Last night, something that may have been fortuituous happened. Our satellite receiver/DVR died. It would turn on, but not do anything. We had called a few months ago to cancel our service because it was an expense we really didn't need and they hooked us up with a "select" plan that would give us some channels, free Starz and Encore for 6 months and free receiver/DVR. That sounded pretty good, so I signed up for that deal. Except the channels we got were mostly shopping and infomercial, news and the kind of channels you'd get on basic cable (TNT, TBS, Lifetime). No American Movie Classics or Turner Movie Classics or any of the other channels we would watch. But we went along with it until last night when the receiver died and we realized it was decision time.
My life is busy. Everyone and everything seems to need a piece of me and my time. I have dogs and cats that need attention. I have a son that needs attention. I have a husband that needs me. A full-time job. And a house with about a billion projects in the works. That doesn't even include hobby time or exercising time or just downtime. And of course there are the family obligations from time to time as well. Big family, lots of occasions. I love those and spending time with family but always in the back of my mind is some little voice that says "those stairs aren't going to get done if you keep running off to do stuff."
And honestly, the TV is a distraction. Instead of accomplishing something at the end of the day, I plunk down, turn on the TV and see what's on. It's not like I even have something specific in mind to watch - I just scroll down the guide until I see something that catches my eye. A colossal waste of time.
After a brief discussion this morning with my husband and son, we decided to cancel our satellite TV. I'm sure there will be some withdrawal pains (I'm gonna miss Drop Dead Diva), but we can get a few things over the air and we have Netflix for when we really just have to watch something.
I am relishing the idea of all the time I'll have available to me now that the TV is no longer an issue. If I tackle one little project most days when I get home from work, I can make a big dent in my to do list!
And maybe that little voice will just shut up the next time I'm partying down with my family.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Yesterday's Significance
My family passed a fairly pleasant Fourth of July. My husband had to work the morning shift, so it was just me and my boy much of the day. I got up relatively early while the boy slept in - which is his usual schedule during the summer. Things don't always change just because it's a holiday.
It was somewhat lazy. I did laundry. I loaded and ran the dishwasher. I visited FaceBook and caught up with friends. Later, after lunch, ZBoy's friend William came over and they swam for a while, then came in and played video games.
Mom called and asked if we'd be interested in coming out to the farm for dinner. We had no plans and an evening at the farm sounded lovely. As soon as Darling Man got home from work, we'd head out there.
DM brought along his bike to ride home after dinner. It's a long ride (about 25-30 miles), but he's done it before and after three days of early shift work, his body was screaming at him to stretch it out and work it hard. My dad had another idea of how to work my husband's body and put him to work digging in monkey grass in the flower bed out back.
Dinner was awesome. Dad made steaks (a gift from my brother Matt) and the way he did it was so good! First he put buttrub all over them and let them sit a few minutes, then seared the outsides in a cast iron skillet. After that, he put them on a rack and BAKED them until the internal temperature was 130-140. Oh. My. God... I don't normally eat steak. Something about the density really upsets my stomach but this was absolutely amazing! I ate this steak! It was heavenly... Mom made scalloped potatoes and garlic bread and a salad from America's Test Kitchen. It looked and smelled so good... Everyone loved it!! I wish I could have eaten it, but there were lots of tomatoes in it and I'm sensitive to raw tomatoes. They make my mouth blister and it takes about a week to recover from that. But my son just LOVED it, which is odd for him. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with hot fudge on top.
So this sounds like a fairly normal Fourth of July gathering... nothing special or out of the ordinary, right? But it is special and for immigrants and their families, this celebration is out of the ordinary.
My dad is an immigrant. He came over here from England at the age of 16. There was (to my knowledge) no big impetus to get here - no war to escape from or some kind of oppression. But life required a change for him, his mother and his brother. They came here to renew their own lives. My uncle went back to England. My grandmother stayed here until I was around 8 years old. She'd remarried and settled here with her new husband. Eventually they moved to Canada and then back to England. But my dad stayed here. He found a lovely woman to marry, a job that paid enough to support him and his little family. And he became an American in 1964. He chose to make his life here.
Compared to so many other countries, this is an amazing place. We have the freedom to think what we want to, say what we want to, worship the way we want to. We have a say in our own taxation. The government belongs to us and we can change it whenever we want to. That's not to say that things are perfect here. People sometimes head down the wrong path and government follows along - but unlike countries with kings or dictators, we have the ability to turn it around without persecution or the threat of lethal upheavals. We, the people, decide what is important. What is worth paying for, what is worth working for, and what is worth dying for. Not every place has that freedom.
So while our celebrations were low key and quiet, we did celebrate being here together as a family in this land my father chose as his home.
It was somewhat lazy. I did laundry. I loaded and ran the dishwasher. I visited FaceBook and caught up with friends. Later, after lunch, ZBoy's friend William came over and they swam for a while, then came in and played video games.
Mom called and asked if we'd be interested in coming out to the farm for dinner. We had no plans and an evening at the farm sounded lovely. As soon as Darling Man got home from work, we'd head out there.
DM brought along his bike to ride home after dinner. It's a long ride (about 25-30 miles), but he's done it before and after three days of early shift work, his body was screaming at him to stretch it out and work it hard. My dad had another idea of how to work my husband's body and put him to work digging in monkey grass in the flower bed out back.
Dinner was awesome. Dad made steaks (a gift from my brother Matt) and the way he did it was so good! First he put buttrub all over them and let them sit a few minutes, then seared the outsides in a cast iron skillet. After that, he put them on a rack and BAKED them until the internal temperature was 130-140. Oh. My. God... I don't normally eat steak. Something about the density really upsets my stomach but this was absolutely amazing! I ate this steak! It was heavenly... Mom made scalloped potatoes and garlic bread and a salad from America's Test Kitchen. It looked and smelled so good... Everyone loved it!! I wish I could have eaten it, but there were lots of tomatoes in it and I'm sensitive to raw tomatoes. They make my mouth blister and it takes about a week to recover from that. But my son just LOVED it, which is odd for him. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with hot fudge on top.
So this sounds like a fairly normal Fourth of July gathering... nothing special or out of the ordinary, right? But it is special and for immigrants and their families, this celebration is out of the ordinary.
My dad is an immigrant. He came over here from England at the age of 16. There was (to my knowledge) no big impetus to get here - no war to escape from or some kind of oppression. But life required a change for him, his mother and his brother. They came here to renew their own lives. My uncle went back to England. My grandmother stayed here until I was around 8 years old. She'd remarried and settled here with her new husband. Eventually they moved to Canada and then back to England. But my dad stayed here. He found a lovely woman to marry, a job that paid enough to support him and his little family. And he became an American in 1964. He chose to make his life here.
Compared to so many other countries, this is an amazing place. We have the freedom to think what we want to, say what we want to, worship the way we want to. We have a say in our own taxation. The government belongs to us and we can change it whenever we want to. That's not to say that things are perfect here. People sometimes head down the wrong path and government follows along - but unlike countries with kings or dictators, we have the ability to turn it around without persecution or the threat of lethal upheavals. We, the people, decide what is important. What is worth paying for, what is worth working for, and what is worth dying for. Not every place has that freedom.
So while our celebrations were low key and quiet, we did celebrate being here together as a family in this land my father chose as his home.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
On the Right, Towards the Back
Humans are such creatures of habit. Do something a few times and somehow it becomes the way you do it.
It's kind of like school. The shy kids or the ones that were up to no good sat in the back. Hardly anyone wanted to sit up front by the teacher - she might call on you, so if it were possible, no one sat on the front row.
When I first started taking my son to church, there weren't very many people there. The back rows were always roped off in an effort to make people sit closer. My boy and I always sat in the last row that wasn't roped off. He's not a baby, but a reluctant attendee. I allowed him to bring a book to read, but I wasn't keen on him doing that in front of everyone. At least back there, he could read and not be obvious in his inattention to the service.
And honestly, that's where I felt most comfortable sitting. The ropes have been removed, so sometimes there are people behind us, but as a rule, ZBoy and I still sit toward the back. I am happy to report that the book stays home these days. It was a gradual weaning.
At first, he sat there and read it all the way through the service. Then he started putting it down for the sermon (because really, they're usually pretty great sermons). And the prayers. Eventually he'd bring it but never open it. It sat on the pew in favor of the Hymnal or the Book of Common Prayer.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a Youth Service. It was Z's first time to acolyte and he found it interesting. Today he did it again. And he'll do it again next week. He thinks it's very cool - even if the robe he has to wear is hot. When I was acolyting, the robes were lightweight cotton affairs. Now the fabric is heavier and there are snaps and such to figure out. And even after all this time, I'm still not sure how to tie the belt...
Today was different for both of us though. Today, I sat on the third row back (though still on the right). Today, I was to read the First Lesson and the Psalm.
I got my reading on Tuesday and looked over it, found a few words I wasn't sure of the pronounciation of, went to our church's website and listened to them spoken in the lectionary dictionary. The hardest one was Beer-lahairoi (the region Isaac hailed from). I said it over and over again, and read my lesson several times.
It was a long one. About Rebekah and how she came to be Isaac's wife. The wording was somewhat awkward, as Isaac's servant seemed to like to repeat himself and script out what he's going to say before he says it (I guess we all know people like that, huh?). Before the service, Nancy, the woman who sent the lesson to me asked if I'd figured out how to say Beer-lahairoi yet, so I promptly said it for her - and said it wrong. Gah!
I sat near the front so I wouldn't have much time to think about my reading on the walk from my seat to the podium up front. I wasn't nervous, exactly. Usually when I read though, I'm sitting in a little room with a microphone and someone on the other end of the building talking to me over headsets. Doing this standing up in front of people was different. I got up there, hands shaking a little and started reading.
When I read, I read like I'm telling someone a story. With inflections and pauses and very subtle voice changes. I read the Lesson like that because according to my brief training session, that's how they want it read. The goal is to have people listening to the Lector rather than reading along and never looking up. I saw a lot of faces today.
Afterwards, several people told me that they really enjoyed my reading and as people processed back from communion, I got a few thumbs up. Obviously it went pretty well.
Now that I've done it once, it won't be so scary to do it again. After all, I've already done it. And honestly, I really enjoyed it.
Next week, I may be back in my regular pew, on the right towards the back. And maybe I won't.
It's kind of like school. The shy kids or the ones that were up to no good sat in the back. Hardly anyone wanted to sit up front by the teacher - she might call on you, so if it were possible, no one sat on the front row.
When I first started taking my son to church, there weren't very many people there. The back rows were always roped off in an effort to make people sit closer. My boy and I always sat in the last row that wasn't roped off. He's not a baby, but a reluctant attendee. I allowed him to bring a book to read, but I wasn't keen on him doing that in front of everyone. At least back there, he could read and not be obvious in his inattention to the service.
And honestly, that's where I felt most comfortable sitting. The ropes have been removed, so sometimes there are people behind us, but as a rule, ZBoy and I still sit toward the back. I am happy to report that the book stays home these days. It was a gradual weaning.
At first, he sat there and read it all the way through the service. Then he started putting it down for the sermon (because really, they're usually pretty great sermons). And the prayers. Eventually he'd bring it but never open it. It sat on the pew in favor of the Hymnal or the Book of Common Prayer.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a Youth Service. It was Z's first time to acolyte and he found it interesting. Today he did it again. And he'll do it again next week. He thinks it's very cool - even if the robe he has to wear is hot. When I was acolyting, the robes were lightweight cotton affairs. Now the fabric is heavier and there are snaps and such to figure out. And even after all this time, I'm still not sure how to tie the belt...
Today was different for both of us though. Today, I sat on the third row back (though still on the right). Today, I was to read the First Lesson and the Psalm.
I got my reading on Tuesday and looked over it, found a few words I wasn't sure of the pronounciation of, went to our church's website and listened to them spoken in the lectionary dictionary. The hardest one was Beer-lahairoi (the region Isaac hailed from). I said it over and over again, and read my lesson several times.
It was a long one. About Rebekah and how she came to be Isaac's wife. The wording was somewhat awkward, as Isaac's servant seemed to like to repeat himself and script out what he's going to say before he says it (I guess we all know people like that, huh?). Before the service, Nancy, the woman who sent the lesson to me asked if I'd figured out how to say Beer-lahairoi yet, so I promptly said it for her - and said it wrong. Gah!
I sat near the front so I wouldn't have much time to think about my reading on the walk from my seat to the podium up front. I wasn't nervous, exactly. Usually when I read though, I'm sitting in a little room with a microphone and someone on the other end of the building talking to me over headsets. Doing this standing up in front of people was different. I got up there, hands shaking a little and started reading.
When I read, I read like I'm telling someone a story. With inflections and pauses and very subtle voice changes. I read the Lesson like that because according to my brief training session, that's how they want it read. The goal is to have people listening to the Lector rather than reading along and never looking up. I saw a lot of faces today.
Afterwards, several people told me that they really enjoyed my reading and as people processed back from communion, I got a few thumbs up. Obviously it went pretty well.
Now that I've done it once, it won't be so scary to do it again. After all, I've already done it. And honestly, I really enjoyed it.
Next week, I may be back in my regular pew, on the right towards the back. And maybe I won't.
One Step at a Time
As usual, I rather unintentionally got myself into another household project. You may remember when my husband got fed up with the carpeted stairs. He ripped out all the carpet upstairs in the hallway and down the stairs. It's been a while. In that time, I also painted the hallway the same lemon mint green as the family room downstairs.
It's beautiful in the family room, which has a sliding glass door to let in the light, but in the upstairs, dark hallway... it's rather intense. It did brighten it up, but not in a good way. I have it a long time to decide if I liked it or didn't and finally decided that I really didn't. So I went to Lowes and picked out a new color - Lotus Flower, which is a greeny/yellowy white. The beauty of it is how well it reflects light. Perfect for our dark hallway.
Painting is an easy project for me. Cut in. Roll it on. Don't lean on the wall until it's dry. You can change the whole feel of a room with painting. But being me, I like a perfect job. The hallway includes the staircase. And when Darling Man ripped out the carpet, it left glue and bits of carpet fibers on the wall. I cannot paint over it... I have to clean that up.
The stairs are in need of repair anyway. The treads are squeaky and anyone going up them makes a terrible racket. This includes the cats. Since I had to sand down the walls right next to the stairs, I decided to pull up the treads, sand properly - and I might as well deal with the stairs while I'm at it.
I've been thinking about this for a while, how to do the stairs. Because it is dark wood, that was never meant to be seen in the first place, I decided to paint the risers and stain the treads. I didn't have any stain on hand, but I could get a feel for how it would turn out by painting the riser when I painted the wall, which would be the same color.
It turned out looking pretty good. The wall cleaned up nicely and painted smoothly. Two coats of paint had the riser looking good. I only got one stair done, but I worked a lot out as I did it. There's a plan of action now.
One down, fourteen to go!
It's beautiful in the family room, which has a sliding glass door to let in the light, but in the upstairs, dark hallway... it's rather intense. It did brighten it up, but not in a good way. I have it a long time to decide if I liked it or didn't and finally decided that I really didn't. So I went to Lowes and picked out a new color - Lotus Flower, which is a greeny/yellowy white. The beauty of it is how well it reflects light. Perfect for our dark hallway.
Painting is an easy project for me. Cut in. Roll it on. Don't lean on the wall until it's dry. You can change the whole feel of a room with painting. But being me, I like a perfect job. The hallway includes the staircase. And when Darling Man ripped out the carpet, it left glue and bits of carpet fibers on the wall. I cannot paint over it... I have to clean that up.
The stairs are in need of repair anyway. The treads are squeaky and anyone going up them makes a terrible racket. This includes the cats. Since I had to sand down the walls right next to the stairs, I decided to pull up the treads, sand properly - and I might as well deal with the stairs while I'm at it.
One down, fourteen to go!
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