To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn...

There is a season…

 Most of the time, I welcome the change of seasons with wide-open arms. I delight in nothing more than I delight in a cold, drab winter turning to a cheerful, warm, colorful spring. I look forward to rainy spring days evolving into glorious, flower-strewn sunshiny summer days. I literally wallow in joyful bliss when late summer oppressive heat and humidity flows into the glorious gift of a cool, crisp, brightly-colored blue-skied fall. The only season change I do not like, at all, is fall turning into winter. I have no flowery descriptive words to describe that change other than these words: I hate winter. HATE it. Not a big revelation to anyone who knows me.

So, how ironic it is that the seasons of my life are undergoing a major transition just as we are heading into my most dreaded season. Maybe I would be handling the idea of the boys going off to Navy boot camp much better if they were going in the spring or summer. Maybe I would be ecstatic if they were leaving on the cusp of fall.

Yeah, those are the things I’ve been telling myself.

Honestly, these changes that are about to be would be difficult no matter what time of the year they were happening. I know my nest is only going to be half empty, but I already know that I am not going to make a good empty nester.

I’m going to be blunt. I am dreading the coming days and weeks.

I know, as parents, the real, most important job we have is to raise our children into productive, happy adults. The fun we have along the way is really just icing on the cake, isn’t it?

My mind knows that, but my heart these days hasn’t really agreed with me.

These days, my heart has traveled back in time to 1991 when I first gazed upon the precious face of the baby in my arms who was looking at me with an amazing wide-eyed wonder that matched my own.

These days, my heart has swiftly traveled back in time to the many fun years I enjoyed when my kids were little and each day flowed sweetly into another…when the years with my children were spread out endlessly before me…when the thought of my boys joining the United States Navy was not even the briefest flicker in my mind.

These days, my heart has traveled back to days when Brandon and I spent every waking moment together before Justin, and then Lauren and then Rachel came along and joined the Carlson family…days when my knees were scraped from crawling around making sidewalk chalk masterpieces on the driveway and my hair was soaked after he chased me around the yard with his toy fire hydrant that hooked up to our hose. Days when I slung him on my hip and we danced around the living room over and over to Achy Breaky Heart, his favorite song when he was three. Days of snuggling on the couch and watching  Disney and Winnie the Pooh videos. Days and nights of cuddling him on my lap and reading books like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Green Eggs and Ham." Days of swinging him at the park while he threw his head back and squealed with joy.

Those  are days that are so very clear in MY mind, yet are not in his mind at all because he was too little to remember them. And I doubt he would want me to remind him of those days anyway. So, I remember them by my lonesome little self.

 
Now, in just a few short days (4 to be exact) he will be gone. I am so proud that he chose to do this. But, while I am proud, I am so nervous and worried…with a stomach full of knots. I pray that he thoroughly loves being in the Navy. I worry about whether or not he can handle the physical aspect of boot camp. I worry about whether he will “fit in” and makes some friends. Most of all, I worry about the things that I assume most parents worry about when their child joins the military:  Will he stay safe? What hardships is he going to have to endure? Will he experience things that will damage him, physically or mentally.

 Mixed up with all of the worries there is excitement for the adventures and experiences he is going to have. There are also the prayers…prayers that we have provided for him the most important things a parent can provide for their children—a loving home that he will look forward to returning to. A good foundation that will ensure that he makes good decisions when he is out on his own.

 
I am feeling quite weepy now, so I am going to end this. I guess Part 2 of this will come in a few weeks when Justin is ready to leave. I’ve had almost 5 months to prepare for these days, and I started to believe I would be okay when the time actually arrived. I knew it would be hard, but I really had no inkling of just how emotional and hard it really would be.

Goodbye, Summer...Hello, Fall

Goodbye, summer…

This will likely be the first (and last!) time I say this:

I am glad summer is over.

I will probably be paid back for those words tenfold in the next few months when Mother Nature dumps on me the worst, coldest, snowiest, iciest winter ever. But I don’t care. Right now, at this moment, I am glad summer is over, for lots of reasons that don’t really matter. I’m ready to move on to a new season, and I love the clear, crisp days of fall with their bright blue skies and mild temperatures.

I actually “celebrated” the last day of summer for the first time ever. I was ready to say, “Adios!” to pots of droopy sad flowers and brown crunchy grass and mosquito bites and 110 degree days and $300 plus electric bills. On the last day of summer, I drove to one of my favorite places—Theis Farm—and I bought a big bag of peaches and a big bag of apples and a couple of pumpkins. I came home and said a fond fare-thee-well to summer by baking a peach upside down cake and covering it with homemade vanilla ice cream and homemade caramel sauce with cinnamon. Oh my heavens…that dessert was a perfectly yummy last hurrah before I began filling my house with the aromas of apples and pumpkins and simmering pots of soup.

 Which brings me to Hello, fall…

Cooler days have settled upon us. I am so grateful for that as a couple of weeks ago, our air conditioner decided that it needs a rest from the summer heat. I don’t blame it one bit--*I* need a rest from the summer heat. I am quite thankful that it chose a cooler time to go on sabbatical rather than a couple of weeks ago when it was still near 100 degrees every day.

The first day of fall was Lauren’s birthday, and she wanted to spend it baking cookies. What better way to spend the first day of fall, huh? She had a basketball game that afternoon, and she wanted to take cookies to her team. She gave a little tug at my heartstrings when she told me, “When we were little, you always made cupcakes if we had a game on our birthday, and I’m kind of sad you don’t do that anymore.”

I did do that. On one of her birthdays, I made cupcakes that looked like basketballs. I remember several birthdays of Justin’s and Rachel’s when the big day fell on gameday, and I decorated cupcakes to look like baseballs. While I don’t miss sitting on metal bleachers in the sweltering sun, I do miss baking those cupcakes. One year, instead of giving the cupcakes red baseball stitching, I used bright pink for Rachel’s birthday. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that the kids miss that, too. It seemed like such a little thing at the time, but I have found that little things are often the biggest things of all.

So on Lauren’s birthday, she had her good friend Mary over to bake cookies. I admit, I cringed a bit when she told me Saturday morning that was how she wanted to spend her day. I was home mostly alone all day on Friday, and Saturday morning as well, which meant my house was pretty clean. My kitchen was sparkling and immaculate, which so rarely happens.

 

The thought of Lauren baking was not a pleasant one as she is a very messy cook. I bit back my initial reaction of “oh, Hell NO you aren’t baking today!” put on a happy face and told her I thought that was a fabulous idea. The smile on her face when she said “Really?” was worth any mess I knew would ensue. Mary came over, they baked two batches of chocolate chip cookies, they made a mess that mostly I cleaned up, but they had a blast, and it was worth it.

Other than cookie baking, on the first days of fall, I turned my pots of sad petunias into pots of autumn splendor. Not really, but I like that word…splendor. It just has a nice ring to it. My pots may not be splendorous, but they certainly look better now than they did when they were spilling over with yucky brown plants.

 

 

Now, they look like this

 

 

I also bought some mums. I love these orange mums. Usually, I buy yellow and red mums, but this color just jumped out at me. I've never seen it before. It's called Outrageous Orange. How could I pass those up?

 

 

 

I really got carried away. I've never planted so many flowers in the fall. Normally, I just buy a few pots of mums and put them on the porch surrounded by a few pumpkins. This year though, maybe because my summer flowers were such a bust and didn't do well in the heat and drought, I couldn't stop myself. I bought some pansies and small ferns for hanging baskets on the porch. I love pansies but rarely plant them. It gets too hot here, and they don't usually last long. I can't wait to see how these pots look in a few weeks.

 

 

 

I even planted the hanging pots on each side of the garage door with some new life. At the nursery, I saw a plant I'd never seen before called Japanese Fern. I love it, and it looks like it will end up bushy and trailing over the pot. I added the orange flowers for some color. I've never planted those either, and I'm not even sure what they are called. They caught my eye because they look so cheerful.

 

 







The inside of my house is just as decked out as the porch, but I didn't even wait for fall to bring out the fall decorations. Every year, I end up loving my decorations and take pictures so that NEXT year, I will be able to recreate it all. Then, NEXT year arrives, I look at the pictures, and mostly do everything totally different. This year was no exception. I guess since I love decorating for fall, I am always on the lookout for something new. This year, thanks to Pinterest, I had all sorts of new ideas. Unfortunately, my house isn’t big enough to incorporate them all. Neither  is my budget. This though, was something I saw on Pinterest that I knew I had to do. I thought it was so clever, and cheap too. Cheap and clever. Two of my favorite words.

I spent less than three bucks, and I love it. All it cost me was 88 cents for a bag of split peas, 88 cents for a bag of dried red beans, and $1.50 for a bag of popcorn.

 While I have been enjoying the cooler first days of fall, I am also feeling a bit down. My life is changing along with the seasons, and I am not sure I am up for or ready for the changes that are coming. I can only remember one time in my life when I have been more apprehensive about what the future holds for me, and it’s not a good feeling at all. I have tried, but I can’t seem to put my feelings into words on this subject. My marriage is changing, the boys are leaving…some days, I feel like it’s all too much at once. Too much change. Change is supposed to be a good thing, and I do have faith that in the long run, the changes we are going through now will end up in very good places. That is what is keeping me going right now

 I will end this post with a list of joyful simplicities since I haven’t done that for a while:

Finding the first bags of pumpkin coffee at the grocery store.

Turning this

 

 

into a crock pot full of homemade applesauce. Oh, it was so delicious! I’ve always wanted to make it, but I never have. It was yummy warmed up and poured over pancakes, and the kids told me I can't ever buy applesauce again because it's too good.

Discovering a pile of sugar pie pumpkins at Schnucks. They are sitting on my counter ready to be baked into all sorts of yummy pumpkin-y treats.

New glasses

 

 

 Last year just after Thanksgiving, I bought these glasses. When they were delivered, I was in the midst of decorating for Christmas, and I so I packed them away. I forgot about them until a few weeks ago when I was unpacking my fall decorations. What a surprise! I love them. At the same time, I bought this little dish. I think I could have a new addiction, to amber glass. Thank goodness I have no room to store more dishes. I love dishes, especially old dishes, but that's a topic for another time.

I started knitting a new scarf. A couple of years ago, I knitted this really wonderful twirly scarf. I love it, and I decided to make the same one in a colorful yarn. I do hate winter, but I love scarves. Especially scarves I knit myself. :-) Another addiction. Maybe that should be my next blog post--Crazy Things Rose is Addicted To.

 Last week, I went to a bead show for the first time. Holy Moly…it was so overwhelming, and I was almost high on bling. I was smart and took cash and left my debit card at home. I did buy some beads, and I am anxious to get started on creating something with them. And, I was proud of myself because I didn't even spend all of the money I took. Not even half of it! I know, what's wrong with me?

 

 

Nothing says "fall" quite like a cross country meet on a beautiful Saturday morning.

 

 

Enjoying a rainy day. Yeah, something else I don’t typically write, especially when it is dreary and chilly on my day off. But today, I have enjoyed it. The kids slept in because they are on fall break, I got a ton of laundry done, I watched a movie, and I baked a batch of brownies. I had planned on going for a long bike ride on the Katy Trail, so I was pretty disappointed when thunder and a downpour woke me this morning, but I decided to make the best of it. I haven’t left the house or even gotten out of my sweatshirt and pajama pants.

Oh, and best of all, I’ve had some uninterrupted time to sit down and write. It seems the more I take the time to write, the more I seem to have to write about, and I’ve got a whole list of topics I’m looking forward to writing about. J

 

October (My most clever title ever, right?)

I’m taking on a project this month that I feel kind of strange, yet strangely good about.

October is most commonly known as breast cancer awareness month, and everywhere one looks, there is a sea of pink. Everywhere, we are bombarded with everything from pink grocery bags to pink kitchen gadgets to pink wine bottle labels. This year, I keep hearing about pink light bulbs to put in your outdoor lights. What most people don’t know however is that it is also pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, signed into being by Ronald Reagan in 1988.

It’s no secret to anyone that I have experienced four miscarriages. They were many years ago, and I don’t think of those babies as much as I used to. I don’t often talk about what I went through, but there are times at work, especially this time of year, that thoughts of them are just right there, the memories and details as clear as if they happened only last week. Fall has always been the time I think of them the most--my first loss happened Labor Day weekend, the second was late in September a few years later, the third happened on New Year’s Eve, but I had gotten pregnant in September, and the fourth…well, that baby was due on Halloween.

Back then, I didn’t know about Share, I had no support whatsoever, and I had nothing tangible to remember those babies by. I had no ultrasound photos, no nothing. Not even a card because no one sent me one. I went on with my life like I was expected to do. I had more kids like I was expected to do. I was happy, and if thoughts of sadness found their way too close, I quickly pushed them away. Not only did I push them away, but I thought I must really be crazy for  still having those thoughts.

What I didn’t expect when I began volunteering at Share years later was how forcefully some of those long-buried feelings would come rushing back at me and that I would no longer be able to easily push them away. The first few months I spent at Share were rough, and I often drove home in tears, wondering how I would be able to go back. They were rough, but healing--healing in ways I never realized I needed to be healed. Part of that healing was realizing that I really wasn't crazy, that almost every other woman who had lost a baby, no matter  how far along in pregnancy, had most of the same feelings I had experienced. Something else I learned in those early months so many years after my miscarriages is that grieving cannot be avoided. Whether you do it at the time, or years later, you have to eventually do it; there is no way around it.

 Not long after I began volunteering at Share, I spent the day with a huge group of women preparing the newsletter to be mailed. It was mid-October, and the newsletter was the holiday edition. A few articles caught my eye, and after everyone left, I began reading. I was so intrigued by the different ways parents memorialized their baby, even babies who had died in the first trimester. The thought had never crossed my mind to do something tangible in remembrance of my miscarried babies.

In the many years since those long ago early days at Share, I have become very passionate about helping grieving parents come up with unique and meaningful ways to memorialize their babies, and I even teach a workshop on the topic. Whenever a parent calls to talk who has had an early loss, I always ask them if they have done anything special to memorialize their baby and try to give them ideas. One of my favorite things about my job is the memorial/burial service for miscarried babies that we do four times each year in collaboration with one of our local funeral homes. It is so touching to see the outpouring of support these families have, and the ceremony always leaves me with a warm feeling in my heart as I go about the rest of my day.

While I still haven’t done much to memorialize my own little ones, the love I have for them shines through in the things I help others do. I kind of feel at times like I am doing these things for myself as well as the parents I help, and I often wonder who is really being helped…me or them?

Which brings me to my project for the month of October. Someone who is prominent in the online world of helping grieving families has set up what she calls “Capture Your Grief” in honor of pregnancy and infant loss awareness. The idea is to take a photograph each day for the entire month and post it on a special facebook page that she set up just for this purpose. She posted a list of topics on her blog—suggestions for what to take photographs of for 31 days. Many of the topics don’t really seem relevant to me now, but I decided to take part in it anyway. I really don’t want to share what I take pictures of on the facebook page, so I decided to post them here.

Sooo….here is my picture, a day late, from day 1, of the sunrise on October 1, 2012. That was right up my alley since I love watching the sunrise and I often take pictures of it anyway. Unfortunately, yesterday was gray and gloomy, so there wasn’t a pretty sunrise. I took a picture anyway

 

 

And I loved it. Then, about 20 minutes later, I happened to glance out the kitchen window, and there must have been a small opening in the clouds and the sun was illuminating the trees.

 

I love that photo, and I see so many things when I look at it. For one, we have been hearing that the fall color would not amount to much this year due to the extremely hot, dry summer. Yet here are these beautiful golden trees right outside my kitchen window; they are the only trees in our neighborhood that have really changed color yet. The other thing I couldn’t help but be aware of is the juxtaposition of those bright, golden trees against the gray, ominous sky. It almost seemed perfect for the beginning of this project; it made me think of how even in the midst of grief, there are bright spots, even though they are often hard to notice.

 I can honestly say I no longer grieve the loss of those four babies. I do think of them, yes. I do wonder how different my life would have been if they wouldn’t have graced it for the short time they did. When I look back upon that time of my life, it is hard to believe I survived it. I look back now and think of the numerous gifts I feel I was given by their brief presence. They changed me in ways I would never have imagined years ago. At the time, I only saw the negative changes—the anger and jealousy I felt when I had never in my life been an angry or jealous person; the loss of innocence that I wanted to have back; the loss of joy and happiness that I just knew would never be mine again; the fear that permeated every aspect of my being. So many negative things that I couldn’t envision myself ever getting past. Yet I have. I read somewhere years ago that time doesn’t heal all wounds, it only teaches a person to live with them. I believe that with all of my heart and soul. I look at the years since my losses as a gift of time…time that has enabled me to see not only the negative ways I changed, but also the positive and good ways my life changed that I would never have imagined. While I used to think I must be nuts for always remembering those babies after so many years, I have now come to accept that I will always remember, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. So much of who I am is because of them, and I accept that.

That is why I decided to take part in Carly Marie’s Capture your Grief project.And like I said at the beginning, I feel strange about it, yet strangely good. I don’t know how many days I will capture, but I’m looking forward to trying most of the ideas. And I am curious where it will take me and how I will interpret her suggestions for each day.