A Road Less Travelled

It was getting on towards morning. I was on the edge of sleep, just dozing, drifting. As in a dream (and let me say this about dreams) I thought I heard someone call my name. My mind struggled towards wakefullness, searching for the one calling my name. I surfaced from my well of sleep to find that someone was actually calling my name. There was a quiet knocking at my door and a small child calling for me in his small voice. I opened up the door and he told me he was scared of the storm. It was then that I realized that there was a monster storm raging outside. So I pulled the toddler into bed with me and we snuggled until the thunder faded and the storm moved on. Then I put him back to bed and went back to dozing.

And yet I managed to sleep through two gargantuan trees crashing into our backyard. Go figure.

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James and Theresa were in Atlanta from Thursday to Saturday last week. I was home with six children. Now, you should understand that the five older children are all capable of being more help than they are bother. Not they always are, but they’re capable of it. All I really had to do was step up a little in my general awareness of what needed to be done around the house, make sure it got done while constantly maintaining an awareness of who was watching Margary, and make monumental efforts which only kind of worked not to get annoyed with the children over the odd noises they constantly make or the silly arguments I kept having to break up. How hard could that be?

About Friday afternoon I knew I could make it through until James and Theresa got back, but I was having serious doubts about my ability to do this for the rest of my life. I mean, this is what I’ve always planned to do with my life–stay-at-home mom, homeschool mom, homemaker… But somehow in my plans I was always better at it. I was only just getting done everything that needed to be done, and that was with five children who were big enough to help. I remembered in the morning that I needed to brush Elsie’s hair and finally got around to it at four in the afternoon. And that was doing pretty well with my time magangement–a lot better than I normally do when Theresa’s home. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to do this for the rest of my life; I was just pretty sure I’d never be able to handle it.

Saturday afternoon I realized that I’d just about made it through. I’d been the equivalent of a single mom of six children (though at least I didn’t have to have an outside job…) for three days, and I’d even kept the kitchen mostly clean. I learned once again that what I can or can’t do is irrelevant to what God calls me to do, because even when I can’t handle it He has it completely under control.

Now if I could just remember that for more than five seconds at a time….

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Because of a BlogPeoria server change we have unexpectedly obtained a new template. Gabrielle and I agreed that we both like this one, which is pretty impressive considering how long it took us to agree on the first one. So now the rest of you are stuck with it whether you like it or not.

This new template actually allows for a tagline/subtitle thing, which was still set to “A record of our non-college adventures” from several templates ago. This really doesn’t seem to fit anymore. We’re leaving it blank for now, but will be considering an updated tagline to fit our newly renovated blog. If you have any suggestions for a tagline feel free to leave a comment, though I say that more because I’m curious what our readers would say than because I expect it to be useful.

Incidentally, if you’ve had any trouble visiting our blog recently, it’s probably related to the server change, and it should be all better now.

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It’s five years today since my mother left this world and went Home. I kinda wished I’d noticed earlier. But I don’t think my mother would mind to know that my life doesn’t hinge on hers.

I love you, Mom. I’ll see you when I see you. I pray that it’s soon.

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Technology is a frightening thing. It’s a useful thing, but it’s frightening sometimes.

I post regularly on Twitter, which is a website where you can write short status messages that go out to everybody who’s following you. It’s a nifty tool to keep up with what people are doing. Some people post once a month to say they haven’t posted in a while. Other people will post every time they take a sip of coffee. I fall somewhere in between these two styles, posting when something interesting happens and I happen to be at the computer. Using Twitter has led to some interesting happenings.

I was making dinner one day while the Lansberrys were gone. I had my computer on the counter and so I posted a Tweet saying that I was making a honey glaze with no honey in the house. A few minutes later I get a phone call from James. He says “We have honey at our house you could use.” I didn’t end up using the honey, but the offer from several states away was… odd.

The Lansberrys got home on Saturday. I know this because I got onto Twitter Saturday afternoon and saw that James had posted “We’re home!” just a moment ago. So I ran out onto the front porch and yelled and waved down the street. I got a few odd looks from some people walking by, but I also got Theresa’ and Raquel’s attention and they waved back to me.

So, Twitter’s a little frightening, but at its best it’s doing what technology should and helping people connect to each other. From several states away or right down the street.

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Note- This was written on July 7th.

So, Raquel has been sleeping on my treadmill for the past week or so. Not only is the treadmill a treadmill, but it is also directly beneath my air conditioner unit making it the coolest place in the room. While I’ve been all cozy warm in my soft, comfy bed Raquel has been cold and shivering on a hard, slightly inclined treadmill. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but my hostessing sensibilities were on a full blown guilt trip. So last night when I mentioned it was hot where I was and Raquel said it was cold where she was I suggested a trade. I would relinquish the bed and suffer through the night on the treadmill. Okay, it wasn’t that noble or humble of me, but I did end up on the treadmill. It wasn’t so bad. It was a little hard, but it was just cool enough. We said goodnight and settled in to sleep.

I started out having a hard time falling asleep. I was still learning how to sleep on a treadmill and this must take up a lot of brain power because my mind was wide awake. I thought about this and that, always trying to find the switch that would turn my brain off, but always it eluded me. Eventually, I started to drift off into sleep. I was floating between worlds, my mind detached from my body. We were separate, distinct, yet together as we fell asleep. Drifting, floating… Until we both of us got yanked back together and down to treadmill by Kitty scratching at the door. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but my door is hollow and I’ve decked it with, among other things, two sets of bells. So when she comes scratching it sounds like the boogy-man is breaking in with a full, high-liturgy entourage. I hid under my pillow and waited for her to go away. She eventually did and I started drifting again….

Only to be startled out of sleep by a thunderclap exploding right outside my window. It was like a firework and a cannon ramming into a brick wall packed with explosives right outside my window. Thankfully, I don’t sit up when I jerk awake because I was still in the tutorial stage of sleeping on a treadmill and sitting up safely hadn’t been covered yet. So I just closed my saucer-shaped eyes and tried to convince my body that I was neither being eaten nor running a marathon.

Now, I’d mentioned that the treadmill was right by the air conditioner unit. To set the scene with more accuracy I’ll now tell you that the bit of the a/c unit that hangs into the house was right over my head. This unit has never tried out for Ninja School, but if it did it would fail the stealthy test before it even began. On a good day the poor dear sounds like an air conditioner unit who’s smoked all it’s life and is now trying to swallow a small bird. I’ve learned to deal with it and hardly notice the noise, but then I’ve never tried to sleep directly under it before. I’d almost gotten used to the noise when the thunderclap went off right outside the window most of the asthmatic air conditioner was sticking out of. It must have seriously startled the a/c unit into actually swallowing the bird it’s been working on because while the fan was still blowing the a/c motor had momentarily stopped and was now trying to huff and puff its way back to life. It took me a while to figure out that this is what was going on. I thought that my trusty air conditioner was choking on something so while it was trying to wheeze back to life I was helpfully thumping it. It went something like “Huff, huff, wheeeeeze,” and then I would jump in with “Thump, thump, thump”. “Huff, thump! Huff, thump! Wheeeeeze! Thump, thump!” It was almost symphonic.

Lovely as it sounded, I tire of some things easily and thumping an air conditioner in the middle of the night is not as diverting as it sounds. So I gave up my half of the overture and left the poor thing alone to it’s wheezing. Eventually the motor kicked back on (which is what it had been trying to do all along) and the a/c unit went back to its normal wheezing and choking sounds.

Finally, all was quiet. The night was still. I closed my eyes and tried to settle down for sleep. I was way wound up at this point, but I had to try. So I took a couple deep breaths, closed my eyes tight and almost howled in frustration when Kitty attacked the door again. “What does it take to get some sleep around here!” I wanted to yell, but if I made a noise the dog would know I was awake. Plus, I had Raquel to think about. One needs to be hospitable, after all.

So, that was my evening on the treadmill. Tonight is Raquel’s last night at our house. Maybe I’ll be a gracious hostess and surrender the bed again. Or hey, maybe I won’t.

Editorial Note: I did end up sleeping on the treadmill. It went much better than the first time.

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A midquel to this post.

I can vouch for that particular night’s lack of sleep having nothing to do with sleeping on the treadmill. I must have fallen asleep just fine (on Gabrielle’s nice, soft, comfortable bed) because I was in a deep sleep for the first intrusion on that sleep. I slowly drifted toward an awareness of something, which my still sleeping mind finally identified as a sound. Yes, sound, that’s what that was called. I was nearly awake when my mind discovered what the sound was and began a slight panic. Panic, because the sound was unmistakably that of something trying to break through the door and eat us in our beds. (Or bed and treadmill, as the case may be.) With much growling and snorting and slavering it pounded at the door, trying to tear through it with rasping claws… That is until I completed the waking up process and realized that it was Kitty asking to be let out.

I gave up on panicking and turned my now mostly functioning mental processes to ignoring the dog and going back to sleep. About this point I noticed it was raining. I sleepily thought this was lovely. I like rain. Rain is… THUNDER! Okay, thunder’s okay too. Just kind of loud. Maybe if I just ignored it…

The air conditioner started making an odd buzzing noise, and Gabrielle started helpfully thumping it. About this point my mind discovered a small reserve of mild panic unused by the Attack of the Full Bladdered Dog, and realized that I had electronic devices plugged in during a thunderstorm. This was obviously bad. (I mean, look at what had just happened to the air conditioner!) I started rooting around for the cords by the side of the bed and unplugging them. One of them belonged to the charging cellphone, which deedle-eedle-oo’d as my (slightly late) contribution to the buzzing and thumping symphony.

Relieved at my responsible care for various electronic devices, I rolled over and went back to sleep. More or less. Somewhere in here there was more thunder and another attack on the door, but my mind had used up it’s extra reserves of panic, and was now just slightly annoyed to have so much going on in the middle of the night. I mean, didn’t they all realize it was time to stop panicking and go to sleep now?

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One thing I realized while Raquel was here is that I am very unused to sharing my space with someone else. There were only a few times that I actually felt invaded, but those few times took me by surprise. I would open my door and my room wouldn’t be what I expected in a way I couldn’t figure out. Sure, the treadmill was made up like a bed, but that was funny. Besides, I hadn’t had enough time to get used to the treadmill in my room before it was a bed. And sure, I’d taken to knocking on my own door before I went in even when I knew Raquel wasn’t in there just to get in the habit. But I normally knock on closed doors; it’s a compulsion. I think what struck me as different and strange every time I opened my door was the smell.

Okay, that sounds bad. I’m not saying Raquel smells bad, you understand. I’m sure on most days she smells nice. I haven’t made it a practice to smell my friends so I’m not an expert on Raquel smells. I do know that she doesn’t smell like me. So, since she’s been spending so much time in my room, my room is starting to smell like her and not like me.

It’s weird to me how important this is to me. I don’t really think about how things smell until they smell good or bad. But there have been times in the past that I’ve felt my space was being invaded and both times it was because my room was starting to smell like someone else. There are certain smells that I associate with good memories and other smells I associate with pleasant places- baking bread, cinnamon, my mother’s smell when she just woke up, campfires, fresh cut grass, coffee brewing. My room doesn’t smell like any of those things; it just smells like me. I guess I smell like home and sanctuary. I should be a scented candle.

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So, I mentioned that the Lansberrys went out of town and that Raquel was staying with us. What I didn’t mention is that they stayed out of town for a while. Like, two weeks or something. Raquel and I didn’t want to say anything about the length of time they were gone because proclaiming on the Internet that Raquel was going to be spending most days alone in a big house or that the house was going to be empty seemed tactically unwise. So we just started saving up blog posts about what’s been going on in the state of Lansberrylessness. And now they’re back so I can start posting funny things!

So, the only good place for Raquel to sleep while she stayed with us was in my room. In times past this has been totally fine. Fun, even. However, that was before my loving father bought me a treadmill. Since I like to do my sweating in private and seeing as my heritage lends itself to perspiring if I exert myself more than a leisurely mosey in a cool temperature, exercising is something deeply private. So my new treadmill is in my room. Which is fine when I’m the only one sleeping in my room. It does, however, take up valuable floor space that could be used for, say, Raquel. The treadmill folds which saves space, but Raquel would have to sleep under it which doesn’t seem like it would be conducive to rest and relaxation. Seriously, I lay down under it just to see what it was like and it was frightening. So, Raquel slept on the treadmill. We made it up into a bed and that’s where she slept. I kept threatening to turn it on in the middle of the night, but I was afraid the sheets would tangle in the motor and I’m not sure if using the treadmill as a spare bed voids the warranty. I didn’t get much exercise while she was here because I was pretty sure Raquel wouldn’t want footprints on her blankets. Some people, you know?

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