Stripes & Students

They have lasted 2 weeks without me painting over them. The metallic silver lightens up hallway. The texture is a pain to paint on, but visually interesting.

My early morning class: 13 students, only 4 girls (way up at top of stairway). New Testament is wonderful to teach!

Puzzle Class

provided by flash-gear.com

Things are Hopeful

Got my hair cut.  Sometimes I just need to take care of myself.  Feel adorable.

Or take a nap, get a shower, and eat lunch.

Went to the eye doctor.  Learned I am more than ready for "PROGRESSIVE" lens.  They don't want you to feel bad and say the real term ( bi-focals).  In order to see far away, the corrective lens is so strong that I can't read anymore.  Hahahaha.  I've been holding the book really close and reading under my glasses...didn't even occur to me that holding the book further away would help.

So, a message to my younger siblings:  ageing is tough stuff.  Take care of your teeth, eyes...I am no expert in the exercise and calorie counting department, but I see my body getting older, weaker, feeble and worn.  And.  You.  Are.   NEXT!

My office lobby got cable yesterday, and during lunch break I flipped away from the business channel and caught 5 minutes of TLC (What Not To Wear) and saw a 46 year old grandma model a dress that was not flattering that broke Stacie and Clint's rules and then come out in an amazing dress that followed their suggestions.  She confessed, "I feel pretty!"  And they made her keep talking until she could say, "I am beautiful" without twisting her fingers or feeling embarrassed.

So I have been practicing being nice to myself.  And saying it:  I've beautiful eyes, a cute haircut. I am beautiful.

Photo credit:  Roxie Jane

P.S.  Our son is in a half-way house, close to home, but in black-out until he is stable=no visitors/phone calls.  Letters OK.  John & I talked to the director/manager, an ex-addict who gets it, and said the biggest problem with re-hab is that it is too short.  We trust him.  Trust him with our son.  Minimum stay is 3 months.  Things are hopeful.

Power of a Cupcake Over Mind Games

Octopus from Graphics Fairy.
I should have taken a picture.  It was perfect.  Red velvet, yummy cream cheese frosting.  It was a great lunch.  Thank you, my friends.  It gave me the strength to get through the rest of my day, knowing I am loved, supported, and not a bad mom.

I went to visit my son in the mental health unit.  That's the locked ward, where you have to surrender your cell phone, keys, wallet before you can go in.  No food or drinks.  No cheerful balloons to take to patients.  Today I had a picture to give him when he was 10 or so, showing off a big fish he had just caught.  He said he remembered that fish, remembered that day, and the man in the background who Stewart hooked in the hat.

We hugged, kissed, cried, laughed, talked.  The lithium has calmed him down.  He talked about the masks he has worn, the protection and lies to keep us parents from knowing what he was really doing.  The powerful hurt of words and how he has used words as weapons. 

I told him I didn't want him to tell me things just because he knew I wanted to hear them, trying to make me happy.  It all seemed to be going so well, his promises to change, be good, take his prescribed meds and not recreate, not even see the friend he has made bad choices with.  He doesn't want to start over in a new area.  Wants to be close to family.  "Afterall," he said, "the family is central..."

All the right words.  Almost.  Until we got to the part when he said the Atonement is not infinite, that it is running out, that on a certain date earlier this spring he saw it crumbling....I told him no, that was another lie, I don't believe that.  He expounded on his point.  It got worse again, more delusions of grandeur, more complicated, twisted un-truths and his mission to persuade people he is right and do it his way.

I was facing the nurse's station, my son's back was to it.  I stood up when the nurse came towards us to tell me to leave.  He was startled and thought I was reacting to what he had just told me and I was just leaving over that.  It made us both laugh as we hugged good-bye.  Visiting hours over for the day.

I am often gullible, very accepting, but standing firm and I will not be an enabler.  Tough love.  Tough consequences.  Lousy feelings.

Hi.  My name is Jennilyn, and I have a son suffering from a mental illness.  Maybe bi-polar, but he needs to be free from substance abuse for long enough and seeing a doctor long enough to diagnose correctly, since it might be more than just the bi-polar stuff.

Too personal?  Family skeleton kind of stuff???  Nah.  Some of you need to know.

It is hard.  He is so beautfiul, and still so charming and sweet and sensitive and he is so smart and able to remember almost anything he has read (near photographic memory like his dad and aunts).  I am hopeful, but this is going to take years.

Shared Email--I Have A Big Wonderful Family

I ask questions to let you know I care and am still thinking about your family, not because I have to have answers. I hate when I don't hear anything after sharing that I need help and faith and prayers. Don't want you to feel alone in a big family.
Love,
(family member)


Thank you. Family has been super supportive. Even the one-liner "praying for you" coming from everyone has been great. It is almost a relief to have your questions, to talk it out. My visiting teacher has been great and supportive and helpful with the details of living with the rest of the kids at home and getting them where they need to be. Suzu has driving test next week, which I need her to pass so she can drive herself to work!

And through it all, early morning seminary! I feel blessed during class to focus and teach, and then when they have all left for school I crash emotionally and remember.

Kiss your babies, and keep teaching them about repentance. We are all lost sheep. We all need the Savior. And He is the Good Shepherd, my Redeemer, my Support, my Constant, my Cure, my Help.

Love,
me

Some Things Stay the Same/Something Else Must Change

HAPPY FOREVER FAMILY DAY to my parents & parents by marriage!  Pretty cool they share an anniversary date!  Same day, same place, different year, same marriage longevity and happiness!

My in-laws frequently comment about the changes here at home.  My nephew who comes every school morning has to be careful where he flings his tired body, making sure there is still a couch where he remembered one...YES, I love to change, experiment, play with color, paint, arrangements of furniture.  So Ta-DA!  The latest:

Front hallway and coat closet door, looking from living room archway.  Frog Tape has a great reputation, but my highly textured walls did not cooperate.  It just wouldn't stick, no matter how hard I rubbed it, coaxed it, re-applied.  So I will not be stripe-making whole hallway like I envisioned.  And the pink isn't salmony enough to match living room ceiling.  And the black really looks like dark brown.  And the green ceiling has to go, or the pink.  Or the black turn to gray, the pink to white.

  Here is the inspiration picture from HGTV designer portfolio of a show home in MD.  Black walls can be rich--the snake skin texture on these fascinates me, but love the profile picture, sharp contrasts.

Yellow ceiling would solve my hallway.  Black and white and yellow.  Come look again for the next experiment in color/painting.

Wuthering Heights, Babysitting, & Boss/Secretary

This post is a little whiny-complainy, but it ends with painting (pictures promised tomorrow!).

When the family of my youth lived in Iowa during the 70's, my next younger sister & I shared a basement bedroom.  Far, far away from our parents.  Walking in the front door and around a corner (I still dream of this home) you could go up stairs to three bedrooms and a bathroom; or you could through the living room, dinning room and kitchen to downward stairs that led to a huge family room (where Dad taught early morning seminary, Old Testament!) and then continue to far end of family room to basement-leading stairs.  Not just one or two steps.  I don't remember ever hearing footsteps overhead?  Well-insulated, or finished ceilings???

This window-less basement bedroom is where I read "Wuthering Heights" under the blankets by flashlight because I couldn't stop and had to see how it ended and I had been told to go to sleep and turn out the light and stop keeping my sister awake.

It is where one of us killed the mouse we both stepped on (imagine bare feet, cold cement floor, warm-not-a-dirty-sock-squishy under foot in the dark followed by "TURN ON THE LIGHT!" scream.  Followed by more screaming and tears...).

It is where my sister and I would play an elaborate game:  Boss & Secretary.  We would trade, taking turns with each roll.  The glamorous job was the secretary (why?  What TV shows or media were influencing us?  I remember watching tough strong action heroines in "Wonder Woman" and "Charlie's Angels" and "The Bionic Woman"???).  Being the boss was always boring, nothing to do but make up chores for the secretary to do:  answer the phone, make appointments, type, bring drinks of water.

I have wanted to tell my sister all week that I never want to be the secretary ever again.  She can have the "best" job when we play.  (Sorry I missed your birthday.  Love you and miss you and wish we could play and hang out and talk about books.)

Working full time is awful.  The last week of summer I logged in a 40 hour week.  This last week was 33 hours, with me rushing through my duties and racing home to be there when my middle school baby came home.  That ended up with one day my two high schoolers locked out of the empty house and my huge guilt feelings (they both now have house keys carabiner-ed to their backpacks).  There was lots of racing around getting Suzu's harp to the right place, getting her to work on time, back to back orthodontic appointments, back-to-school errands, dinner to new mom, back-to-school nights...

I understand lots of moms have to do this all the time.  I never have.  (Now, time to clarify.  I have worked this many hours as a mom, when John was out of work and doing the stay-at-home dad thing.  And he still does tons with BOTH of us working.  He cooked dinner 4 days last week.  He grocery shops.  I am not doing this all alone...)  And I would gladly go back to my blissful substitute-here-paint-a-little-here-baby-sit-blocked-out-days-clean-great-grandma's-condo lifestyle.  But the regular "secretary" (branch office assistant official title) is recovering from knee surgery.  I told a mutual friend to pass on that I DO NOT WANT HER JOB PLEASE GET WELL & COME BACK SOON message.  For the last year I have been training, subbing for other boa's on vacation, nice, easy, some stress-but mostly sweet fill-in, FUN secretary stuff.

The day-to-day grind, being responsible for follow-up even when you are tired (HA!  This is the difference between babysitting cute screaming babies and their parents come home so it's not you permanently dealing and go home to your teenage life vs. having your own children and there is no hand-off at 10 pm when the real parents come home from their date and rescue you) is a harsh reality check.

And it is not about the money.  I am keeping my relaxing 6 hour a week job by filling in for the next 4-5 more weeks.  Yes, some extra bills are getting paid off, but my family and I are not ready for me to do this.  I need to get all of them through high school, first.  Meanwhile, I am thankful for the blessing this job has been to our family.  I am thankful for the money management skills, the training in finances, insurance, retirement, investments, world markets, stocks.

I am thankful for a 3 day long weekend!  Even though my body-alarm went off at 4:30 am to get ready for seminary (!) I was able to go back to sleep until 8:30.  Luxurious sleep!

I am 3/4 of the way through "David Copperfield" (missing book group discussion Thursday because I am working) and I have my painting clothes on!  Time to go use some mad-painting skills!