Internet Grapes

adjusting the lens

Even before we made an offer on our condo, we knew it was not our ideal home.  We wanted 3 bedrooms - one for guests, since neither of us have family in town.  We wanted 2 bathrooms, or at least two toilets.  We would have really liked air conditioning.  We would have liked a spacious tub (with jets, even!), a new sink and toilet, a bathroom floor that was tile instead of vinyl.  We would have liked pretty granite countertops, and wood cabinets, and new appliances.  We would have liked an open floor plan, where a person cooking in the kitchen could have carried on a conversation with a person sitting in the living room or dining room.  And oh, we really would have loved our own washer & dryer. 

If our home didn't realize all of our dreams, it did satisfy all of our requirements, plus some.  There was parking (and not just a designated space, but a spot in a garage).  There were two bedrooms plus an office.  There was a living room and a separate dining room.  There was storage space (we have half of the space in the basement).  There was a shared (and free) washer and dryer in the basement.  There was a small balcony on the front that appealed to our (or at least to my) romantic sensibilities.  Pets (both dogs and cats) were allowed, and there was a fenced in backyard where we could let out the dog.  We loved the hardwood floors, and found the crown molding (in a few rooms) and glass blocked window (in the entryway staircase) charming.  And we could (barely) afford it.

In the first year or two after we moved in, I painted every room (floral wood, silver sage, tuscan beige, Del Sol, magic spell, thyme green, and a gentle pink color for Katie's room that I don't remember the name of).  We fantasized that one day, when the value of the place had increased, we would refinance the place and redo the kitchen and the bathroom.  We would put new cabinets in the kitchen (the current ones, our inspector had pointed out, were never properly attached to the wall) and install a new countertop (we could not, our inspector warned us, install a granite countertop without also getting new cabinets, since the current cabinets were so weak that the countertop would likely collapse them).  We would put new tile in the bathroom, both on the wall (our inspector said that the tile, too, had never been properly laid) and on the floors.  We would refinish or replace the scratchy-bottomed tub.  Maybe we would convert the hall closet into a space for a tiny washer & dryer.  Maybe we would install French doors on the office entrance, to make a better guest space.

Fast forward to now, 3.5 years after we moved in, and the value of our home has not increased.  I took a pay cut in October, and will lose my job in March, and the idea of redoing our kitchen or bathroom seems like a ridiculous pipe dream.  Instead, we live daily with various inconveniences.  The burners on the stovetop don't adjust well.  The cabinets are still hanging onto the wall, but I regularly examine the seam between the back of one cabinet and the wall to see if it's widened (so far, it hasn't visibly grown, but often, as I'm putting heavy dishes into the cabinet, I imagine it crashing onto the floor, and wonder, in a semi-detached way, whether the fall would happen slowly enough to give me time to move out of the way fast enough).  The oven doesn't heat to the right temperature (we adjust for it), and long ago the handle ripped off of the refrigerator door (we just pull on the side of the door).  Almost every time I load and unload dishes into the dishwasher, the wheels on the rack of the dishwasher fall off (they snap back on).  There is one tile on the bathroom wall, above the faucet, that routinely falls off the wall and into the tub.  ("Mommy!  Daddy!  The wall fell off again!" Katie will call out to us.  We push it back into place.)  And last week, the gutters (and the part of the house attached to them) fell off of one side of our building.  (Insurance will cover it as storm damage, a result of all the snow and ice this winter, but there's a deductible.) 

Then there is our clutter and mess.  I can sweep the kitchen and dining room at 8 am on Monday only to have clumps of dog and cat hair floating around by 8 pm Monday night.  There are four of us living here now, and each room is jam-packed with stuff.  Right now, in addition to all of our usual furniture, our home contains a Jumperoo, a high chair, and a baby swing, not to mention a Christmas tree that we still haven't taken down (the ornaments are off, at least; soon the tree must follow).  Annabel's crib is in our bedroom, and Katie's room has a bunk bed and shelf and desk set-up that leaves almost no room to turn around in.  There is a cheap Ikea futon in the office for guests that is a complete pain in the neck to flatten and fold up again.  The laundry and the dishes and the sweeping are overwhelming and never ending. 

And then there are the people living in the home.  Katie is almost five years old, a wild tornado, leaving destruction in her wake.  (We do make her help clean up, most of the time, but there is still plenty left for us, too.)  Annabel has not slept through a single night in her life; I feel like a miracle has taken place if she only wakes me up once.  She's on the verge of crawling, and we find ourselves scouring the living room rug multiple times a day to clear away anything that she could stick into her mouth and choke on (where does it all come from?).  I have been living with a job that has left me feeling by turns exhausted, angry, hopeless, and trapped (sometimes all at once), and now I am free of the trap (we're all laid off effective March 9th; that is a story that still needs to be told), but anxious about the future.  (My insurance covers all four of us.  My salary is more than 2/3 of our income.  My 401k is the only retirement plan we have, not that it has much value at this point.)  Geoff stays home with the girls, trying to juggle housework and dinner preparation and Annabel's naps and Katie's preschool with his own job at the church. 

Tuesday night Annabel woke up to nurse when I went to bed, then again a few hours later.  Within 10 minutes after I laid her back down in her crib, Katie appeared at the door, telling me she'd peed the bed.  I cleaned her and her bed up, tucked her back in, and found I couldn't go to sleep until almost an hour had passed.  I had just fallen back asleep when Katie appeared at the door again, telling me she'd had a nightmare that was too "horrible" to even talk about.  I took her back to her room, tucked her back in, rubbed her back and sang her "Edelweiss," and went back to bed myself.  Within 15 minutes, Annabel was awake again.  After I put her back to bed, we all slept for another 3 hours.  It was a rough night, admittedly much worse than most. 

It can get disheartening, sometimes.  Some days it seems like we will always worry about space and money and potty training and sleeping through the night.  Some days it seems like every step forward is followed by at least one equal step back. Some days I realize that I am looking at the days as part of a long struggle that I feel like I should have conquered by now.  I have been a lawyer for over 10 years now.  I will be 40 next year.  I feel, sometimes, like I should be doing better than this. 

And yet last night, as I stirred a batch of chocolate pudding on the stove (you have to stir the pudding constantly, which leaves room for deep thinking), listening to music on the CD player in the kitchen, and hearing the sounds of Katie and Annabel in the bath (and the occasional murmurs of Geoff, with them), I realized the likelihood that one day, this will be a time I look back on with great nostalgia.  One day, we may wax fondly about the stupid wheels that fall off of that dishwasher rack, and almost certainly we will laugh about that bathroom tile falling into the bathtub, because as frustrating as those things may be to us now, they are minor inconveniences in the middle of what is, in so many other ways, a wondrous blessed time in our lives - a time when Annabel and Katie are learning to be friends, when Katie's imagination is taking off in ways that amuse and impress us every day (in the past few weeks she has introduced us to at least five alter-egos/imaginary friends: Lunda, Lund, Blenda, Lenda, and Frank), when Annabel's babbling starts to sound like a language (ticka ticka dada blauuuuu), when the four of us are learning to be a family.  I come home from work, and Annabel kicks and yells happily, open-mouthed, to see me.  Katie yells, "Mommy!" and runs to give me a hug.  I know that as much as I am looking forward to seeing them grow up, I will miss them the way they are now.   

It occurred to me, as I stirred the pudding, that maybe one day I would even miss the way that I can so easily satisfy so many of my girls' needs.  When Katie wakes up in the night after a bad dream or after having wet the bed, I can help her.  When Annabel wakes up in the night hungry or upset, I am able to give her what she needs.  For each of them, I am able to be her comfort, able to solve her problem, able to put things right again so that she can go back to sleep.  How much more complicated will their problems be when they are older?  Will I wish for problems like today's (despite the sleep deprivation they cause)?

I do believe that the not-so-good things will get better.  I do believe that one day our finances will be in order, that both Geoff and I will be bringing in regular salaries, that eventually our student loans will be paid off.  I believe that one day we will have 2 bathrooms (or at least an extra toilet!), and that no tiles will be falling off of our bathroom walls.  I believe that someday we will have a guest bedroom, and our own washer & dryer. 

And so I am resolving to try to experience these days through a filter, imagining how I will feel when I look back on them from a future existence, thinking kindly of them the way I expect I will when I am no longer living them.  It is not so much a matter of pretending that I like the things that currently bother me; it's a matter, I think, of adjusting the lens through which I view those things.  In the whole picture, they can be small.  They can be background.  They can be out of focus.  (They can be bokeh.)  

I spend too much energy worrying about what we don't have, wishing for some ideal situation that I can almost guarantee I will never have.  It's silly, this waiting around for the ideal to become real, when I have so much to appreciate right now.  My husband is my favorite person in the whole world, and I would not want either of my daughters to be anybody other than who they are. We are all healthy and strong and full of love for each other.  Our condo is cozy and bright, and it's home.

How much better would it be if I am able to recognize the good in what I've got now, while I've got it, instead of only looking back later and missing it when it's gone?  How much happier will I be?

Let's try to find out.

Weekend update

Katie is having quiet time in her room right now (which perhaps may become a nap), and Geoff is taking a nap, and I am eating root beer float ice cream.  It is DELICIOUS.  This is the second gallon I've plowed through on my own...TODAY!  Ok, kidding, no.  In the past two or three weeks.  I am pretty sure I'm the only one eating it, though, and the second gallon is almost gone.  As I was just dipping myself this cup of ice cream next to me, I was thinking, "WHY didn't I just buy two gallons the last I was at the store?  That would have been so smart!"  But alas.

(I don't really have the energy or focus or skill set at this time to write an entry here that is polished and related to a single topic.  I'm just going to babble for a little while.)

I am reaching the end stage of pregnancy now, as far as how I feel.  Bending over is still not so bad, because I tend to squat instead of bending straight over, but getting up from a prone position has a tendency to make me feel like a turtle on its back.  And OH, my aching back, if I walk for any length of time, especially at the end of a long day.  Geoff and Katie have started walking to her daycare almost every weekday, now, and on Wednesdays, when I work from home, I've walked with them.  It's a little over a mile away (even longer since we usually try to stay away from the busiest streets, which would be the shortest rout).  For Katie, this means if she walks there and back, she's walking two miles in a day, which we figure is a lot for a four year old; perhaps not surprisingly, she has been accepting bedtime and sleeping through the night so much better the past couple of weeks.  But for Geoff - and for me, if I come along - this is over four miles in a day.  On Wednesday I was a little tired on our way home in the morning, but by evening, I was HURTING.  And yesterday I walked to the el in the morning, which is around three quarters of a mile, and that was fine.  But walking home from the station at the end of the day damn near felt like it was going to make me collapse.  When I got home, I walked up the stairs one step at a time; I just didn't have the energy to climb them any faster.  Today we walked to Ihop (and back) for brunch, and by the time we climbed the stairs at home, I was just about as tired, practically limping up the stairs. 

We had a nice Easter.  When I thought about Easter this year, I thought often about what I wrote here, back in 2001, about how often we live in a Good Friday kind of world, where dreams are crushed, and where despair triumphs over hope - where the worst possible outcome is the most common kind of outcome, and where hard work and a good heart don't seem to get you much of anywhere.  The past year or so has been that kind of year, and it put me in that frame of mind.  For awhile, I've been a pessimist, or at least much more than I ever was before.  But this year, as Easter rolled around, I realized how much better I have been feeling lately.  I am feeling good again, feeling once again like my future still holds promise, feeling both that I am blessed to live in this world and that the world is blessed to have me in it.  The pregnancy has helped with that, of course, and even though I'm still aware that huge things could still go wrong with that, I'm willing to bank on things going right. 

If you haven't, I wish you could meet my daughter, because she is seriously awesome.  She's smart and funny and imaginative and sweet.  She tells me out of nowhere that I am beautiful or "simply lovely."  She tells us stories and wants to play pretend with us.  She has started requesting a napkin at the start of dinner, if we've forgotten to give her one, instead of wiping her mouth on her sleeve.  She has stopped fighting bedtime lately - when I tuck her in and leave her room at night, she is often smiling at me.  She is really excited about being a big sister, although she does seem mildly concerned about what exactly is going to happen that will get the baby into our lives.  I've explained to her where the baby will emerge, but she keeps worrying that my belly is just going to burst open at some point. 

I sure hope not, but there have been some days lately when I've been a little worried about that myself.  This baby kicks and wriggles harder and more often than Katie did at this point in the pregnancy; Katie's movements, while frequent, never actually hurt me.  I can't say the same for this time around. 

So, overall.  A good week.  A good month, even.  I'm happy.

all those things I've always been

What I am realizing lately, more than anything, is that if I take it day by day, and let go of past misery and loss, then each day carries itself - and me - forward.  Each day is pretty good.  Days like today: I made pancakes, played with Katie, drank coffee Geoff made me, put Katie's hair in pigtails (on request) and took a few pictures (including the one below - it's hard to be sad when you're living with THAT), took Katie to daycare (and got lots of hugs and kisses - I hardly ever drop her off), worked from home all day, listened to music, washed some dirty windows and mirrors, worked out to a The Firm DVD in my living room, took a shower, ate a salad for lunch in the backyard (with Geoff, in the sunshine), played with the dogs (ours and the neighbors').  This is a good day, not even over yet.  Day by day, things are pretty good.

I wrote this in mid-August:

I am still angry about the miscarriage.  I'm angry about the fact that it is now 20 months since we started trying to get pregnant (and I'd been wanting to try for a second child for around 6 months before that, but we waited for the start of the year so that new insurance would kick in), and I have nothing to show for it except a lot of grief and disappointment, not to mention physical discomfort.  I am angry that I have put too much stock into the idea that I could get pregnant at any time, so I have foregone making plans for too many other things. 

I'm not just angry, though; I'm also sad.  And tired - Katie has not been sleeping well lately, sometimes waking me up as often as four times a night, and almost always at least once.

I have been hard on myself for a lot of things, including feeling bad. Yesterday Eliza and I talked, and she suggested that when we went home that night we should make it a goal to do something nice for ourselves, to be kind to the ones we love, and to spend that time with open hearts.  And you know what?  It made a difference.  I came home, and Katie and I made chocolate chip cookie dough, then ate dinner, then she took her bath.  After she'd been in the bath about five minutes, she called out, "Mommy, aren't you going to take a bath with me?"  I was tired, and a little headachy, and my first instinct was to say "no, not tonight," but I stopped myself, and thought about opening my heart, and I said yes.  Baths with Katie involve a lot of splashing and tickling and laughing. It was a good way to spend 30 minutes or so.  And then we got out, and it started to rain, so she ran out onto the front porch, naked, to feel the cold rain on her little body.  After a little while, I put her in her nightgown, and put her to bed.  After she was in bed, I looked at the pictures I'd taken during the day, and I uploaded some to Flickr.  And after that, I drank some green tea and did some yoga for beginners with a DVD I have. 

Things are very much the same now, but better (and with more sleep).  It is still painful, to work with a woman who was due 6 weeks before me, as she approaches her due date in October.  It still makes me rage, occasionally, against the universe and everything, about the unfairness of it all, although one ironic thing about the miscarriage is that my grief from it, as great and intense as it was, was (and is) less than the grief and depression that arose (and arises) from trying and failing to conceive, for month after month after barren month.  I have decided that the major reason for this is that the miscarriage was a large event that called for grieving, not just by me, but by almost everyone who knew me, whereas the seemingly endless months of infertility do not fit in with anything that I know how to grieve appropriately, and they do not lend themselves easily or comfortably to public support.  Each month of failing to get pregnant is certainly not worthy of the grief that the miscarriage caused me, but all of the months put together have affected me much more than the miscarriage.  Now that we are back in the months of trying to conceive, I find myself trying to hold onto a mentality that does not involve tallying up each month as another personal failure. 

When people wonder how I am, I am torn between explaining that I am still in mourning (not only for the miscarriage, but for the failure, so far, to have another child, and the knowledge that I may never have another child) and between explaining that I am good.  I am fine.  I am loving and loved, busy and happy, blessed and lucky.  All those things I've always been.

if you listen

We drove up to Door County, Wisconsin, the Sunday before Labor Day, the three of us.  We left after church, after bustling around to get ready, to get where we needed to be when we needed to be there, and then we were on our way, and after 5 hours or so, we were there. 

I'd never been to Door County before, but it will give you some idea of how I felt about it if I tell you that every hour or so I said something like, "This is wonderful."  "This is so nice."  "This is AWESOME." 

We stayed in a cottage we rented for two nights from a woman at the church.  There was a hammock right out front, a fire pit over to the side, and trees everywhere.  There were other cottages not too far away, and a lake you could see from the window.  There were two bedrooms, a living room with two couches, a fully-stocked kitchen (except for coffee filters - and I'll tell you, paper towels are not the same).  There was a sandy beach a mile down the road, and a petting zoo 20 miles down the road.  The weather was sunny and mild and just gorgeous.  There was no tv.  There were no phones, except for our cell phones (on roam).  There was no computer, no internet.  There was nobody else we had to see except each other and our dog, who also loved the trip. 

The first night we unloaded our stuff and looked around.  Katie went in and out the screen door, staying in sight, talking to Molly, talking to her imaginary friends, smiling, puttering around.  The dog was obviously in heaven.  After a little while, we put Katie in her bathing suit, grabbed towels, and drove over to the beach, which turned out to have one of the most gradual inclines of any beach I've ever been to, so that Katie could walk 20 feet ahead from us and still not be in water higher than the middle of her thighs.  I wore my camera around my neck and took picture after picture.  Later, when it was getting dark, we went back to the cottage and ate hot dogs.  Geoff and I drank beer.  We started a fire in the fire pit, got lawn chairs out of the storage shed, pulled green branches off of nearby trees, roasted marshmallows, and made s'mores.  Katie went to bed happily, and Geoff and I sat in the living room, with the lamplight glowing yellow, and talked.  I went to bed about an hour later, good-tired and sleepy.

The next day Katie was up with the sun, and I got up with her.  She and I and the dog walked to the water and looked at the sunrise.  Katie swung on the hammock.  We made bad coffee, ate breakfast, stopped in Baileys Harbor for better coffee, drove to a petting zoo in Sturgeon Bay, ate cheeseburgers and shared a piece of cherry pie at a local restaurant.  Later, there were naps.  When I woke up first, I pulled a jigsaw puzzle off of a shelf and worked on it while Geoff and Katie slept.  Later, we went to the beach again. 

Over and over, in the car and in the cottage, we listened to Elizabeth Mitchell's "You Are My Little Bird."  We all sang along. 

On Tuesday morning Katie woke up early again, and she and I walked around outside.  She put on her tutu with her PJ top and her yellow crocs, and lay in the hammock and wanted me to push her so it swung.  We took our time gathering our things, packing up, loading the car.  I decided it would be good karma to collect kindling for the next person who came to the cottage, since there had been kindling waiting for us, so Katie and I wandered around the grass, picking up sticks and carrying them to the pile next to the firepit while Geoff took his shower. 

Later, when we were almost ready to go but were lingering, I was pushing Katie in the hammock, and the sound of "If You Listen" floated out through the screens of the cottage windows.  (If you go here and click on "You Are My Little Bird," then "listen," you can hear the song yourself.)

(If you listen you can hear
Birds sing and flowers grow
If you listen you can hear
My love for you just grow and grow

In the silence that surrounds
Deep peace and love are found
In the days that will be here
My love will call you loud and clear

And in that silent place where loneliness is found
I'll wander through the open door to look for you
And in that magic place up high beyond the clouds
Floating in a sea of dreams, I'll sing to you

If you listen you can hear
Birds sing and flowers grow
If you listen you can hear
My love for you just grow and grow)

I looked around me, trying to listen, to see, to feel, as much as I could.  I pushed Katie and thought about her and that weekend and the peace of the moment, and how she was my baby, and how someday she will be grownup, and how this moment is in the meantime, in the middle.  She lay happily in her tutu and crocs and pajamas, eyes closed, smiling.

And while I pushed her silently, while I looked at everything I could, I looked around behind me, and Geoff was standing in the doorway of the cottage with tears in his eyes. 

(A small set of photos from the trip are here.)

for myself

scarf
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

About a month ago (maybe more?) I decided to go to The Yarn Store and buy some yarn.  I was going to buy the prettiest, nicest, best and most beautiful yarn that I saw.  I wouldn't even look at the price.  (You don't really want to know how much I spent, and really, I'd rather not dwell on it.)

And so I bought that yarn you see up above, and I'm making myself a scarf.  With any luck, I will finish it this weekend, in time to wear it once or twice (or 10 times?  more?)  before the end of winter in Chicago.  Just looking at the unfinished scarf (throwing it around my neck every so often to see how long it's getting) makes me happy. 

I had never done any knitting when I took a knitting class in September of 2004.  Taking the class was a gift to myself - an hour or so every week that wasn't spent at work or doing housework or taking care of a baby.  The very first thing I made was a scarf, and I kept it for myself, because it had too many mistakes for me to willingly give it to anyone else.

Since then, I have knit scarves, children's sweaters, slippers, hats, and purses.  I kept none of them.  And almost without exception, I forgot, before sending my creation out in the world, to even take a picture of it. 

I figured it was time I made something for myself, a present to me, from me. 

I have a lot going on these days, in some ways.  At any moment, big changes could be afoot, and so I think I have been trying to keep myself in a constant state of readiness.  I try not to plan too much, do too much, push myself too much.  "I'll have enough going on soon enough," I think.  "I'm going to take it easy on myself."

But then the big changes don't happen, and I am left in the same place.  I haven't moved.  I haven't grown.  More specifically, I haven't written, I haven't taken many pictures, I haven't taken any classes, I haven't gone back to the gym, and I haven't gotten serious about dieting. 

I have no real wrap up for this.  Taking the time to write this is part of my (repeated) realization that writing is something that helps me stay happy.  When I stop, I'm hurting myself.  So I'm goin to try - again - to write here more often.  I hope that there are still people out there reading, of course.  But even if you're not, I'm going to have to do it for myself.

November 29th

Hoosier country (November 27th)
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

Some people hate the flatness of Indiana, and I admit, it can be boring to drive there - more boring than in some other places. Still, I love the huge expanses of sky stretching over the fields so wide you can't see the other sides of them. I love the red barns, blue (or white) skies, yellow corn in orderly rows.

I am feeling up and down lately. I love the holiday season. We had a nice Thanksgiving last week, just the three of us, and then on Saturday Katie and I went down to my dad & stepmom's for a short visit. Now we're home, and work is settling down some, and this weekend is my trip to Washington DC with friends.

And I remember how we were last year about this time, financially - strapped. This year we are doing so much better, although I still worry a lot. My student loan payment to Northwestern doubled a few months ago (and it was over $500 to begin with), and our car payment on "new new car" is about $100 more than the payment on "new car." Also, we're paying for Katie's day care now - Geoff's dad is helping some, which is great, but still there is less room in our budget. And we have to pay another year of tuition for Geoff, so we are trying to set aside money for that. This is the last year that he is allowed to remain in the program, so he is going to finish the degree next year come hell or high water.

There are other things, about Geoff's job, that I could write about, but I guess I shouldn't write about it here.

Clearly I have not been keeping up with daily posts, or daily photos, and I feel bad about that. On the one hand, it's only a promise to myself, really, right? So I shouldn't feel too guilty about not following through. On the other hand, there's an argument to be made that the promises to yourself should, perhaps, be most sacred of all.  I am trying to be kind of myself while still pushing myself to do more.  It feels like a balancing act.

This is the first year that Katie is going to understand anything at all about Christmas. So far, so good. We are going with the whole Santa story, which occasionally feels a little weird, since I normally try so hard to be totally straight with her. Then again, I remember loving Santa myself, and I did not feel betrayed, later. (I never thought that the mall Santas were the REAL Santa - only helpers of Santa. The real Santa is too busy at the North Pole making toys to be hanging out in malls, duh!) Now she mentions Santa Claus rather often. She has told me quite a few times that "Santa is a snow man." We're planning to put the ornaments on our Christmas tree tonight, and every time I mention it, Katie says, "Maybe Santa Claus will help us." Last weekend my dad pointed out some Hostessy-type treats at the grocery store and asked her if she wanted them. She looked at them, then patted them and walked away, saying, "Maybe Santa Claus will bring me them."

Wherever I am now is pretty good, despite some minor difficulties. And my future, immediate and far-off, stretches out ahead of me. Sometimes, when it gets close to winter and I start to feel a little tired, I remind myself of that, of the way my life gets better and better with each passing year, at the way I get smarter and more organized, at the way I write more often and, sometimes, more better (heh); I remind myself that I am improving, and that just because a dream hasn't come true yet doesn't mean it won't. And I remind myself of how lucky I am already.

As winter approaches, what do you tell yourself?

Sunshine, the sunshine, here it comes

And lo and behold, suddenly the sun has burst forth from the clouds, and life is good. 

In the past two weeks, we got my raise and bonus.  We got our tax refund.  We got the overage in our mortgage escrow account.  This means we have enough to finally FINALLY pay off the credit cards, once and for all, that I consolidated back in January 2002 - not only that, but we can do it around the same time that Northwestern's loan department decides they want twice as much money from me per month, which means that no, losing the consolidation payment won't give us any extra spending money, but it will mean that I can actually pay Northwestern what they think I should be paying them (and oh, my friends, it is hefty - it is more than we paid in rent at our last apartment) without me having to justify to them my need to subsist on something from the grocery store other than ramen noodles and Kraft macaroni & cheese (I can't remember now if I wrote about it much online, but the last time I had to provide a budget to NU, because I was asking to make a lower payment than they wanted me to make, I was given a really hard time about the amount of money  I was budgeting for groceries each month).

Anyway, so our mortgage escrow overage is enough (or almost enough, I'm not totally sure yet) to pay off the credit cards, which means that the rest of the money - the tax refund, the bonus, the retroactive raise pay (we never get raises until March or April, but they are always retroactive to January 1st, so there's a little extra in the first check after the raise has kicked in), can go toward a few other things.  We can sock away some money in our savings account.  We got to go to Ikea to buy a futon, so guests have a place to sleep and we have another place to sit!  We also bought a much smaller computer desk at Ikea, so we can get this very cool but gargantuan schoolroom type desk out of here (and down into the basement, to join a whole lot of other furniture that will possibly see the light of day when, if ever, we move somewhere with rooms big enough to hold it all).  Also purchased at Ikea: a small table & 2 chairs for Katie, a small tent for Katie ($5, and at least in Katie's opinion it just might be the best thing we've ever gotten her - she calls it "Katie's house," and LOVES to go in there and jump up and down).  Sometime soon, maybe even this weekend, we are going back to buy a new dresser for our bedroom, and a new table lamp for the living room. 

There is also the fun stuff - I took a trip to Costco, and in addition to the usual (massive amounts of diapers, wipes, toilet paper, paper towels, fish sticks, eda mame, and more!), I bought myself an iPod nano.  I am somebody now.  Heh.  At this point I actually feel kind of lame about it, because this week has been so busy that I haven't even sat down to figure out anything about it.  I know enough to listen to it, but instead of putting any songs on it, I am still at the point where all of the songs on it were put there by Geoff (he who got an iPod for Father's Day last year).  And I finally, finally, got a new cell phone - not that that cost much, because I've had my last dinosaur of a phone for somewhere around 5 years now (if I had archives anymore, I'd go look up exactly when, because I wrote about it), so I got something like a $175 credit on the new phone I got.  It takes pictures.  I feel all technologically advanced.

Also, we are getting a new car (well, used, but new to us), although God knows exactly when.  But soon!  I do believe it will be soon!  We left Katie with a sitter last Saturday so that we could visit a HONDA SUPERSTORE way way out in the burbs.  We drove a car we liked, sat down to negotiate, and during the negotiations we were told that the certified pre-owned warranty inspection had not actually been finished yet, so even if we bought the car that day, we would have to come back another day to pick it up.  That put a damper on our incentive, and so when we ended up offering $500 lower than the dealer had offered, we left.  Later, after doing more research, we discovered that the price we'd been offered was a really good deal, considering the mileage and the fact that it's manual tranmission (which we really wanted), in addition to having a sun roof (ha! that makes me happy) and a 6 CD changer (have I mentioned lately that the only part of the Beetle's stereo system that works is the radio, and even that occasionally beeps to a halt when the tape player tries to play but can't, because, you know, there's no damn TAPE in there?).  So we called them back up and said if the offer was still good, we'd take it. 

They said ok!  The offer was still good!  But then Monday night they called back to say the car had been in an accident in 2002, and there was some sort of damage to the frame.  Since then we have had various conversations back and forth, all of which have come down to this: a body shop dude (not his official title) is going to check out the frame, perform whatever measurements need to be performed to determine that the frame is ok, and if it's all good, then they'll sell us the car for $1000  less than we'd previously agreed on.  There is definitely potential for a good deal here.  On the other hand, we are SO IMPATIENT for a new car.  (Did I tell you about how the passenger seat in the Beetle is broken and horrible?  The seat is just coming out of the frame that connects it to the car?  And the quoted cost of replacing and repairing the seat was somewhere close to the blue book value of the whole damn car?) 

These things all have to do with money, one way or another, although it's not the money itself that I'm glad to have as much as it is the comfort and security that comes with knowing that we are actually current on all of our bills now, that we can afford to take Charlotte the cat to get spayed (hopefully before she goes into heat again), that we can soon drive in a car that is safe, that we can avoid another humiliating incident with Northwestern's student loan department.  Heck, I can even afford another haircut if I want! 

I don't think I realized quite how much I was worried until after I didn't have to worry anymore.  (This seems to be a theme for me in the past year or so, me not realizing just how anxious I am.  Yes, I'm aware of this, and yes, I'll be exploring ways of reducing my own stress, because wow, it appears I have a tendency to bottle all that stuff up.)  The way I knew I'd been really worried?  For days and days now, my relief at not worrying is palpable.  I keep thinking, "ahhh, I'm not worried!  This is good."

It doesn't hurt any that the weather has been beautiful, that our little girl has entered yet another Cutest Stage Ever (some of her favorite things to say: "Mama/Dada is so sweet," "Mama/Dada is so cute," "Hug!"), that I have my new iPod toy and a reliable cell phone.  In reality, the cloud of financial worry disappearing only changes our financial situation, not everything else.  But man, isn't it amazing how the whole world seems brighter when the thing that has been hanging over you is gone? 

(And here we are.  All I really wanted to tell you, when I sat down to type this, was this last part.)

Last weekend I had one of those moments that I just wanted to save in a bottle (or on a CD or in a box, or maybe a suitcase or a crate or a huge safe, or a big basket!  I'm not picky).  I was in the kitchen, making chocolate chip cookies.  Geoff and Katie were playing in the living room.  I was listening to my Matthew Sweet "Girlfriend" CD.  It was getting toward sunset, which means that our kitchen was filled with bright golden sunlight.  It was warm out, so our back porch door was open, letting in way more of the gorgeous light than usual.  I was scooping cookie dough out onto a cookie sheet when Katie and Geoff came running in to see what I was doing.  I let Katie taste some cookie dough. 

"Cake," she said. 

"No," I told her.  "This is cookie dough."

"Cookie. Dough?" she said.  They ran back out to the living room, laughing. 

And how do I capture this moment?  Because this is the part that you should know - this is the part that I can feel, squeezed tight in my heart like a diamond.  The beams of sun, the sweet taste of cookie dough.  Peals of Katie's laughter, mingled with Geoff's, coming from the living room - I could hear him teasing her, tickling her.  I could hear her sweet voice calling him "silly dada."  I was standing there thinking to myself that this is it - one of those times when you realize just how incredibly lucky you are, and how fleeting all of these little sweetnesses may prove to be - and suddenly there was Matthew Sweet's voice singing, "Nothing Lasts," and I stood there and sang and smiled and cried not only for how brief this particular moment would be, but also for how precious the moment was.   Is.

These are the things that I hope I remember most from this time period, from Katie's early childhood.  I hope that I forget the money worries and the crappy cars and the student loan hassles - or if I do remember them, I hope I remember them only as tiny thorns in the side of a wonderful blessed rose of a time.  (It's apparently hard for me to talk about this without multiple goofy metaphors.)   

Because seriously, damn, I know I say this over and over, but I can't help it.  It is no less true today than it was a week ago or a year ago or 4 years ago or 15 years ago, to the point that I believe it would be a near-criminal act for me to forget, or at least to forget for very long.  And so I will keep saying it, over and over, as long as I keep feeling it. 

I am so lucky. 

More

Here is what's been going on.

Katie is doing great.  She gives us hugs and kisses, both spontaneously and on demand.  She has just started being interested in having a blanket over her while she sleeps, which seems like some sort of milestone to me, since she never wanted one before (we put her in footed sleepers during all cold weather, to make sure her feet stay warm).  I have big plans to buy her a small pillow, too.  She talks more clearly, and with a larger vocabulary, all the time.  Just a day or two ago, she progressed from saying "help! help!" to "help me! help me!"  Geoff and I both notice and comment on these little changes - these little bits of evidence that she is growing and learning all the time.  She loves books, and gets very excited to see letters.  So far she doesn't accurately identify many letters, but I've seen her correctly pick out and name a "K" and an "X," and maybe an "A."  When she counts, it usually goes - 1, 3, 8, 9, 18!

When I was pregnant, and when Katie was an infant, we read a lot of books about the stages she was (or would be) going through, but for the last year or more, we haven't done much of that.  The other day I was looking through our books - only one of them talks about child development past the first year.  The introduction to the 24 month plus stage said that for the most part, a child's two-year-old personality and social style is the same personality and social style that the child will have when she is six (and to some extent, when she is an adult).  I thought that was amazing (already?!) and gratifying (she is so fun to be with and be around!), and also a little bittersweet (already?!).   

Work continues to be something that I do because it is what I do, not because I love it.  I got a good review this year, and a (relatively) generous raise.  For the most part, I like the people I work with - my supervisors, in particular, are fair and kind and consistent, and can be trusted not to fly off the handle or take out their difficulties on anybody else.  It's not an arduous job.  I work from home one day a week (usually Wednesdays - yay, tomorrow!), and I get one "flex day" off each month (after working the extra hours during the previous week, a little extra time each day) - the next one just so happens to be this Friday.  I am in my fifth year of employment, which means I now get three weeks of vacation instead of two.  As of 2006, I am enrolled in both long and short term disability, so if we were to have another baby, I would actually receive 2/3 of my salary while I was on maternity leave (unlike when Katie was born and I took unpaid leave).  Ever since I started here, I've had my own office with a door that closes, and last fall I moved into an office with a window.  I am doing a good job here.  They like me. 

I was talking to Geoff a few minutes ago - he is up at the church today, composing music, Katie-less on a week day for the first time in awhile.  Per university rules, he needs to finish his doctorate either by this fall or, at the latest, by fall of 2007.  In order to give Geoff more time to do the work he needs to do, his dad generously offered to pay for some daycare/babysitting for Katie a few days a week.  Today is Katie's first day with the sitter - a woman named Jennifer who goes to Geoff's church.  She is about our age, with two young sons of her own (the older one about 4, the younger one about 13 months), and Geoff reported that when he took Katie to Jennifer's house today, Katie rang the bell several times, and walked right in when Jennifer opened the door.  The older boy asked if he could help Katie take her shoes and socks off, then handed her a sword and said, "Let's fight." I think Katie will be better off for spending 5 or 6 hours there a couple of days a week.   

But I was talking to Geoff, and I asked him if he was having fun.  "Yes," he said.  "Are you?"

"No," I told him.  "You know I almost never have fun at this job." 

We have a long-term plan to leave Chicago - not this year, and probably not the next.  But maybe the year after that.  We'd like to move to Indianapolis, where we can drive to visit my family and some of our oldest friends more easily - we can drive over for dinner, or for a Saturday afternoon, instead of having each visit be a weekend trip.  Since Geoff only gets three Sundays off a year, weekends are precious - usually if I go somewhere on the weekend, Katie and I go without him. 

But Indianapolis is closer to people we'd like to be closer to, and it's also a less expensive place to live.  Sometimes we look on realtor.com at houses for sale in Indianapolis, and then we report to each other.  For less than the price of our (two bedroom one bath) condo, one of us will tell the other, we could buy this five bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a basement, yard, front porch, back deck.  We sigh longingly. 

Geoff has only been the music director at his church for a little over a year now, and we only bought our condo last May, so we aren't going to move yet, but still, Geoff has been keeping an eye on the church musician job listings.  A little while ago he found a posting for full-time music director at a church in Indianapolis with a salary range starting just barely below my current salary.  He is probably barely qualified for it right now, but in a few years, with a little more experience, it's something he would have a good shot at getting.  And this is the thing - I have always thought that if we moved to Indy, that I would probably use my contacts here to try to find a similar job in the area, but if Geoff got a job like that, then I wouldn't have to.  If Geoff got a job like that, I could stay home with Katie and try to start a photography business, or do free lance writing, OR WHATEVER.  I could do whatever I wanted.

You would think this idea would make me happy, and it did.  But it also made me pretty scared.  That would be it, I think.  That would be my chance.  No more excuses.  I had to admit to myself that there is safety in this job that doesn't make me happy, where I don't have fun. 

Today it is sunny out, and it is already afternoon.  It is quiet here today, and I will spend the afternoon tidying up loose ends on my To Do list, listening to music and drinking water and diet Coke.  At the end of the day today Geoff will pick me up in our falling-apart car, and Katie will grin hugely and say, "Ma! Ma!" when I get in the car, and Molly will wag her whole body at me.  We will drive home together, and we will go inside.  We will have dinner, and I will give Katie her bath, and she will get me soaking wet with all of her splashing.  Maybe I will get out the camera and take pictures of her, trying to capture all of her utter joy on "film" and in my own memory.  Later, we'll get Katie in her pajamas, watch a little bit of tv, then take her to her bedroom to read books (Moo Baa La La La is a current favorite).  We'll turn out the light, sing "Edelweiss," hug her and kiss her good night, and put her in her crib.  As we're leaving the room, she'll say "Night night, Mama.  Night night, Dada."  We'll leave the room, and Geoff will go to his meeting at the church, and I will relax. I will go to bed relatively early, and Geoff will tuck me in.  I'll ask him to set up the coffeemaker so that I will have coffee in the morning when I wake up, and tomorrow I will wake up when I hear my daughter talking and singing to herself in her room.  And I will get to spend all day at home with them, interspersing hugs and songs and dancing with working on claims, watching the sunlight beam in through the windows, watching the dust motes spiral in the air, feeling the warmth that is home. 

Sometimes it feels so greedy to want more. 

Going to Be (Happy Now)

[Reworked from email I sent last week]

I was having a hard week last week, and for a little while before that, too. There was this near-suffocating sadness pressing down on my chest, on me, that I couldn't seem to shake.  I think it was related to money and non-money, to my job, to winter-time sunless days, to the fact that I haven't been writing or exercising but that I wish I were. 

Last Tuesday night, just before wishing me a good night, Geoff pressed his forehead to mine so that he could, as he said, take my sadness from me.  And you know, I don't know how the reality of our lives are divided: how much is made up of what you believe in, and how much is what you wish for, and how much is actually grounded in the physical world.  But I know that as Geoff pressed his head to mine, he said, "Oh, sweetie, you are so sad!" And he teared up. "You are so disconnected from your core!"  He said.  I felt a little better - who knows how much of that was because he took my sadness from me and how much was because he wished that he could.  (And does it even matter?)  I asked him about it the next day, and he said that he had felt a strong wave of sadness wash over him at that moment. 

Sometimes just being understood is so powerful. 

The next day I was telling Geoff that I was still sad, that I wanted to just let myself be happy, but that for some reason I couldn't seem to do it.  I couldn't seem to relax from the anxiety and worry.  He told me that I should just tell myself that I was going to be happy, and I thought about it, and then I opened up a new document in Word, typed "I AM GOING TO BE HAPPY NOW" in 12 point font, printed it out, cut it out, put a piece of tape over it, and taped it to the front of my monitor. And every time I looked at it, I took a deep breath and smiled a little bit, and I felt better, time after time after time. 

By the end of the day I was no longer suffocating.  I stepped out of work at the end of the day, walking to the train amid snow that fell like hail - round weird pellets that bounced off of my hair and my coat - and I felt it: HAPPY.

Sometimes it is all so hard, isn't it?  When I first started working a 9-5 job, after college, I could not get over the sheer vast number of hours that were now gone from me.  That was how I felt about them - they were part of work, not part of my life.  What a waste!  Over the succeeding years, when I have worked 9-5, I have gradually incorporated my own life into those work hours, so that it no longer feels completely separate.  I have friends at work, and I email other friends while at work, and sometimes I shop around online, and I am still me. And on Wednesday I picked up the phone and started to say "Jessamyn North" when I heard the sound of giggling.  It was Katie on the other end. "Hi," I said.  "Hi, mom-mom," she said, and then she gave the phone to Geoff.  "She wanted to call you," he said.  "She picked up the phone and said, 'hi, mom!" and when I asked her if she wanted to call you, she said, "otay!" 

There are so many days when work still drives me crazy, when work still feels like such a waste of my life, but there are other days when it all seems like part of me, when I don't mind so much.

A couple of days before Christmas, while we were in Halifax, I got an email from a literary agent asking me to let her know if I was interested in writing a book.  It turned out that she had found me through the Dot Moms site and recently started up her own business, so she was looking for authors.  It turns out that she only accepts non-fiction, and not (usually) memoir - so I'm not sure if she and I will have any future relationship or not, but in any case I figured I'd send her a writing sample.  I picked out 4 or 5 short pieces and emailed them to her a few weeks ago.  The response I got, while not bad, didn't make me happy.  Several days after I had emailed her, she wrote back and said something like, "I enjoyed reading this and you are a very good writer."  Something like that, and that was all.  "You are a very good writer." Really, is that the best she could do?  I think if it is, then she is not the agent for me.  This doesn't mean that if I write something that fits within the parameters of what she is interested in trying to sell that I wouldn't necessarily send it her way, but if I am looking for someone who will recognize and appreciate my unique wonderful voice (see, I'm trying to just take my talent as a given, and work from there), then I don't think she's the one who's going to do that for me.

I just finished reading Dance of the Dissident Daughter, by Sue Monk Kidd, and I'm feeling more inspired.  It has stuck with me, especially this part when Sue  Monk Kidd says that our souls are made to do two things: to love, and to create.  I can get behind that.  So I have my Sue Monk Kidd book, and I have my I AM GOING TO BE HAPPY NOW sign, and I started re-reading a book we read in my college creative writing class, If You Want to Write, and all of these things are colluding, colliding, meshing with each other. I got an email from my dad that was like that, too - another push in the right direction, another vote of confidence in me, another inspiration. 

Evening Train

Evening Train (4:53 pm)
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

The other day on the el I was sitting across from a woman, man, and baby.  Our train car was mostly empty except for us.  The baby was in her stroller in a cute pink hat, and she was looking at me.  I looked back at her, and I smiled.  She kept looking.  I looked away, looked back, and smiled again.  She kept looking.  I looked away, then looked back.  She smiled right at me, her eyes crinkling up, and I could tell that she was older than I'd first thought.  Maybe the same age as Katie.

After the little girl and I exchanged several smiles, the parents smiled at me a little bit, too.  "How old is she?" I asked them.

"18 months," the mother said. 

"She's beautiful," I said.  "I have a 20 month old daughter at home."

They smiled at me.  "Your first?" the mother asked.

"Yeah," I said.  "Is she your first?"

"No, our fifth," she said, and they both laughed. 

"Wow," I said.

"Yeah," she said.  "It's amazing."

They got off probably two stops later, while we were still going around the Loop.  I was sad to see them go.  I found myself trying to picture what their home is like, what their kids are like.  I wanted to be able to see inside their home, which for some reason I thought I knew would be like.  I thought it would be warm and maybe worn, comfortable, happy.  I wanted to know more about these people who described their experience as parents of five children not as "busy" or "crazy" but as amazing.  I realized that, for a little while, I wanted to have their life.

I spent less than five minutes with these people, and they had me thinking about how great it would be to have five kids.  Now that's amazing.