I decided just to go ahead and use my SkyView app for starting to learn the constellations. It’s super easy. All you have to do is go to the app store and type in SkyView. It’s the free one so it’s actually SkyView Lite. The field journal I have has been on my nightstand for months and is a beautiful book. Other than looking through it a few times, I haven’t gotten to it with everything else.

Maybe at some point I might still try to learn them the other way, like when you’re logging your field hours and drawing the pictures. But I wasn’t learning them at all by not doing anything, so I decided to start with Orion and work around from there. Certain constellations are only visible certain times of the year. They say winter is when he’s most visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

The next one is Taurus which is to the upper right of Orion. The app is nice too because it shows you a drawing-like picture of what the constellation is supposed to be, in this case, a bull. I’m trying to be able to just look up and find him, like on clear night when we happen to be getting home after dark. Gemini is an easier one to Orion’s upper left. Leo I can find because his body is a trapezoid.

“I think that might be an oldest child thing.”
~Mom~

The kids had a track meet this evening. They had one yesterday evening as well, which is an unusual thing to have two in a row. The coach added the one yesterday with the likely possibility that tonight’s meet would end up being cancelled due to weather. It didn’t end up raining, so the track meet was on. The temps were actually comfortably warm. There was just this constant gust of flatland, country, midwestern wind.

Most of the time being a mom of teens has been positive, but every so often I have conflicts with my older two kids. It happened tonight, where my mom feelings were hurt. I know I have my own issues that are mine to deal with and not things to project onto other people. My “love” is tainted in many ways, and yet even still I can find it hurtful, even lonely, when my heart so often goes unseen. Why don’t these ones who I love so much, who I would surely do almost anything for, why can’t they see me? Why do I feel such alienation?

I think likely first and foremost it’s a matter of maturity. With me being the adult, I’m supposed to be the one who possesses this quality in greater measure. The Bible says not to be wise in your own eyes, but sometimes I do wonder things like, “Why doesn’t anyone appreciate my wisdom?” I remember asking my mom one time regarding a conflict with one of my siblings, “But when is my wisdom going to count for something?”

“Nobody can be interesting all the time, sustain high energy all the time, or fully invest himself or herself all the time. Never travel with anyone who expects you to be interesting, lively, and emotionally invested all the time. Real life doesn’t work that way. Neither does prayer.”
~Ronald Rolheiser, Domestic Monastery~

I am aware that when I write here I occasionally reveal what are glaring errors in my thinking. For example, after I wrote that one post about being upset that’d spent so much time of my spring break reading articles and threads about an article I’d read on the internet, I realized something. First, I had also just listed the various ways my family had spent some of their spring break, which all included doing things that they enjoy.

My husband enjoys doing special things for his kids. My son enjoys the Cardinals and watching their games. My boys enjoy playing Minecraft and learning tips from other players. My daughter, who loves animals, enjoys spending time with her cousins as well as meeting my sister’s new pets. There is nothing wrong with any of these activities and it makes total sense, that being the people they are, that this is what they were doing.

In that way, it also makes sense that I was spending my spring break, a time when one would normally experience a suspended time from certain duties, spending more time engaged in something like reading. In this case, my thing was reading about about a topic I am interested in and spending time also reading what other people have to say about it. Reading about what interests me is something that I as a person like to do.

“Why are you saying this? You’re just trying to justify the various ways you waste your time.” Actually, no. Two different things can be true at one time. There can be activities that a person enjoys and likes to do, such as reading or writing, and there can also be misuse or poor use of those activities. I don’t feel as though I am saying that right. What I mean is, I can be okay with spending time reading, and also be frustrated about it.

But back to the time thing, it seems to be a theme that’s come up a couple of times. There are a lot of things I currently feel frustrated with as far as my time goes. There are a lot of things I want to work on and do, things that take time, and time that takes me being able to better organize myself and choose the ways I want to spend it. This season of life is pushing me to grow in this area and it’s been good to do so. I actually like being organized.

Not that that’s a word people would use to describe me, by any means. I’m just saying that I’m willing to learn and keep trying, to keep growing in the ways God would have me to grow. Another thing I realized is that I misquoted Paul. I said he called himself a Pharisee of Pharisees but what he said, at least in the passage I was thinking of, was that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Maybe silly to mention but I also felt it worth doing so.

(The above would be a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT)

The boys needed haircuts this evening. Everyone gets haircuts before Christmas and Easter, at least anyone whose hair is looking like it needs trimmed. I got my haircut two months ago for the second time since covid. I originally asked her for two inches off and when she looked at it she said it really needed four in order to get back to the healthy parts. So I reluctantly agreed to the length, even though I knew that meant it was going to be too short for a while.

We had a nice visit with my in-laws this afternoon. I’ve been on a bit of a food planning kick. Last Saturday while thinking up a new weekly menu, I asked if they wanted to come over for Palm Sunday lunch. Holy Week has completely snuck up on me. I don’t know even know what really happened to Lent. Josh used to give his dad haircuts every so often after lunch. After his first chemo treatment he lost his hair, and it hasn’t been cut since it started falling out.

One of the boys wasn’t thrilled about his hair. He gets down and quiet whenever something is bothering him. I’ve been cutting their hair lately and it isn’t unusual for one or two to dislike it at first. They do the same thing when dad cuts it so I know it isn’t just me. Josh cuts his own hair and has done so for as long as I’ve known him. He used to let me cut it sometimes during the summer when we worked here. I occasionally still help him with the back if he asks.

“Monks have secrets worth knowing, and anyone who has ever been to a monastery knows that monks (who pray often and a lot) sustain themselves in prayer not through feeling, variety, or creativity, but through ritual, rhythm, and routine.”
~Ronald Rolheiser, Domestic Monastery~

I can already tell I’m going to love this book. I haven’t been reading much, it feels hard these days. My brain feels oversaturated and I don’t know if it’s just the tiredness of winter or something else, a worldly, phonely, malaise. They talk all the time about how our phones are destroying our attention spans and making it harder to read actual books. I’ve really never felt anything like that till now.

School probably is part of it. Any time sitting down feels like a betrayal of my duties, and yet, duty continues to call every day. I don’t mind it, I truly don’t, no matter how much I let it slip every so often that housework, clothes, meals remain an unending task. I walked around the upstairs this morning, noticing each of the rooms and thought, “It’s really not bad. The house isn’t that bad.” It really isn’t, it truly isn’t.

There were houses in town that suffered damage from the storm. Thankfully, from what we heard, no one was hurt. My sister texted this morning with pictures from her in-laws property. They live in a wooded acreage and there were downed trees everywhere, huge trees bent in half, fallen, or mangled. Thankfully too their home was not affected. My sister partial to trees–the oaks–wept when she saw them.

My back is doing better since the last time I mentioned it. I called the doctor on Monday and got a prescription for a muscle relaxer. I stayed home Monday night from class but by Wednesday evening felt well enough to go to the high school home ball game. Thursday I was up and walking around again and today could do normal modified house chores including getting the dining room extra-clean for company tomorrow.

One of the boys stayed home and helped me. The rest of the kids were with Dad for the camp work day. They had a small group this time, with the only other ones there being the maintenance man and one of my son’s school friends. But it was enough to get the cabins swept, the boats put out, and the main utility closet cleaned. We had lunch in the dining hall where blazed already a warm fire.

My dad called to see how things had gone with the storms. He usually calls to let us know when they’re coming, which he did that too, and I noticed then I had missed it. He’s always been one to keep an eye on the weather, especially this time of year when tornado warnings come around.

It wasn’t too bad here. We had rain, hail, and thunderstorms, but the winds didn’t seem too crazily high. We rode into Sherman where we heard there’d been a possible touchdown. On the way we saw a line of around six snapped power line poles, the top halves nowhere to be seen.

The power went out later this evening and the internet also. It wasn’t too long before it came back on, about an hour. In the meantime Dad and a few of the kids told stories. We were all in the living room with flashlights and candles. When the power came back everyone finished their show.

“From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.”
~1 Corinthians 7:29-31~

When my husband’s grandmother passed away a couple of years ago, there was a line in her obituary, written by one of her sons, that stood out to me and made me sad. When describing the many things in her life that she’d done throughout her almost 92 years, included in there was a line about her saying something along the lines of her being “one who regularly gave more love than she received in return.”

As I thought about it more, it seemed very true. At Christmas she used to give each of her grandkids a huge gift bag filled with presents and money. I was always included in this. Sometimes it was a homemade afghan. Sometimes it was a cookie cookbook with a cookie jar. For a while our son was included as well, but as time went on, and we had more kids, and she got older and started slowing down, the gift bags transitioned to an envelope of money.

And so it went, year after year, with Christmas cards and birthdays. Besides my own kids at Christmas, I’m not a great gift-giver. I don’t know what to get people. I don’t think about it soon enough. But as time went on we did try to remember the grandparents at Christmas time at least with a card or family picture or something. One time we got her some nice-smelling lotion because it seemed like something you might get for a grandma. I don’t know if it bothered her, as she slowed down even more, that the gift-giving and card-sending was so often one-sided.

But it bothered me. “What a horrid way to live your life”, I thought, to live that long, to love that much, for those who didn’t even love you the same way back. I’ve had similar thoughts regarding similar situations. I can see the same thing in the life of my grandmother. She’d send out packages for each family, filled with stocking stuffers and presents for the grandkids and great-grandkids. For years she did this and it gave her great joy.

She did this until she could no longer do it. I know the giving thing isn’t just something that happens with grandmas and moms. At some point, what dads receive for Christmas are socks and peanuts, coffee and maybe a special mug. There’s this point in adulthood where gifts are nice, but at the same time, you don’t really need anything that you couldn’t just go out and buy yourself. Holidays are more about the joy of giving, being with loved ones, and being grateful for the time together.

And as life goes on further, that’s what all of life becomes; about the joy of giving, being with loved ones, and being grateful for time together. Or at least that’s what it’s become, or is becoming more for me. I look around at my family and the way they’re expanding, the way they are growing, the way they simply for the past several years have kept going about their daily lives including more and more things outside of our home life, and I find it sometimes to be a little disorienting.

I think there was a part of me that was hoping that all this stuff that happened with my health would be a wake-up call. That’s how these stories are supposed to go. You go through hard times that make you more appreciative of the people around you. You walk away humbled and more aware of life’s brevity. You realize how stupid you’ve been and how you don’t want to live that way anymore.

They say it makes you more compassionate toward the pains and sufferings of others, something I wouldn’t have thought was something I needed or my problem. I remember when Tim Keller was first diagnosed with cancer, he tweeted out something about asking for prayers that God would work to wean him from the joys and pleasures of this life. This is another thing they say God does in our trials, that he uses them to push us further toward the goal of this life, to raise us ever closer to the joys of God in the next one.

During covid I remember that one of the things I was concerned about was having medical supplies on hand. I downloaded a plant identification app for the purpose of learning the local plants and their medicinal properties. Somewhere I still have a tincture I made from purple dead nettle that I would’ve never consumed or let anyone else drink. It was supposed to be something that would counter the effects of a cytokine storm.

Downstairs I have a Rubbermaid tub of now expired IV fluids, tubing, and start kits. Like if for some reason the hospitals were shut down, or filled to the brim, or there was some kind of natural disaster like the people of Hoyleton being struck by an earthquake caused by the activation of the New Madrid fault and we needed to go back there and help somehow, then we needed to be ready. I haven’t started an IV in over 14 years, and when I retired, I had not reached the point yet of being completely confident with my IV start skills, where you’re a one and done stick with no bruises.

I remember one day when it occurred to me, when I was walking around identifying plants I no longer remember, that in all of these scenarios I am the one who is the helper and not the one in need of help. I am not the one in need of the IV fluids, sutures, or painkillers. I am the strong one helping the hurt or sick one in need. This disturbed me to think about. Counting on me to be the person who is never sick, never injured, never the one in need of care, did not seem to me a reliable system.

Josh took the boys to school today. They left earlier than normal which means they needed to be dropped off at the before school care program. We hadn’t registered them, we hadn’t paid for anything, we hadn’t let anybody know they were coming, he just showed up and dropped them off. All of this happened while I was barely awake, when taking them myself, while potentially doable, would not have been a smart option. The person at the door showed the boys where to go, where they stayed until it was time to go to their classrooms.

When they came home later I needed to go to the bathroom. I’d gone during the morning but this particular time I was having trouble standing up. Josh stood in front of me, walking backwards while I held on to him and he held on to me. “Isn’t this romantic?”, he said, and I said, “Yeah, it kinda reminds me of dancing.” Every time he’s had to do this I think, “No, this is my job.” This is what I am supposed to be doing, helping people go to the bathroom, get up and walk, and get ready for bed.

It’s crazy to me how visceral it all is, how close it still is, how fast it comes back. The memories, the motions, the walkers, the smells. I liked that job and yes indeed, I do miss it. Like, I am done now being the one who is in need and unable. I am done being the one impaired, who can no longer do the things I used to or want to be able to do. And I know this isn’t right, that I might as well be uttering blasphemy, that until the Lord returns, the good work and wait of being human is never done.

I reinjured my back this morning at church. Because I had been moving around better yesterday and because I also was scheduled to teach Sunday School this morning, I went to church. I went to sit in the cry room where I could have more privacy and where I could sit without the going up and down throughout the service. Instead of lifting or moving the chair with my arms, I tried to push the chair closer to the window with my foot. That ended up being a bad idea.

At the current moment I’m finding this frustrating plus I am also in pain. Tonight camp has their annual banquet down at the dining hall. I was very much looking forward to going and hearing the speaker, sharing the meal, and just being down there. I’m back to crawling around on the floor again, alone in my bed. We had an unexpected guest this afternoon, a pastor’s wife whose husband had an unexpected hospital visit. It was frustrating to not be able to visit with her more.

One of the boys just came back to bring up some food for me. I was basically holding it together until I saw him. He put some dressing on my salad and brought me water and ibuprofen. I said to him then, “I need you to sit here for a minute”. I envisioned him sitting up closer to my head where I could wrap my arms around his waist and bury my head in his lap while I sobbed. He said, “Okay” and sat down on the bed. I didn’t ask him to come closer but it ended up being close enough.

Yesterday morning I hurt my back while making breakfast. I’d bent down to get something from the pantry’s bottom shelf and suddenly found myself in pain and unable to move. Long story short I was in bed for most of yesterday icing my lower back and resting it. I needed help going to the bathroom, I could only wash one hand at a time, it was a whole ordeal. It was strangely familiar to be back in that place where I was unable to do much for myself or anyone else.

Today it’s doing better and has gotten more so throughout the day. I’ve stayed in bed still for most of the day and it was thankfully one of those Saturdays where there wasn’t much happening in the way of activities. Yesterday I watched a Zoom meeting from the couple who did our marriage intensive two summers ago. They’re starting a program where you can sign up to train with them on learning how to be a marriage coach. I was very much interested in doing this until I saw the price which was over $2,000.

The cost of the marriage intensive when we did it was $3,500. The price has now been raised to nearly $5,000. To me that just seems way too expensive. I’m not going to judge why people do things or in this case choose to make their living. They’ve very good at what they do and I owe so much of where I’m at to what I learned from them. Their marriage intensive was a gift to us, fully paid for. In many ways I feel an obligation to pay it forward, not in a legalistic sense, but in a “I want to share what I was given” sense.

One of the questions that came up during the video was someone wondering the difference between their specific marriage coaching program versus going to counseling. One of the positives of coaching was that, if you choose to, you can continue contact with the couple in real time. This was one of the benefits they offered with the intensive, that is, two months of after-care where they are available via text for you to reach out to them for help if you needed coaching or help in a particularly challenging situation.

The rationale for this was that it takes time and practice to learn new patterns so they are there if needed as you begin to implement what you’ve learned. They said they’ve never had anyone abuse this privilege. I did find this interesting because having boundaries with clients is one of the biggest things they stress in school. You would never give out your personal phone number for clients to text you. You don’t have contact with clients in between sessions (not as rule, it’s just how it works out in practice). When sessions “terminate”, then you’re done.

The other difference they mentioned is the fact that in marriage coaching, if you choose, you can bring your story into it. Not that it becomes all about you and your story, but you can use your story and the things you’ve gone through in your own life and marriage to offer solidarity and to illustrate points. Counselors, on the other hand, leave their stories out. Self-disclosure isn’t something to be banned or completely avoided, but something you do with discretion, and only if you perceive it helpful for the person.

All that to say, I can see the advantages of both. It is important for us to keep in mind that just because we’ve gone through something doesn’t make us qualified to deal with every problem a couple might show up with. This was acknowledged in the video and something they also teach in school. There’s awareness needed to know when something is out of your league and needs referring. What I find superior in the marriage intensive format is that it significantly speeds up the counseling process of (hopefully) putting the couple on a healing track.