember laying in the hot sun and feeling Tate's pool cooled body flop down on top of me.  I will remember the melty cheese on my sandwiches tasting better than it ever does at home.  I'll remember the cute white line Turner gets across his nose every summer.  And I will think of my Sweetness throwing our kids impossibly high, hearing them squeal as they splash into the pool and beg to be thrown again.   When fall and winter are here I may just smear the kids with a little Coppertone so I can smell the next summer and know it's on it's way.



Where there's a Will

I always thought that newborns  would be my all time favorite ages with my kids, I was wrong. As Turner gets ready for first grade and Tate enters pre-K I find myself enjoying them more and more. We have some really good conversations, they are learning to get along better, and the older they get the more responsibilities they can handle.
Last night Turner had his best buddy Will over to spend the night. Will is our neighbor and I couldn't have custom ordered a better best friend for my son. The boys played all night, then they got settled in and went to bed. This morning they got up and played the Wii. I went into the kitchen and got breakfast ready, then I got nervous. Every morning I read a devotional to my kids, we talk about it, and say our weekly memory verse. It's so easy and it's one of my favorite parts of the day with my kids. I got nervous this morning because Will was here. I doubt myself when it comes to sharing the Bible. I always feel like the person I'm sharing with will know that I don't have all the answers or will notice if I screw something up. I wanted to be a good example for my kids that it's  OK to talk about with your friends about God, so I swallowed my silly anxiety and treated this morning like any other morning.
I sat down with the kids and started our lesson. It was based on Ephesians 4:26 "Do not let the sun set while you are still angry." We all talked about how we've all fought with our brothers or sisters and how God wants us to forgive each other. Will listened, answered questions and cemented his place in my heart.
I'm sure there are sweet, respecful, responsible little boys all over the United States, but I believe they are more heavily concentrated in the South. All the handsome little men I know call me Mrs. Tiffany or (my heart be still) Mrs Currier. They say mam and sir, without being reminded. Little boys hold doors open and offer help when I haven't asked for it. My love for each of my children grows daily and so does my love for their friends. We're so lucky to have "good kids" for ours to play with and have as their piers.   So where there's a Will, Patrick, Evan, Cal, a Christopher and Drew, Brady, Parker, Eli and many many others is a great place to be.