Sick & Tired Leave

I'm taking a little break to take care of a sick little girl (getting better, but we're keeping her home from school one more day). I'm taking a break to rest a little myself. Something about the turn of the weather (cold!) that can knock me out a little bit. And I'm going to do laundry.

A lot of laundry.

Appetite

I've been thinking about appetite.

Sort of random, I guess.

And not just food appetite, but all of our appetites. And human beings have appetites.

The problem is when we become a slave to our appetites. Too much food, tv, internet, emotion, material possessions.

So then I've been thinking about appetite in relation to the commandments of God.

Ultimately commandments help us to take care of ourselves in such a way that two things are possible: we are unencumbered as much as possible in being able to choose goodness and joy, and that we do not put upon others the unhappy consequences of our own actions. In fact the Savior's admonition to be wise a serpents and harmless as doves comes to mind here.

There will always be those who decry this morality as inhibiting to true freedom. Sure. Freedom to wake up hung over after doing something stupid the night before. Freedom to feel gross and be unhealthy because one has consistently chosen a fast food diet. Freedom to impinge upon another life you are responsible for creating, even though that was the last thing on your mind at the time. Freedom to send the entire world market into prolonged panic and disaster because you wanted more than was reasonable and prudent at the time.

We all have our own appetites we struggle with. But the point is to keep trying to overcome, because eventually we can.

Beware the person so consumed by their appetites they can do little else but eventually succumb to their own desires. They may be really nice people, but ultimately they live for their desires and nothing else. They can't help it.

To Sum Things Up A Bit...

Michelle at Scribbit has posted an interview with me today. Mostly it's about art in various forms. So to celebrate, here are some of my more artistic, writerly posts that I like.

Vignettes from Late August ~ on the passing of my Grandmother

Mr. Smith: jr. high band teacher ~ about, yes, jr. high band

ahoy, there! mateys! ~ a light hearted reflection on pirates and motherhood

Awe ~ about my experience with Michelangelo's Moses

and also, just for fun:

Allysha 101 ~ more about yours truly.

Another note: My good friend Lindsy closed up her food blog this past week. It was a wonderful collection of her beautiful photographs of the amazing things she created in the kitchen. I asked her to write about cooking as a creative endeavor for Just an Orange. Here is a link to her essay. It's worth a read.

To Snow or Not to Snow...

Today it is supposed to snow. It's trying. There are a few minuscule ice crystals floating around in the air. The wind has come to blow almost all of the leaves off my tree. It is starting to look bare and rather late-fallish. If this storm can get off the ground my kids will be excited and ecstatic. I will be content either way. This snow will not last. It will be chilly outside. But it will make things cozy inside. Mostly I plan on ignoring it.

Today:

I shall make my bed.

Do the dishes.

Clean up the kitchen.

Eat some granola.

Read a book.

Help with some homework.

Call it a good day.

Magnetic Poetry

I've been cleaning out, going through things.

I have come across my Magnetic Poetry set.

I like poetry.

In my humble opinion, the magnetic way of putting down verse actually isn't all that effective, however. Still, it's amusing.

So before I disassemble the wondrous combination of words from my notebook, I shall publish here for the first time the fantastic results of my foray into the genre where negative and positive ions bond together, please oh please note the good dose of tongue and cheek with which they were written. Otherwise I shall go and hide under a rock.

May we all have a good laugh. Eat your heart out, Atlantic Monthly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He felt her chains rip

through the skin of his feet

as he ran

his bitter goddess stared

singing to eternity

her need

his death

her dreams

his worship

they lie behind the smooth beauty of the moon

~

raw milk

is less

as am

{full disclosure: these may just be random words and not an actual poem}

~

by & by

I am the why

always when

& never who

me

are you

and yet

it rains

~

sea cried the maiden

as the delicate girl like a weak

rose whispered for fallen skies

a symphony of mist and shadow

recall her soul about

chants tell heave of an...

{this poem has obviously been thrown into disrepair over the course of years. Like 10 years, to be exact.}

~

smooth

sky in language

is our friend

~

{I just wanted to note that the magnetic poetry people felt it utterly necessary to provide the word "goddess" for me twice. Since obviously that has been a word oft used in poetry. Oh wait, not really since the Odyssey and the Iliad. Also the necessary words love, lust, frantic, blood, luscious, raw...hey it just occurred to me...Do you think Twilight was written with magnetic poetry? Now there's something to think about...}

{Also: any surprise I picked this up long ago in my college bookstore. That's the age for it, isn't it?}

~

you were out peach

~

LA FIN

{a.k.a. The End}

~

I know. You're a little bit bummed about that. Sorry. You'll just have to wait until I pull out my early college journals.

The Lovely Overtones

One of the things I love about Fall is that the grey days, instead of being dreary, make the colors on the trees and houses seem even more vibrant. Some how the backdrop of the steel clouds is the perfect compliment to the golds and reds and remaining greens.

Our new place of residence has overtones of New York. There are elegant houses that were constructed way back when, some of which have been kept up so nicely, and then there are those whose past beauty is a shadow, but you can still see it lurking there. Tuckahoe was a town that had it's nice upperclass streets and then what I lovingly referred to as "The Getto." It wasn't really the getto. But the area was full of formerly grand houses that had been carved up into various apartments, with some landlords being more fastidious about the house and the grounds than others.

Days like today deserve a cup of hot chocolate, just a small one because it's not really that cold, a nice little project-- perhaps moving the bookshelves from one wall to another-- and some good music playing in the background. The overtones of the past few years are combining nicely with the chord progression of today. It's a nice sound.

image from here.

A Day

I am channeling my inner-nineties teenager on holiday today, dressed in exercise pants and a sweatshirt that is too big for me. I could be heading off to cheer camp. But I'm not. I am sitting on my front porch enjoying the air that is just bordering on too chilly and my kids are riding around on various transportive devices such as bikes, scooters, and the like. My oldest, afraid of the roaming neighborhood dog-- a small Chihuahua, I believe-- is in the house reading a book.

The colors on the mountain are fading to their predictable post-color brown, while the trees in the valley are just getting warmed up. It is a regret of mine that the tree in our front yard, a rather spectacular and petite maple, will simply fade to a dreary color before losing it's leaves. Someday I plan to plant a multitude of trees that send off brilliant sparks before passing quietly into Winter.

My son is still in his pajamas. Rather than a sign of simple Fall-day leisure and enjoyment I see it more emblematic of the fact that he refuses to potty train. I hate potty training. And the yucca plant I had my sister pull out over the summer has decided to make a resurgence and has grown a happy eight inches out of nowhere.

A more welcome note of determination is the plant still flowering on my porch, despite a summer of lackadaisical watering and care. It's small bright pink flowers are a testament to that fact that wanted things can be just present as some of the unwanted things.

Thank goodness for nice Fall days and bright star flowers.

At the Top of My Wish List

A Kawai Upright Piano. Black. 45" or 48" tall.

Loose ends. I am so there.

Yesterday was early out day at the elementary school. An early out day that is NOT a Monday or a Friday should be non-existent.

I was on the ball, going to Walmart for some spray adhesive for a project my daughter needed to turn in (another story on it's own, and yet, if I were to tell you about it, it would be strangely reminiscent of the theme of this post). I looked at the clock. I had just enough time to shrink wrap the project (an art piece--watercolor-- by the way) and arrive at the school a few minutes early.

I walked into the office to drop off the precious project and lo-and-behold, there was my kindergartner sitting on the couch. I thought to myself "How odd. Why is she in the office with only a few minutes of school left?" I asked her as much.

You know where this is going.

"I've been waiting for you." She said calmly.

I'd forgotten that yesterday was Wednesday. Early out. Here I was all excited to pick her up a little early. I was late, instead.

I compensated by forgetting what time all the other students get out of school on Wednesday by showing up, totally unwittingly, 15 minutes early to pick up my other daughter.

I have lost my son's Halloween costume. I have NO CLUE where it went. I am distraught.

I cannot find a movie that I have had in my nightstand for the last four months. WHERE DID IT GO?

I have not been able to remember what day it is this week for the life of me.

My kitchen is almost done. But there is, due to various and sundry leaks, most of which occurred before we bought this house, mold in my bathrooms. Behind the drywall.

So now we must do major reconstructive surgery on the bathrooms in this house (both of them) and I am thinking of constructing an outhouse for the duration.

And I still can't find the Halloweeen costume, for which I spent good money that could have gone towards bathroom renovations and not towards a lost bag with a Buzz Lightyear costume (that also doubles as pajamas. Now I may have to buy new pj's, too.)

The sad thing is, I hadn't even shown them to my son, who would have died of pleasure to know they existed.

I'm really not unravelling.

But I am going to take a nice bath this morning.

Post #5 for Month: September

The sky is gray and the wind is -- not quite moaning but -- sighing through a small crack in my window. The mountains are dusted with a smidgen of snow on the very top, the fall leaves peaking through the ice crystals.

This month has flown by with unusual speed. I am aware that as I get older time has a tendency to slip faster and faster through the hourglass of life. But this September has been a blink of my eye, a breath coming through my lips, a syllable, just short of a sigh.

Ben and I are engaged in the annual semester sprint to the the finish line. This year it started earlier than usual. But I think we're getting better at running it. This is not necessarily a virtue for the future, but for the present it's what it is. Monday, in an attempt to have a family moment, we put the kids in the car, picked up some ice cream and drove up the canyon to enjoy the fall foliage.

I forget that not everyone lives right next to spectacular mountains that spire up into the blue blue sky. Fall in the East is a slow burn starting sometime in October and spreading slowly down south with it's splendid colors through the month of November and I loved it dearly. Fall here in the Rocky Mountains can be a flash in the pan, here then gone. A damp and wet Spring, like the one we had this year, usually brings out vivid brilliant color. This year is no exception.

Everyone happily finishing up their Oreo shakes, we turned onto the road that travels up through the mountains. I looked up my eyes straining for the top. There are so many things one can worry about. So many things to become tired with and of and several other prepositions, I'm sure. But just then, anything that might have been on my mind was consumed as my eyes kindled with the brightness peaking through the evergreen trees. The glorious colors took flight inside me and suddenly I was blazing up through the trees on fire with the leaves, consumed in rich color almost too bold and glorious to behold.

It was hard to come back down again, but the descent was just as wonderful.