Home and Family
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Meals – a case study
One of the most difficult things about being human, or any living being, for that matter, was how to solve the problem of feeding ourselves for the duration of our lives. Providing meals is a laborous process. It was when we were threshing our own wheat. It is now despite convenience “food” and take-out. Many people have discussed the cognitive load, unpaid labor, and disproportionate burden this places on women. I’ll dig up those more articulate commentaries and link them later. What I wanted to do here was lay out a specific outline and time of what that has looked like for me. If it’s useful as a reference for…
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Questionable Vacation rest
From July fourth to July seventh I was in my most favorite geographic place, the north woods of Wisconsin. I get nervous when I try to explain why this area ranks above anywhere else because in order to do so, and do it with justice, I need to display a part of myself that few see: the mystic, connected to Mother Earth, all of a sudden I have an extra sense person. It goes something like this: Every time I come up here time stops. Every time I come up here I feel closer to nature. While I am here I feel truer to myself and the insignificant pressures of…
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He’s 18
Today is my son’s eighteenth birthday. Time had methodically passed, as it always does, and yet I still was a bit surprised by it. In my day to day life I have a blissful ignorance of milestones like these. The last time I counted down to anything was probably fourth grade. I’m generally not good with long term tracking. And so her we are eighteen years after his arrival. He’s my youngest one. I have an oldest and a youngest. I was heartbroken when my daughter left for college because she was the first. I will be heartbroken when he leaves because he will be my last. I tried not…
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Death part 2
We are in the intermission. The death has happened. It was not drawn out or painful. I watched and comforted as the waves of emotion passed through us, first in tidal waves, eventually down to crests, and now to undulating swells. We hold here. We wait in the swells. Tomorrow is the formal closing of life. The expected schedule of events are planned: service, grave, luncheon. Beyond that there is nothing. This is the eve and we sit here as if we are holding out breath. We know what is coming. We know what we are supposed to do. It’s simply not time to do them yet. We began this intermission…
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Death part 1
I don’t write about death often enough. There is an eminent death coming in the family, which is why I think of it today. The event that started it was inoccuous enough, a blow to the head. I’m not sure if it was a stumble or the push from an over enthusiastic dog. But the end result is intracranial bleeding, the ICU, rapid decline, and a DNR order. I am removed from this person but my husband is not. This circumstance makes my job easier–I become the facilitator. I can get things done to allow him to have space. I spent the day clearing our schedule for the weekend, and…
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Weekend excitement
The weekend brought a new arrival–a new puppy. If you had asked me as little as three weeks ago if this was on our minds, I would have thought you were crazy. Yet here we are. Her name is Charlotte and we are smitten. Pictures will be coming soon. Of course the evil part of me wants to match puppy pictures post-for-post (and pose-for-pose) with the other new arrival on my husbands side. I saw the glint in my husband’s eye when I mentioned it. But we’ll just let that impulse fade away. This little addition, of course, has brought chaos and destruction from day one. She’s a little stinker…
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Day in Review May 12, 2015
It’s been a mix of a day. It started with the death of a pet, one of our mice, that has been struggling for a bit. She had been fighting dermatitis to the point of extremem self harm. If I were in the lab, I would have ended her life for various reasons, mostly scientific. But at home she is a beloved pet. We got past the dermatitis and waaaas starting to regrow hair, but there was a patch of skin on her leg that was severly damaged. We had a couple of interventions because of dehydration. She was underweight. But overall, we felt that the worst was over and…
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Day in review July 29, 2015
We are finally into the heat of summer. I am sitting on my final train grateful that it is air conditioned. Biking to work has been easy simply because I get a breeze. Workouts have been erratic. I had headaches that kept me home from work and doctors appointments that have kept me home other days. I’m just getting back into it. I bought a knee brace with the intention to try running again. And I have an ankle cuff that will allow me to use the weight tower instead of the machines for my inner/outer legs. This mornings workout, the first with the ankle cuff, is probably the reason…
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Emotional wish list
I’m feeling better today. In addition to the moodiness I was working on a headache for the latter half of the day. I went to bed, slept poorly, and went to gym this morning anyway. But I started to change during the gym session. It started with me giving myself permission to not do anything strenuous. I still had the headache. I wasn’t my best. The point was not to worry about whether or not I was getting my money’s worth or putting in a gold star performance. Because of this little change in attitude, I was able to see that I’ve been hard on myself and I need to…
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Day in review May 26, 2015
I came to work today feeling the psychlogical weight of all the work I had to do. I had a list (overly ambitious) of a few that I wanted ot knock off over the weekend. I figured that a weekend at my mom’s house would have enough down time. If not that, then the holiday would give me the room I needed. But it didn’t. I was tired the whole weekend. The funeral for Donald was quiet and quick. But it was draining just the same. The emotional energy it takes being around my mother, circumstance notwithstanding, is always tiring. Then there was the drive home, dropping off the sister,…