Back to Business

Last week was manic in its activity. I squeezed in 20 hours of work and at least 10 hours on the quilt. As I systematically took care of business and nudged myself towards efficiency, I even had the emotional nerve to start going through the bills that have piled up. We still can't pay any of them, but at least they'll be at hand when we finally have a surplus again.

It's nice to feel capable again. I've had a rough couple of months. I don't really know what it was all about, but I'm very glad that I'm snapping out of it.

The new stuff happening in my life:

• New contributors at CitizenWausau.com. I've adjusted my duties at the site to better fit my new priorities. Now I'll be mainly coaxing and nurturing our new writers. It's quite satisfying to encourage people in their writing. I feel like a conductor of a fine orchestra. They have all the talent, I just blend their numerous skills together into a beautiful medley.
  
• The sewing station. I never got back to the sewing machine after my surgery last year. It's regrettable, and I'm ashamed. So I decided that I'd set up my life to reduce the excuses. I hauled up the six-foot table from the basement and set up a sewing station in the wide hallway outside our bedroom door. I got to work and quickly finished piecing the front and back of Momma Val's quilt. I spent extra time on the new piecing to make sure my seams would match. I'm pleased with the result, and now I'm just waiting for some more supplies. While I'm waiting on that, I'm doing more pinwheels for my niece Alisha's quilt. It's colorful and fun, and I'm excited to see that one finished as well.
• The kitchen. Why is it so easy to let the kitchen get disgustingly dirty? We didn't have dish detergent for a few days, so the dishes were put off. Then a plop of spaghetti sauce landed on the floor and splattered everywhere. It just went downhill from there. Now I'm just a day behind in the dishes, and there aren't any sticky messes festering.
• Laundry. This was frustrating. A while back, I was completely caught up on laundry. It was miraculous. But you know what? If you don't do laundry for more than a week, there's going to be a mountain waiting for you at the bottom of the laundry chute! I sorted Mount Washmore yesterday and completed three loads. There's still at least three more waiting down there. I think I'm going to try to make it a habit to go down there every morning after breakfast to move laundry up again. At least that will keep the system moving forward.

That's my life, folks. I hope January is treating you well. It certainly is cold up here. The temperature won't get above zero again until Friday, and that's not even mentioning the crazy wind chill temps. Yikes! Thank God that we have a roof over our heads and a functional furnace. We have food in the pantry and warm hearts. Yay!

Random Thoughts on a Dog Walk

Tomorrow morning we bring Molly Dog to the vet to get spayed. A couple weeks too late. Not that she's pregnant... but she's been in heat for the last two weeks. Let me tell you. That's a nasty, gross situation.

With the weather being rainy and my ears being infected, we haven't gone for many dog walks in the last few days. I needed a break from the mayhem tonight, so I took her for a walk by myself.

The quiet was nice. The fallen leaves still crunched and swirled a bit when I walked through them. Shadows from the trees and shrubs cast long fingers across our path. Cars drove past, and I heard Molly's ID tag tinkling against the collar and the leash.

Did you know that I can see the Dudley Tower from my backyard? It's only 11 stories, I think, but it's tall and it's beautifully lit, and I can see it from the backyard between the odd, mystery structures of the factories along the river. I didn't go in the backyard tonight, but I thought of the Tower being there. Of living within sight of downtown. Of living here in the town where I was born.

It just feels good to me. I'm getting more active in community activities through Citizen Wausau. I'm extending myself and participating. I'm digging down deep in the dirt and sowing my seeds and growing some roots. Because this is what the non-nomads do.

There's a house in the middle of the next block that is always beautifully decorated on the outside. They have a collection of miniature pumpkins out on the porch right now. Very cute. What struck me tonight as I shamelessly gazed through the open, lit window, was that their dining room is painted what appears to be the exact same color as our dining room is painted. And that made me smile.

It's Like A Spinach Lasagna Toss

I threw together an awesome vegetarian skillet dish tonight called a spinach lasagna toss. Starting with finely chopped onions, adding in garlic, halved grape tomatoes, chopped mushrooms, frozen spinach, a little sauce, then strips of cooked lasagna noodles, folded all together, served with a dusting of parmesan cheese and a great big dollop of ricotta cheese.

It was heaven on my plate. We blended some up for Anna, and she thought it was awful.

My post for tonight is something like my lasagna toss. A whole bunch of stuff that would be kind of boring on its own, thrown together, maybe it might turn out okay.

The thing is, I don't feel like I have a lot to blog about nowadays. It's sad. I'm interacting more with the public more than ever, but I feel small and insignificant, and it's harder and harder for me to notice bloggable moments.

What I do have is a bunch of cute pictures of my kids. Instead of just giving you a post with just those, I figured I'd insert the pictures into random spots in this monologue.

Last week, I went to my first group meeting where we actually got stuff accomplished, and it didn't feel strained or awkward, like a bunch of people sitting around trying to brainstorm. It was synergy. It happened. It felt ... thrilling.

It was a Citizen Wausau editorial board meeting. In the course of an hour and fifteen minutes, we talked through several issues, came up with many new ideas, and we probably did what might have taken us months to accomplish. I am proud to have been a part of that meeting.

That's the thing. I don't feel like a lead weight with this group. I feel like I'm a part of it, like what I say matters, like it's natural. Walking away from the meetings, I feel taller, and my heart is quiet. My brain feels ordered and like a well-oiled gear set.

Another aspect of my life that I'm trying to figure out is Dino. He's one of the co-founders of Citizen Wausau, and he's a puzzle, at least in regards to how he fits. He's so open and honest and without filter. He calls it living out loud, feeling out loud, and it took a little to get used to. At first I thought he was just crazy, rather bipolar. Now? Eh. Who knows.

Honestly? I've spent more time than I'd care to admit chatting with him. Not because he's odd, but because I'm married. I'm not sure how this works, this friendship with a man who isn't my husband. The only reason I haven't put the old kibosh on it is that there isn't a lot of sexual tension, though heaven knows I'm stimulated by this man. Mentally.

He is so intensely interesting to talk to. Sometimes, he reminds me so much of Mitch, my brother. They have the same insanely curious minds, absorbing as much information, as many experiences as possible. He's fascinating, with the breadth of his wide-reaching world. A giant personality, a huge ego, tempered by self-deprecating humor and sometimes shy humility.

So this "puzzle." It's fun, though with all the interesting people he knows, I can't figure out why he's spent so much time talking to me. Me. ME. Happily, I seem to be confused enough by the presence of another man in my life, that I've been overcompensating with Chris, and our marriage is nicer. That's sweet; we needed the boost.

Working again, even part-time, changes things with us. The balance of chores has changed, and we fight often and hard about stupid things like whose turn it is to hold Anna in the evenings or why I haven't put the laundry away yet. Because I'm proofing again (and rating a paycheck), the other stuff I do, like blog and write and do stupid word games on Facebook, not to mention quilt, isn't worth as much anymore.

When can I do it? In the evenings when Chris is home to hold Anna and run interference with Ben. And then I'm neglecting the kids, regardless of whether I'd been working that day or at home. I know. Stupid stuff. We're figuring out ways to appreciate each other more, and finding little romantic ways to touch base every once in a while.

The thing I can't blog about? My recovery from rectocele surgery. It's been a few weeks since I was eight weeks post-op, when everything should be back to normal. It's not. Right now, I'm using the fact that I'm breastfeeding and not producing a lot of estrogen to explain our "problem." I'm investing a great deal of hope in the idea that when I eventually wean Anna, my body will work again, but right now, I seem to be falling into the sixty percent of surgery patients who have problems with painful "relations" after surgery because of scar tissue.

It's sad that when I'm daydreaming and nightmaring about being accosted by a group of dangerous men with nefarious intentions when I'm alone with the kids somewhere or alone in an abandoned cubicle farm with my red pens, I'm less frightened of the emotional scarring than I am of the physical pain that would happen. When I was younger, I used to wonder if I could talk a potential rapist out of assaulting me if I told him I had my period, if I had a tampon in. Why would he want to deal with that? Right? He'd just leave me alone. That's what this feels like, but the problem is less obvious to anyone else.

Anyway. We'll figure something out. We're hoping it's not a permanent situation.

Coming up in the Life of Cheryl will be the slow installation of more ceiling fans throughout the house. I used to hate ceiling fans because I felt they were horrible for chi and for the decor. Then I grew up and realized that they are incredibly smart little machines.

We have one in our living room, and it's brilliant. We'll be eventually buying one for our bedroom, our kitchen, Ben's room and probably even our dining room. I'm hoping it'll make a big difference in our lives this summer, especially in the rooms where we can't install a window A/C unit.

And that brings me to bedtime, folks. It's been lovely chatting with you about all this stuff. I hope you have a wonderful day.

When Daycare Goes Really Bad

This (plus some more community-focused stuff at the end) was posted today at Citizen Wausau. Instead of writing out a bloggy type post about the stuff I found out, I figured I'd just copy and paste. You'll forgive me, right?

*******

I’ve been a stay-at-home mom since last September, just before my daughter was born and joined my son in our wild and crazy household. For most of my life, I wanted to be a SAHM. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “A mommy.”

For the first year and a half of my son’s life, I worked, and we sent Ben to daycare. We picked one that had flexible hours, decent rates and came recommended by a friend. We loved the teachers, and our son seemed comfortable there.

When I was expecting our second child, we decided that I would quit my job as a proofreader and stay home with our kids. It would cost nearly 90 percent of my income to have two children in daycare, and that didn’t make sense for our family. But five months before I was scheduled to leave, we had to break up with our daycare.

The policies were changing at the center, and our son would have been negatively affected. There also seemed to be an overlay of total chaos as they transitioned to the new policies, and we weren’t comfortable with the atmosphere. Luckily, we quickly found a home-based daycare that would take our son for the summer until I resigned. We were very happy there, thank goodness.

The crap kept hitting the fan at the old center though, as employee paychecks bounced and parents pulled their kids out left and right. What really startled me was when I heard that near the end of the owner’s tenure there, the children weren’t being fed anymore. They’d go home starving. No notice to the parents that they should bring bag lunches. Nothing.

Some wonderful people we know bought the center and totally turned it around. They insisted that all the teachers be accredited, they cleaned the facility from top to bottom, and they welcomed a new era of loving, responsible childcare.

I was horrified when I heard how bad it had gotten. I don’t understand how something like that could have happened. The majority of families were low income, so maybe they felt they didn’t have a voice or a choice in what was going on. That’s just plain wrong. Even if the state is subsidizing your childcare, you still have a voice.

If I had known what was going on there when it was happening, you can be dang sure I would have stood up for those families and filed the complaints and raised such a ruckus that the situation would have remedied somehow. I hope there are other people like me in the community who wouldn’t have just looked away.

The Comfort Zone

First things first. Have to get this off of my chest.

I love you period.
Do you love me question mark?
Please please exclamation point!
(I wanna hold you in parentheses)

I've had that frickin' song going through my head for a week now.

Last week, Liz from This Full House honored me with a Perfect Post award. "I'm not worthy" doesn't begin to describe how I feel about that. When I read her email to me and then her post about my post (Qwillerage: Waves), I cried. I felt like I could climb Mount Everest, I felt popular, I felt like Super Woman.

Perhaps it was that huge ego boost that prompted me to email this guy about an email I had written him expressing interest in being a part of something. How's that for a coherent sentence? Sorry. The point is, I put myself out there. I expanded my horizons. I cracked my shell open a bit. I poked a toe out of my comfort zone.

I've agreed to be on the editorial board of Citizen Wausau, a local website/blog that melds together the concepts of a town hall meeting, a grassroots rally and some good, old-fashioned joe-on-the-street journalism. I'll be doing some proofreading and some *gasp* writing. Holy crap.

Tonight was the first meeting of the brand-spankin' new board. It was fun. Kind of like a crazy volley of very sarcastic, funny people with an overlay of actual, productive discussion. I was nervous as all hell, but I survived, and I contributed to the discussion.

The thing is, it's a good fit for me. I have some spare time, I'm online almost all day long, I was a proofreader for 4 years, I completed a major in journalism, and I am very fond of the community where I live.

Leading up to the meeting, I felt intimidated and scared of everything about it -- meeting new people, claiming to know how to write, actually committing to something that would take my time away from my kids. After the meeting, I don't exactly feel like Super Woman, but I definitely feel intrigued and hopeful about the whole idea.

At the very least, I had an excuse to take a shower and put on very little makeup (see pic above). When I look at the picture, however, all I see is the disproportionate size of my breasts. Thanks, Anna, for preferring my right one and totally ruining my awesome lady-ness, or at least distracting from the perfection that is my shrinking body. Seriously, it's at least a cup and a half bigger.