Tag Archives: gardening

Almost here

Leave a reply

My birthday is coming up. Going to Texas and England this year means I am not running away by myself. (Important note: the woman we went back to Texas to see has now passed away. I have no regrets over prioritising that goodbye trip over other more fun activities for this year.) Noah wants to be thoughtful and asked me what I want. I want to not want anything so I can’t feel let down. I want to have patience for the 973,383 times I will have to remind my children to do basic chores (like brushing teeth). I want to not miss my mother. I want to go back and rewrite my back story so that my impending birthday doesn’t feel like a hand grenade about to land on my head. A buddy suggested that I go camp somewhere for cheap, but I have been working too hard. I couldn’t right now. My hands are trashed.

I have an old friend staying with me. It is complicated in the way that integrating a new person with deep grief, and addiction issues, and learned helplessness will be. To be fair, every time I feel like I am going to freak out about an issue I have to address he is responsive and polite and most of my requests have been acknowledged and respected. But negotiating and setting boundaries is hard. It’s One More Thing on my emotional chore list and I’m tired.

It has been a fucktastically busy year. Busy on so many levels and my exhaustion is, once again, bone deep and completely saturating my soul. I feel numb and on fire and empty and aching. I deeply miss the comfort of tracking things that happen in my blog because I benefit from the space to process but mostly I do not feel I can anymore. I have reached a certain age where I now have to be realistic about the fact that I am not really going to make more very close friendships. Sure I can find new activity partners, but it isn’t the same thing. The people I have met in the last few years I am deeply conscious of this careful distance I keep. They are not allowed to know me. And I cannot talk about my deep relationships anymore because when I do I ruin them and it is absolutely all my fault.

So I do small bits of processing with people but very little in my historical record. I do almost none publicly. I mostly stuff my feelings and feel disconnected. I do not expect or hope for any kind of improvement.

I worry that the adhd medication was effective and useful for a time and it has gotten to the point where it is causing as many problems as it helps and I am starting the process of weaning off (with medical supervision do not fucking criticise me).

I watch the incoming terrifying blend of natural, political, social, and financial disasters hitting the UK with a sense of grim apprehension. I have been waiting all my life for a moment like this. I feel horrible about the fact that a lot of people are going to suffer terribly, some are going to die, but it won’t be my family. I continue my grim plod towards being able to provide a variety of supplemental food because I think famine is coming. I am installing solar panels with a battery system. I am installing rain butts, many and as large as I can manage. A chicken coop is finally being built. Hell, I’m even building a firewood pile because I worry that there will be a cold snap before the solar panels are installed. By the end of fall I will finally have my polytunnel set up for next year’s food growth.

I am working as hard and as fast as I can.

Noah’s job has managed to go most of the way towards fixing the issues that were happening with his salary. This is good. It would be a terrible time to go do a job hunt. I think we only lost a year’s worth of progress towards retirement. I am deeply aware that the fact that he is so insulated from the current global difficulties with regards to fair pay that he is still going to be able to retire before 60 means that I will never really understand the rest of my generation. Marrying him was hitting the lottery. I did not expect this. There is no fair. There is no deserve.

Even in company I feel lonely. I know I am not meeting anyone else’s emotional needs and they are not meeting mine. I do not know what could be done to change this. What I do know is that I am not suicidal and I am financially and physically prepared for more hardship than 90% of the planet. Maybe my expectation that things are going to fucking suck is almost a good thing. I am going to persevere. I will endure. I don’t need to be happy. I need to get the fucking work done.

And right now the next task on my list is to go make Middle Child a birthday cake. They are turning 12. Puberty is arriving and it’s going to be a wild fucking ride.

Why are you so tired?

2 Replies

I always feel kind of stunned by this question and I get asked it a lot. It’s weird living in a place where basically no one is familiar with my back catalogue of writing. I do not direct anyone here at all anymore and I won’t start. I no longer believe that reading my blog is a way for people to know me. It is a way that some people have learned some things about me and then they fill in the blanks with assumptions and projections and in the end I feel like maybe they know me even less than if they hadn’t read the blog at all. It’s complicated.

I don’t do all the cleaning in this house, thank goodness. But it’s a big house. What I don’t do myself I have to manage and parcel out and track. In some ways that is better and in other ways it is just as stressful and challenging. The kids alternate between calmly going along and doing what I ask and screaming at me that I am a horrible person who makes them hate their life so that’s fun. Apparently when I spend two weeks saying, “Look at the current chore list and figure out what/how you would like to renegotiate the things on that list” and they say “Oh the current system is fine and I want it to continue” so I continue to remind them to do the exact same thing they have been doing for 4+ months all of a sudden “YOU KEEP INTERRUPTING ME TO TELL ME TO DO RANDOM STUPID SHIT.” Uhm, excuse me?

I write down chores in a daily planner book. I do it months in advance according to a system that I sat down with the kids and worked out. “About how many days can/should you go between doing your laundry? How often should we clean bathrooms and who should do which one? What is fair for doing dishes? How often should we sweep and how do we want to rotate the chore?” The negotiation is long and detailed. It’s not just “Mom Made Me.” The kids talked about at what point they find using something gross and it needs to be cleaned. Professional house cleaners come in every other week and do a basic upkeep so we are not required to do all of it ourselves.

But when I say, “Hey x, y, and z have been assigned over the past three days and you haven’t done them–can you please take care of that?” I am a complete and total asshole who must be raged at. Awesome. That’s not fucking draining or anything.

I ask my kids if they want to do classes and if so what kind. They tell me they want me to hunt around for them and find classes like a, b, or c. I do that. It takes time. The classes cost money. I find what they say they want and show it to them. “Are you sure you want to do this? It is x-distance from the house and will take you at least y-time to get there? It will take z-money out of the budget so I won’t have money for this other thing.” Yes they want it. Then they get 3 days into the class and all of a sudden I am a horrible person who forces them to do stupid things they hate and it is all my fault that they don’t have any spare time because instead of actually fucking riding their bike they choose to push the bike both ways at a speed of approximately .5 miles an hour. Not draining or frustrating at all.

The older kids have locks on their doors. They usually won’t use them. Youngest child is constantly in their room stealing stuff because obviously big kid stuff is cooler and I have to spend a lot of time trying to keep large, towering people from screaming at a small child until my ears ring. It’s shitty and not cool all the way around. You getting louder doesn’t solve the problem. You locking your door solves the problem. But you won’t take responsibility for what you can do you just want to scream about how you feel violated. Cool. That’s not fucking exhausting.

The amount of hoarding and screaming and fighting in this house over food is making me hate my life and everyone I live with. So fine. We are going to buy more shitty food and I am going to stop arguing because they need to learn how to live with their bodies. When you transition out of limiting food it is always rough. (There are actually principles behind this transition and I am too tired and my hands hurt too much to explain them all. I did a fair bit of research on the topic and I am not going to justify it here. If you are legitimately curious let’s schedule a video call and I’d be happy to talk about food scarcity mindset, neurodiversity, nutrition research, and parenting choices.)

Gardening is a lot. This space is so much bigger than what I had in California and I feel like I am working myself to the bone. The kids are supposed to help and every minute of help is difficult to get and involves a big fight. I am so tired. I do most of it myself because I just don’t have it in me to fight. Sometimes I am out in the yard well past dark crying just doing it all because I cannot fight for more help.

My buddy is here and that is complicated. He has lived alone for a long time. He has never lived with a child in his life–his older siblings were much older than him and he has no memory of dealing with kids beyond hour or so visits sporadically with friends or family. There are a bunch of challenges around that. He’s here for a while. He is being *very* helpful in re-teaching me how to use power tools and helping me build some projects I want done. He is also used to working in a defined way always on a dead line to very technical specs that must be met because (reasons). My compost bins and chicken coop are not similar sorts of things. The amount and kind of project meetings he wants to bicker out every single last detail are hard. The frequency with which he wants me to stop what I am doing and focus on his questions is hard because I am keeping a lot of balls in the air and I don’t change focus that well. I can’t get back on track and half an hour of talking (it’s always “I only have a few questions and it will only take a minute” but really it’s many questions and it’s 30-45 minutes) set me back 1-3 hours because I have lost focus and flow and maybe I can’t even get back to what I was doing because now I have lost that window of time and I have another thing that has to happen Right Now. He has a lot of time to rest and chill out in between work times. I don’t.

I started typing this 45 minutes ago. Then I was interrupted to go fix a computer problem for a child (that has to forking start with a multi-hour download of updates because oh boy nothing will work when you are that far out of date) paused to brush the cat because folks noticed some fleas and the brushing needs to happen before the medication. I still haven’t finished my tea from breakfast, done the budgeting updates I’m supposed to do, or emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it from breakfast.

Why am I tired? Oh my god are you kidding? Do you actually not understand? Really?

I also need to finish taking the labels off the little jam jars so I can put the spices in them because the random bags of spices piled on an open shelf that fall down every single time you do anything cause daily frustration and frequent messes and I just can’t.

Oh, and I should paint today, do some weeding, some carpentry work, hang out the laundry that is in the washer and start another load. I also need to put the food in the fridge that arrived from the farm share box because apparently unloading the boxes means “put it all on the counter” to my kids. (One of them was cooking and me putting it all away would have meant getting in their way and they would have gotten annoyed.)

Did I mention that all of my chronic pain is through the roof and I am just about out of Ibuprofen gel and I don’t really have time to go get more? Also I need to go across town because we are about out of a few things that I get from the co-op and that’s about 6 miles round trip. I will probably wait until next week and go when I am on my way to or from the Youngest Child’s swimming class.

I told someone that I was falling behind on responding to emails/texts/messages on various platforms and she said, “Yeah I’m a procrastinator too.” ……. Does being so busy that you rarely have time to think a full thought outside of “What task do I need to be accomplishing full speed in the next 10 minutes” count as procrastinating?

Oh, and I need to respond to text messages from Middle Child’s best friend’s dad because otherwise the kids won’t see each other before the school year starts in 10 days and the bestie has been out of the country almost all summer. Woo. Haha. Got that done. Excellent. It will be great to see her again.

And really I have to close because ALL OF THE THINGS.

Praying and sleep

Leave a reply

Tonight I managed to get some time with my fingers in dirt. It was after I probably should have been in bed, resting. I am told resting is important. But I have been rather a nasty bitch for a few days and I needed to get a serotonin boost somehow.

I am working on a stone spiral for herbs; I won’t really be able to plant in it this year because the growing season is short here in Inverness. As I was grunting and laughing as I dragged up rocks that I probably should not have been lifting I thought about what it means when I say that I will pray for you.

If I say that I will pray for you I mean that I will think of you when I shove my hands into the soil. As I pile rock on top of rock and I shove sticks and compost into gaps I will think your name and I will hope that this universe grants you the nutrients you need to grow. I think of the people in your life who build you up and whom you in turn support. I think of how I want the universe to build a safe and stable place for you to rest. I want you to have the right amount of support so you can present exactly the angle of yourself into life you want to project.

I think of how I want you to have space around you to spread your roots into new directions. I think of how I wish water would flow around you to bring growth and moisture and sustenance as you go through your life. I think of how I want you to have seeds of new life, whatever that means for you, come to you with the wind and the birds and the flow of the seasons. I want you to thrive.

And around then I noticed that it was just about pitch black and I should probably stop. Given when in the year we are I guessed it to be close to midnight. Cell phone said it was 11:40. I’m pretty good at time. Then I laughed and thought of something that my son said to me recently. He said, “I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this but I didn’t really think you slept until after you had our little sister. That pregnancy was the first time I really saw you sleep.”

I tried to protest that it was ridiculous. Of course I sleep. He stopped and looked at me all deadpan. Then he raised his hands to melodramatically indicate the walls and the ceilings of the room we were in that I had in fact painted in the middle of the night while everyone else slept. He said, “Really mom. You do?”

As I softly shift dirt back and forth and move rocks to create the form I want even when there is no longer light I have to admit…. no. I don’t. Not really. Maybe if I did my body would hate me less. But would I really live longer or would it just feel longer?

I know the garden I want to stand in on my 50th birthday. It is going to be fucking amazing. I am going to be able to push my toes down deep into the soil and harvest fruits and vegetables that I made flourish. There will be flowers and wee beasties and a whole damn ecosystem. It might already be cold or there might be a last gasping heat wave. Either way I am going to sit in a rocking chair and hold Noah’s hand. Maybe I will already be wrapped up in a blanket or maybe I’ll be wearing barely anything at all–global warming is even coming for the north. I’ll have some whisky.

And if I am very very lucky I will even have a smile before I fall asleep for a well deserved nap.

Pacing

2 Replies

I am sure there are many people who would not appreciate me saying this: but I miss lock down. I didn’t have to worry about balancing the various needs of my family members with various outside the home activities and people while also figuring out when to get chores done. I slept more and more consistently. Lately my sleep is shit again.

One of the problems with the age spread of my children is that the shape of providing “structure” for each of them is different. Youngest Child is still small enough that she should mainly be around kids through classes and they all want to start mid-morning and last for around an hour before popping the kids out on the other side expecting snacks and a trip to the park. Most parents of children in similar ages are either nearly in nursery or already in nursery and they are specifically training the kids around having the habit of being out of the house 5 days a week for most of the day so the children manage the transition to primary school.

I get it… but I also find that doing that in the morning mostly shoots my wad and I’m too tired to come home and do a big project of my own unless I do it after dinner and give up sleep. If I am out for the morning the mid-afternoon to dinner chunk is mostly me interacting with the older kids around their school stuff and my brain is just not currently capable of doing something for me while I talk to them. Yay ADHD medication? It feels like too tired because I can’t push my brain into doing many things at once on this medication unless I am super well rested.

If I get a good night of sleep and I start my project early in the day then I can normally handle talking to the older kids about a second thing while I work. (Most projects of this type being garden or cleaning related.) I can talk to them about their literature reading progress first thing in the morning while we continue working on removing nails from the old shed boards because we are going to repurpose the wood. But if I try to do the exact same thing starting at 1 or 2 I get confused and befuddled and irritated and angry. My brain says I can fuck all the way off.

So I’m not making forward progress on a lot of the outside projects I want to do since YC started classes and that’s feeling frustrating. The older kids have enjoyed the descent into too-much screen time that happened during my last painting project and they are absolutely loathe to give it up. They really won’t come out in the mid-afternoon and help me. I can push it in the mornings.

This pacing is not working and I feel exhausted and crappy most of the time. It doesn’t help that Noah’s work schedule is hard to figure out and manage. Working for a company that is 5 hours behind us in time zones gets to be pretty challenging.

I am almost to the end of this session of little kid classes. I am going to try and move the timing. If I can get her into classes that are more like after lunch and less like after breakfast then maybe I can get the big kids through helping me instead of getting on video games first thing then fighting to not have to get off later.

I am getting to the point where I am low key signaling distress in ways I don’t mean to and that’s a problem. Fairly random strangers keep asking me if I have any support because it sounds like I have a lot going on. It depends on what you mean by support but mostly… no. I have been shoving my mental health care needs in a box for a couple of years now. Every so often I open the box long enough to shove something else in then I quickly tape over it again. I’m not ok. I know that lots of people aren’t ok and I don’t have it bad in the scheme of things.

I’m not ok and I don’t have a way to cope with that right now. Therapy isn’t an option–I spoke with my GP recently about head injury stuff. In the course of the conversation she asked me how I was overall coping and I told her not that well. I had previously believed that I would be a lifer in therapy then I moved here and that’s not an option. She told me that she thinks I am being very kind to notice just how limited the access to therapy is here and deliberately not put myself on a waiting list. She told me that she has seen me enough times now to have a sense of me and she thinks that any of the therapists in town could be nothing other than a kind and sympathetic ear because they don’t have more training than I do after how much therapy I’ve had.

This is not the first local expert who has told me that I am the best source of support, tools, and tactics for managing my issues and those of my children in this area. Apparently I put those decades of living in the bay and having access to experts to very good use. Every so often one or the other of the older kids has something challenging happen with regard to mental health because they are people and life is complicated. When that happens I ensure that we have privacy and we get into the heavy stuff. Both kids have said, “I’m sure if I tell you about (_____) you will be upset with me.” I tell them to give me a minute so I can fix my face. Then I put on the “I will not judge you; I will be supportive and unsurprised by anything you say because it’s ok for you to be a person on your journey” face. We talk about their big feelings and the situation and why it is both normal and ok that they are struggling. We talk about the fact that it is hard that we can’t hire therapists to be there through these sorts of things going forward. We talk about what things they can imagine doing to change the situation. I ask if they want to hear about any other options I know about–sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Boundaries, yo.

I am not your therapist. I will never be a completely neutral party. I will never be 100% on your side because I am often the person you are in the most conflict with. That is rough. But I am not going to judge all of the things you think I will judge. I am not going to be upset about even half of the things you think I will be upset about. And as you get older I will have to be less and less of who you consider when you decide how you will solve a problem. That is the way forward. I am not and I can never be your therapist but I can help you talk out some of what is bothering you. I definitely don’t have all of your answers but pretty often I do have useful questions. I have been very lucky in my life and the state of California made sure that I had access to lots of people who asked good questions.

I need to start writing even if I am afraid of consequences. I am going to be the closest thing to a therapist I have going forward. That process doesn’t work well without the blog. As my Eldest Child says: “When I write something just for me I delete it or rip it up most of the time because it never seems worth keeping. When I just go ahead and post it right away then even when it isn’t perfect I get feedback and I have to act like it was real and I have to carry on forward as if it has happened and can’t be taken back.”

Of course, she is talking about the status of her fanfic and she’s posting on Wattpad so it’s slightly different. I’ve gotta say that her comments are probably more vicious than mine ever are. I worry about the consequences of my writing because working out my feelings is not a pretty process. Sometimes I hurt people when they know what is going on inside me. If I just shut my stupid mouth and stand near them then they don’t know what an asshole I am and things carry on without too big of a problem.

Being real about all the strife inside my brain is scary. I just about always have as much pull towards people as I have push away from them. My magnetic polarity is really confused.

The thing is: I do shitty things to hurt myself when I don’t work through the stuff in my brain. I am long past the point of the kinds of self-harm that would land me in a psych ward but I am not kind to myself. I do not take good enough care. I do things that will cause long-term damage through neglect or lack of love. It’s little, cumulative things but nothing dramatic that will force other people to intervene. I am smart and I don’t want intervention so let me tell you I will stay below that fucking radar for the rest of my life. There is a lot of room under the radar line to hit a bird and have it destroy an engine.

I am not acting like I am a creature I love who needs to be taken care of. That means I can’t model what that means and that’s a problem. I am very certain that I will never again have a person I talk to all the time to help me sort out my brain. So I have to do it. I need to start doing it a lot again. Which also means I need to stop sitting in this damn chair and use the standing desk. That’s going to have to be step one, Krissy.

Projects.

Leave a reply

I’m up to 6 hours of painting. With design, set up, and take down tack on 4 or 5 hours. I have been leaving the design time out of my tracking so far and I don’t want to. I spent over an hour of practice drawings.

I will decide whether I am doing more ceiling (over the stairwell) just to use up the colors of paint I have in smaller containers or whether I am doing walls and doors when I see how I feel on Wednesday of next week. I don’t have a lot more small containers so I’m a little worried about how I’m going to manage having a bit of every major paint color out in a small container. Maybe we need to get some more takeout… This decision also requires me finishing the ceiling above the landing on Monday. That’s a maybe, of course. I’m adding white to show the light hitting the clouds. It’s going to be fussy and fiddly and take a while. I may have to add more yellow and/or more blue.

I anticipate each door taking 4 hours. There are 4 left on the landing. I’m hoping I can do the smallish bits in between in only 6 hours. That would have the landing done in the 30 hours I guesstimated on the first day. Second day? It’s starting to blend together already. Thus I’m writing it down now.

The stairwell piece is going to be an utter nightmare. That ceiling will probably take 10-12 hours because going up and down the ladder will wear me out. The three walls are probably going to take 10-20 hours each. I already know what I want for 2 of the walls: above the downstairs hall I am going to have a rocky outcrop and a lake; the big wall that started out with the mirrors I am going to use the GIANT oak stencil I bought because I want something that is really structured to balance out how much of my stuff is freehand. I like my freehand work but I also really like having some stuff that is more strictly crafted in the middle. The stencils are fussy and difficult and I will swear a lot while I’m using it. I hope I can get that fucking stencil done in only 3 days. That’s a hope, a dream, an aspiration. The third wall above the lounge/trees? I have no idea yet. Hopefully it will come to me. I need a way to bridge the two pieces I already have in mind. Then there’s the hand rail which will probably want another 10-20 hours because I want to do a lot of detail work. Which may be a bit stupid and/or masochistic because that’s a high traffic piece of wood and it will chip. Hrm.

Then I get to downstairs!

I’m trying to pace myself and only work when I have a babysitter here so that I’m not giving up sleep so I currently have 6 hours a week to devote to this project. Thus I’m looking at this work carrying through for another 16-24 weeks. Cheers. Only half a year. No biggie. Or I could increase her hours a tiny bit and have 9 or 12 hours in a week. That would still be fairly reasonable pacing for body strain (it’s divided into 3 days) and it would let me finish the upper part of the hallway in 8-12 more weeks for a total of 10-14 weeks for this project. That’s not terrible. I could argue that it is quite sane and kind to my body with a straight face.

Then there’s the downstairs hallway, the lounge, and the dining room left to be painted. The only reason I’m pushing myself at this point is because the paint really is thick as mud and apparently is going to get less and less usable over time. Joy.

If I can get through the paint I may just not give a fuck about bathrooms or the laundry room or my bedroom any year soon. Please oh please let me finish up the paint before I feel the need to do any of those rooms. And the youngest kid will have to be old enough to express strong opinions before I paint her room.

Oh hey, and I was going to do a whole bunch of gardening this year. Sure… my body can handle this….

I’m sleeping! This is totally a healthy workload… right? I’m getting a pretty good step count. I’m eating SO MANY VEGETABLES. This qualifies as self care while working, right? Don’t answer that. You aren’t the boss of me.

Leave a reply

When you put a vine in the ground you have to be patient. In the first year the plant will sleep and look like nothing is happening. In reality under the ground tiny little roots will be slowly exploring and looking at how they can make this place their home. In the second year the plant will creep a little bit above ground and see if this place is really going to be safe. In the third year the plant explodes and puts out tremendous growth in all directions because yes, this is my home and I will show that I live here.

We are into our second year of living here. In the first year I put a little bit of effort into putting out tendrils of growth. I went to a few events and I met a few people and I tried to see what direction it would be wise to put energy. But between health and lock down mostly… I slept.

I am now more than three months into the second year. I am slowly creeping along. I am trying to strengthen and deepen the tiny tendrils of roots I put out here. I am cultivating just a few connections. I am sending my taproot as deep into the ground as I can. I am feeding people. I am contributing to my community. I am planting trees. I am branching out in as many ways as I can… slowly. Just tiny little indications of growth that will come without overwhelming the shallow roots I have at this point.

Depending on the state of the pandemic I may get an extra year of creeping growth. To be fair, it’s not an utterly fixed rule of that plants only need two years to get established. Poor weather or soil quality can alter any expectation. I know it will be ok in the end.

At the beginning of my third year here I will turn 40. The first decade of my life was pretty traumatic and unpleasant. In many ways the second decade of my life was more of the same or worse. My third decade was when I turned the tide and I decided how my life would be and I was no longer just a shell being tossed in the tide. I built a rudder and I steered. My fourth decade has been pretty incredible. I like who I am. I like the skills I have developed. I like the strength and capacity and knowledge I have built.

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from making mistakes. I have made so very many mistakes.

In many ways this last year has been one of the most turning-inward years of my life. I am not depending on friends as much as I have in the past. I do not have a therapist for support. I barely write because I have learned that the consequences of having my feelings out in public are too great to bear. What I have now I cannot risk losing and if that means I must be silent then that is the price I will pay.

Which does not mean that my feelings are more muted or less extreme. I am not sure that I suppress them so much as I have learned how to transmute them into other things. I think this was maybe the goal of therapy all along. I have a lot of compassion for myself in my big feelings. I have the ability to sit quietly and wait for my internal storms to pass without inflicting them on everyone else around me. That does not mean that the storms are smaller–it means that the hand I have on the rudder is made of steel and it cannot be moved by casual breezes. I think it would take a hurricane to knock me off my path these days.

Which does not mean I have no bad days. I just don’t document them with the same rigidity.

I’m sure part of that is about what it means to assimilate and be an immigrant. I don’t feel as safe documenting the ways I suck.

I started this first thing in the morning and now the kids are well into the swing of bed time. We had a sharp negotiation over when kids could get up. I started at 10 am. Middle Child started at 4 am. We settled on 7. Seems fair.

Today was a day of Much Cooking. Breakfast was leftovers because we needed the containers back. Then I made two kinds of soup for lunch. One with chicken broth, celeriac root, cabbage, carrot, celery, tomato, bell pepper, herbs and another with veg broth, cauliflower, celery, carrot, flour, butter, SUPER GOOD cheese, milk, herbs. The vegetarian one was better.

Dinner was a turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots, corn, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, parsnips, and we finished with a cookie. It was good. We have a lot of leftovers.

Right now I am in the kitchen babysitting the turkey carcass so the cats don’t help themselves. The necessary food containers are in the dishwasher. Bless the 1 hour cycle. When the dishwasher finishes then I need to shove stuff in it for another 1 hour cycle (it’ll be full again, don’t worry). Then I get to make the overnight French toast.

Tree notes

Leave a reply

I’m looking up trees I want. I know I want some natives. (Looking here for natives: https://www2.gov.scot/Publications/2002/06/14891/5585) I am thinking hard on placement for them. I may go outside of strictly native. I should draw a diagram with the root complications mapped out. Trees I think would be suitable that have no human food benefit:

  • Willow (exactly what kind is eluding me.) I would put this over near the burn, perhaps between the pond and the burn? The pond is going to shed a lot of excess water over time. Osier looks like a good choice. I can use it to make baskets. Maybe Almond? Hm. Looks like by the pond is a bad idea because that is near the septic plumbing system. Right-o. Maybe that’ll be the one closer to the shed. I should definitely not get what I think of as a weeping willow because the suckers can spread 50′ tall and wide and the roots go even wider. Gulp.
  • I think a Rowan tree would be quite nice. Rosiness type?
  • I already have some birch on the property but more would be nice. Research is showing that a weeping birch would be the best bet for the space requirements
  • Pendula Rosea (an ornamental cherry) or Pendula Rubra
  • Hawthorn
  • Acer palmatum ‘Osakazuki’

Definitely or possibly food bearing:

  • cherry ‘Kiku-shidare-zakura’
  • Morello cherry
  • Stella cherry
  • Fig because I love Noah sooooooooo much. (He loves them and I hate them.)
  • Malus domestica ‘Discovery’ apple
  • Bloody Ploughman apple
  • Grenadier apple
  • Hoods supreme apple
  • Lord Lambourne apple
  • Pear Conference
  • Pear Moonglow
  • Cherry Kordia
  • Cherry  Summer Sun

I need to make a chart and figure out which are self pollinating, which need a buddy (and when!), and when they produce fruit so I don’t get a shit-ton all in one month and nothing else in other months.

But it is after 1am and I should not try to start that now. Tomorrow (or later today…) the plan is to do a bunch of yard work so sleep would be helpful.

Judgement and progress report

1 Reply

Why do I have such an intense horror of being judgmental? I don’t fully understand that horror in myself. I’ve been judging intensely lately. I backed out of an online social community because of one person. Because I judge her like fuck and I can’t be part of a group that tolerates that kind of behavior. In this case she spends a lot of time being a judgy bitch and bragging about all that she does for other people… but in reality she sits in her apartment with her cats on the internet most of the time doing nothing. I don’t think I would care so much about her bullshit only she spends a tremendous amount of time talking about how much she does for her niblings, who are in a highly abusive situation in another country. Only when she has the opportunity to do something for them… she picks her holidays to Asia (and the Olympics!) and tickets to Hamilton over staying with the kids and helping them deal with nightmarishly hard problems. Now she wants lots of sympathy because Hamilton and the Olympics were cancelled and it isn’t fair that she doesn’t get to go. Oh and she wants to be told how sad it is for her that the kids call her crying because they wish she was there helping them.

I can’t say a single nice thing to her so… I’m saying nothing at all anywhere that she hangs out.

She was the last person to tell me that I am fucking up my kids. Her reasoning? Because I don’t guilt trip them enough for normal kid behavior so they are going to have terrible lives and it will be all my fault.

Every single person who has told me that I am going to fuck up my kids, wreck their lives, or retard them has been spectacularly unqualified to evaluate such a metric and the people who are qualified to evaluate children think my kids are having a charmed, fabulous life.

It’s not just that my friends tell me what I want to hear. Professionals who spend their lives evaluating children think my kids are doing well. Judgy non-professionals who don’t know what they are talking about like to tell me how shitty I’m doing. Awesome.

Is that about me or them?

The school started off telling me that my kids weren’t doing so hot academically. Then it turned out that they have shitty handwriting but they are otherwise doing well. Do they handle other children hitting them well? No, they don’t. I’m not sure that is a bad sign about them. I cannot count how many people are traumatized by the school experience. It’s not that my kids suck. It’s that schools are brutal and unhelpful about bullying.

The home education movement here in Scotland is growing by leaps and bounds. The two primary reasons people pull their kids out of school: the schools won’t help children with special needs or bullying. It’s not just my family thank you very much.

But sure, the problem is that I’m wrecking my kids by not just putting them in school and telling them to figure it out on their own.

K.

Yesterday the kids and I walked in the woods for three hours. It was really cool. The only downside? We should be wearing fucking hiking boots, not Wellies.

Oh! Yesterday was a milestone day! The cats were outside for a long time. The cat who is very people-attached was very scared and did not stay out long. The cat who is less people-attached had a great time and was out for hours and hours. I don’t think she went farther than our garden but it was cute watching her out the window.

The kids made cupcakes on their own. They also made a pretty good ganache to go on top.

I have gained 20 lbs since arriving in Scotland. That was not the direction I intended to go with that. Hahahaha. Even with all this exercise. I am now well above my previous lifetime maximum, even while pregnant. I think maybe I could do with less sugar. Maybe it is the calories from alcohol. Who knows.

My alcohol consumption still feels high to me and it still falls well below the line where my doctor would be concerned. Perspective is a funny thing.

My kids now think 17 degrees is oppressively hot. That’s 62F. We have acclimated.

Still not sleeping well.

Today’s garden task is apparently to work on constructing the stairs up to the front garden area next to the driveway. The kids are feeling a wee bit bored of working on digging the pond. I’ve started a bunch of seeds, we’ll see how they go. I should probably take stuff from the house to the polytunnel. At this point I think the tunnel is hotter than the house. I have high hopes for my tomatoes.

I think my watch has charged enough. I am out of excuses for sitting still. Blurgh. I’m sore. I’m tired. I don’t really want to be productive. But I want these things done and if I don’t move… no one else in the house will. Sigh. I feel like I am the motor.

Drifting

Leave a reply

Hi. It’s been a while. Things here continue. Tomorrow we go back to doing school work after a period off. We have been getting chores done in the house and trying to manage setting up new routines around dealing with quarantine.

I am intensely aware that I am not one of the people who are suffering the most in this pandemic. There are people who are desperately ill and doctors who have to live with making life or death choices for patients. There are store clerks and delivery people who have to deal with the public all day long. There are people who work essential jobs in shipping, construction, and utilities.

I’m… I’m so fucking privileged it makes me sick. So few people get this safety. I feel like my entire life is an over pouring of survivors guilt. I shouldn’t have this safety if other people can’t have it.

The news stories about India are absolutely gutting me. There are so many people suffering. There is literally nothing I can do. But I wish I could. I am so small. I have so little to offer. The things I have to say and do in this life won’t impact very many people. I have done that on purpose.

Small fish in a small pond. It is more true than ever. I worked very hard at that.

I feel like there was a rush of contact with people and now I am struggling with feeling like I can’t maintain it. I feel so sad. I’m not sleeping well. I stay up absurdly late reading new articles and crying. It’s not helping.

I logged off of one of the forums that I have been on a lot for a couple of years. I deleted my access. One of the women in that forum is currently the nastiest person in my life and given that I am doing a fair bit to cut down on contact with people who speak poorly to me, about me, or about my children… that internet person needs to go from my life. I have no sunk cost fallacy going on with online forums.

I feel like things in the house and the yard happen in waves. There’s a burst of activity then the slow receding clean up from the project. I always wonder if I will hit a point where the projects feel… less disruptive? Less like an imposition to daily life?

We are resuming the unit project tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that. It’s neat seeing what the kids come up with.

I feel so small and so unimportant. And like I am insulated and protected and safe. Those things don’t even conflict. Being unimportant is a lot of why I can be insulated and safe.

Our lockdown cooking is pretty epic. I’ve been cooking mass quantities of veg so that lunches are just reheating. The garden is coming along. Everything is blooming and putting out shoots and flowers. There are a lot of different kinds of daffodils in our yard. The tulips are sprouting. I’m slightly annoyed that it isn’t raining a touch more often–I have to water the new plants! What the heck!

I just want to sleep and stop feeling sick to my stomach. Is that too much to ask?

Update on the cancer

Leave a reply

All of my current biopsy reports say that the cancer was fully removed. Now at 2.5 months post surgery the wound has fully closed (YAY!!!) and I am feeling much more vigorous. I am still on some restrictions for activities, but I’m not fully following that and I’m feeling better.

I’m starting to run again after a four year hiatus (remodeling the bathroom, pregnancy, moving, traveling, cancer) and I’m getting into gardening in my new location. I’m feeling a lot better.

What can you do in life other than try to get up every day and do what you can do.

I have approximately five minutes…

Leave a reply

Then I need to go take the bread out of the oven and start soup for supper.

I’m thinking really a lot about how I want to structure my goals over the next few years. Because I won’t talk about this in front of my kids, here I will admit: I want to lose weight. I will not, however, go on a diet. I don’t want to lose weight because I think I look better I want to lose weight because I can’t wear my best clothes and that is pissing me off. I don’t want to spend the money on larger replacements. To that end I want to set the goal: run another marathon when I turn 40. That gives me 18 months of training time. I need to do this independent of the kids running with me. If I do it based on everyone feeling healthy enough I won’t do it.

Fuck diets. Yay running. I think running around this town will be a proper treat. I should figure out a realistic schedule for that, but I don’t have time this entry.

I want to paint the interior of the house starting in September. I have six months to plan. I think the interior paint job is going to take over a year. Each room will take a minimum of a month. That’s pretty fucking daunting, yo. I need to start sketching on that.

I have a perty new polytunnel. I want to grow tomatoes even if I’m not supposed to plant in the ground. Home grown tomatoes taste so much better it isn’t funny. Also I am allowed to work on hard scaping….

Shit. I had less time than I thought. Toodles.

PS: I can’t wait to turn 40.

Too many thoughts.

Leave a reply

I am having trouble falling asleep again. I am thinking about gardening and book shelves and how very stressful it is having our things on the boat still. By the time they arrive it will have taken over four months. I don’t have perfect recollection of what is on the boat and I am at the point where I really don’t want to buy duplicates of things because that is a waste of money so I just kind of… fuss because I don’t even know what I am waiting for but I can’t buy things to fill my needs. It feels horrible.

Deficient: (in something) not having enough of something, especially something that is essential; not good enough

Retarded: less developed mentally than is normal for a particular age

I am having a lot of feelings about both of those words. Anger. Rage. Fury. Sadness. Despondency. Anxiety. Frustration. Defensive.

There is a strong idea that home schooling harms children. That it makes them unable to develop “normally”. This idea doesn’t come from one person or one place, it comes from many places. I find it utterly infuriating and enraging to have to deal with this idea. I’m not feeling very rational about it. If it were coming from one place or one person I think I could cope. I think I could parse my feelings down into a little bucket and figure out how to talk about them. But it isn’t coming from one place it is coming from many and I feel like instead of being able to process it with any of those places I am engulfed in a tidal wave of upset and I utterly cannot engage with why this is such a motherfucking insulting concept.

I need to find a way to wrap my brain around useful words though. My kids need me to. They need me to be able to advocate for them in a way that does not include just saying “Fuck off” to authority figures. I have to find eloquent words to go through why it is utterly unacceptable to use such words and I am failing. I am fucking failing.

Because those words are a contemptuous indictment of me as much or more than my children. Because I home schooled them and if they are deficient it is my fault. That was literally the point of home schooling. There is no one to blame but me. But are they deficient or are they different in a way that would have been true no matter how they were schooled? Are they struggling more or less than they would have if they were put in school when they really didn’t want to go and it would have been a daily fight? I have no crystal ball. All I have is documentation from Stanford that the way I home schooled is the ideal learning environment.

But in Scotland all home schooling is termed interrupted learning as if home educating means that all learning was interrupted.

My kids were going to be weird no matter what. Look at their parents.

Be bitchy nice. That was the advice of the mom I talked to on the playground. Demand that the school change the words they use. My experience is that schools are abusive and the only thing you can do about it is leave. Take your football and go home. But I don’t want to yank my kids out because of one fucking cunt. I need to find words that are effective and clear and commanding.

Don’t. Insult. Children.

If you cannot talk about children without using insulting, rude language do not work with them or discuss them at all. Your nasty opinion is utterly unhelpful and can in fact be damaging.

Children can have areas where they struggle. Children can have areas where they need extra help. Children can require extra support to be successful.

THAT DOESN’T MAKE THEM FUCKING DEFICIENT YOU PIECE OF SHIT MOTHERFUCKER.

Not good enough.

Go straight to hell you presumptuous cow.

Clearly something is going on and clearly I am not going to be direct about it. BUT I’M HAVING A LOT OF GOD DAMN FEELINGS.

My children are articulate, self-aware, sensitive to the emotions of others, expressive, have incredibly large vocabularies, can figure out how to play with people across social classes, can eat at fancy restaurants around the world with perfect table manners (no matter what table manners mean for that country), and they have unreal memories for data. But yes, they have things they aren’t perfect at. So. Fucking. What.

I am so angry I could spit nails. And I have no choice but to deal with this. I have to be the adult. I have to advocate. I have to ask for meetings and use my big girl words and not swear at all. Even though I want to say a lot of incredibly rude words. Even though I want to break things.

I would much rather think about gardening.

For the record: I am only interested in discussing difficulties in communicating with professional educators if you are in fact a professional educator. I have no desire to speak to other parents about this whatsoever. There are a myriad of reasons for having this boundary. I don’t need to share them all. Or any.

I still fucking hate school.

And yet I consider going back to university. I would like to work with kids who have emotional problems. I want to research incest. I think it will require more schooling. My ass is going to be in the special needs office saying, “Hi I’m Autistic, I have ADHD, PTSD, GAD, and arthritis. I absolutely require the use of a computer; it is abusive to require me to hand write.”

Fuck hand writing. Fuck hand writing being the fucking measure of someone’s motherfucking intelligence. Why don’t you fuck yourself with a fucking chain saw.

Maybe my kids need to be allowed to type as well.

Maybe it is time to find a game that teaches touch typing.

Maybe I should just think about gardening instead. I want a subscription to the lovely gardening magazine Jenny gave me a bunch of old copies of. That thing is detailed and fantastic. Over the winter I am going to sit down and start planning all the things I can do once I’m allowed to plant. I can get started in September! There’s lots to plant in September! Given the budget we want to follow next year we are going to be doing basically everything in cash. So at the end of the month I will be able to put the money I save from the hoped for budget into a jar for gardening. That’s my gardening budget. I’m not in California anymore with a tech salary. I can only buy things as I can afford them on a fairly tight income. I am choosing to make my budget much tighter than I think we will fully maintain. Hm. That sounds not-right. I always budget as if we have far less money than we do. Because I will fuck up and go over my plans. I am aiming for a really really low figure. Much lower than I think we will manage. Because then when I go over it I am still at a reasonable level. And I am going to do this partly by limiting myself to cash. Easier to say “We have no cash in the envelope” than “I don’t want to use the credit card”.

Gardening is not going to be a big part of the budget. I am probably going to become that lady who asks if I can take clippings. I only get to buy plants/hard scaping stuff once I have saved up enough money. I’m not planning to travel any time soon. Well, we have to go to Edinburgh for official stuff. But the whole trip is going to be in the neighborhood of £300. Lodging and train are costing £140 and I plan to bring snacks/meals for the train. We aren’t staying long. We aren’t going to fancy restaurants nor Do All The Things. We will get passports taken care of and notarize the sale papers for DVC. Then we will come home.

We will only be awake and available for entertainment for like 9 hours total in the city anyway.

I’m tired. I don’t want to hang out. I really don’t.

I’m tired so why the fuck can’t I sleep? Because I have to be bitchy nice with officials and the idea makes my stomach hurt. I feel sick.

Gardening. Gardening is fun to think about. Book shelves will be paid for out of DVC profits. After the book shelves are paid for the rest goes into investments.

Paint will have to be saved up for.

It occurs to me that I don’t want to get rid of all the cardboard boxes. I want them for gardening and painting. Hm. For gardening: it will be a great way to kill a bunch of the lawn so I can plant more interesting things there. For painting: tarps ain’t free and if I can put cardboard several layers deep over the carpet I don’t need tarps. Hmmmm. Ok. I convinced myself.

Before I kill lawn I need to see where things come up in the spring. I hear there are bulbs out there. I will have to mark the lawn somehow to protect the bulbs when I rip out grass. I’ll figure that out.

We’ve gone out and done some winter pruning as a family. It was really fun. I love how much my kids love working with me. I love watching them take pride in their growing abilities. They are quite competent at a wide array of skills.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH MY AUNT FANNY.

Fuck petty educators.

Gardening. Book shelves. Stop ranting in your head, Krissy. It won’t help.

I am scared I won’t be able to help.

I feel bad about myself.

I feel like I must be a shitty teacher. Only I know I am not. Only I feel like I am. All home schoolers have experienced “interrupted learning”. I want to puke. I am so fucking mad.

Dogma. Fuck your fucking dogma.

Just keep swimming.

Draw a picture or some shit.

Spring

7 Replies

For the previous three years since Shanna was born I have been feeling increasing levels of desire to have green in my surroundings. I miss the mountains. I miss walking outside on spring mornings and closing my eyes and hearing the mist in the trees. It was wonderful. So now I am settled in a more arid land. Clay soil and suburban lawns as far as the eye can see. Yuck. I’ve been working on amending the soil (big thanks to my cousins last year) and I’m adding plants every year. So far it seems that most plants make it and a few don’t. I always have at least a few that won’t take. I consider this the cost of doing business and move on with my life. 🙂

I need to work on creating more shade in my yard. Right now it is so directly, brutally hot that it isn’t very fun to play out there for a lot of the summer. I want there to be more greenery. I’m working on it. A friend is moving out of state (this is not going to be a net-win for me) which is very sad but she is leaving me with her extensive collection of potted plants. I could not be more thrilled.

One of these years I’ll get my hands on paving stones and I’ll start doing the hardscaping in the front yard. I kind of figure it’s ok if it takes me I while. I have a lot of springs ahead of me.

Noah humored me and spent some time out back with me this weekend. I really enjoyed that. I feel a lot of joy in being outside and I’m not sure exactly how it works for me. That sounds odd. Sometimes feeling outside is wonderful and sometimes I’m just not happy with it. I’m not sure what the conditions are specifically. I do know that early spring/late winter is my favorite. The weather is in the 60’s but the sun is shining beautifully in between much needed rain bursts. To me this feels like when God is restoring blessings upon life. It feels so peaceful out in my yard enjoying the green.

Now why the hell is everyone so damn depressed.

short bit

Leave a reply

cause I can’t write a long bit. Some time I’d like to get around to writing why I am growing to love spring so much. However, squirmy children make it hard to pontificate even though they have no dampening effect on my love of the season. 🙂

Exhaustion

2 Replies

I am so tired I can barely move. Doing manual labor from 9:30 am yesterday till about 6 pm was really really hard on my body. But! I’m thrilled with the progress. I took (mostly) before pictures and I’m taking pictures today and I will take more pictures as I go of the Great Gardening Project of 2010. My cousin’s boyfriend laughed at me when I told him this project has been like 4 years in the making and we just haven’t gotten it done. He’s not the sort to ‘not get to’ projects. Which is why I like that I can pay him to come to my house and work. 😀 I will post pictures at some point.

A friend was supposed to bring me seeds this morning but she woke up not feeling well and canceled. Not so secretly I’m kind of glad I don’t have a complete full day of work. I woke up way too early (5:30) but started cat napping at 7:30 and really fell asleep by about 8:30 and didn’t wake up till 10. This is why my house is thoroughly toddler-proof so Shanna can’t get in too much trouble. 😛

My cousin and her boyfriend will be here around 1:30 and I have this ridiculously massive guilt complex about having them here working and not working myself so that is the end of my slack time today. I’m starting to feel slightly nervous about the semi-busy weekend we have planned. I think I will not stir from the couch on Friday in complete exhaustion. The cousin/boyfriend will be here today and tomorrow. Then my wonderful Taylor will be here Thursday and I will be getting a massage. I am going to need it so much. But Taylor likes to keep busy and do stuff around the house so I will probably save like one or two projects for him so he can feel all useful. I’ll see if there is anything that needs a tall person. 😛

I’m really really feeling the excitement and joy that comes from productivity this week. I receive such a strong boost of self confidence when I am productive. It’s kind of funny.

Brain dump

11 Replies

-I got some plants from essaying in I think January (maybe early February) and planted them pretty randomly in my yard. They are still alive and thriving with inconsistent watering using only gray water from washing dishes. I think that is pretty rad. Of course my yard still looks like shit but that’s because of all the huge expanses of bare dirt between the small pockets of healthy thriving plants. 🙂 I need to plant more stuff out there.

-By contrast my food plants in the back yard aren’t doing so hot. I water them using fresh water because I have concerns about dumping that much soap on food plants. I don’t water them very consistently. oops. I did get a lot of tomatoes and they are all still alive so I feel like that was an ok first growing season of my life. 🙂

-Noah and I had a “conversation” *cough* this morning about how we each need to take responsibility for own happiness. Mostly this consisted of me being very upset about how hard I have tried to make him happy but my efforts have failed. So forget that noise. That strategy is obviously not working and it is time to try a new one. My wonderful husband managed to stay calm and collected and not bent out of shape when my tone of voice sucked. I’m so lucky to have him.

-Shanna went out back and played in her sand box for over half an hour this morning with no prompting from me. This getting bigger business is awesome.

-I keep thinking that I should track my emotions over a few months and see how it coincides with my cycle. I have been pretty upbeat and cheerful and energetic today and far more willing to put out energy in a social way than I was a few days ago when I whined about how no one loves me. I think that a complete lack of menstrual cycle was a lot of why I was in such a good mood for the whole first year of Shanna’s life. I stepped off the roller coaster and it was so nice.

-I think that the reason I feel so alienated in mom groups is because I am not there because we have much in common other than spawning. I feel like it is the worst parts of going to public school all over again. You are together with people you may or may not like for an arbitrary reason. Wow does that not work for me. I wish more of my friends would spawn. And then have the energy to be at least a little social. 😛

And now Shanna needs a nap. So I run off. 🙂