Walk the Mile and Bear the Load

In one of those funny little coincidences, I have sung The Servant Song in both of "my" two churches in the past two weeks.

The first time was two weeks ago, in our Old Home Church. We made a quick trip up to MB to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday and catch up with all the other relatives who came out. It was a heart-brimming kind of a day, and it started with church in the morning.

(Also: there was communion. I have not remained dry-eyed during communion for approximately eight years. There's something all God's banquet table and community and holiness of the jumble of humanity about it.)

The second time was today at my New Home Church. This time, instead of singing from the pews, looking up at the screen for the lyrics, and catching the eye of smiling old friends, I sang it from the piano, where I played along with our fledgling worship team, sending smiles out towards the congregation as they held their hymnbooks.

My favourite line from that song is this one:

I will hold the Christ-light for you, in the nighttime of your fear...

I know that fear. The darkest, deepest parts of night. The down-in-the-bowels, depths-of-despair, stomach-knotting, oh-God-help-me fear. The kind where the days are one torturous, agonizingly slow minute plodding after another, but they're still preferable to the nights where you're alone with the "what if"s and the "why"s and "now what do I do?"s.

Years ago, I often went to my Old Home Church carrying that fear with me. I wept through many services in the back pew. It was horrible.

But.

It was a church where it was okay to weep. It was okay to be scared.

Because I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by people who loved me, who cared about me, and who did everything they could to guide me through that nighttime of my fear, carrying that light for me (since I had no strength to do much more than take each small step), until we got to the other side of it together.

When we moved to Minneapolis, I felt the loss of those Christ-light holders so keenly. I felt frightened - not the same dark fear - but still, apprehensive. We were this little island, just the four of us, alone in a strange city, dependent entirely on each other.

I've always said that you know you're safe when you have The List. The list of people that you could call at 3 am, and that you know would respond unhesitatingly to whatever emergency warranted a call in the middle of the night. I had to leave that list behind when we moved, and it was pretty scary to not have it.

Days like today remind me that I have a new version of The List. I hope that I won't ever experience that nighttime of fear again, but if I do, I've got a whole bunch of people I can call. Like our church small group, including the retired couple who act as emergency contacts for our kids in case something happens.

It feels so good to have The List again. Everyone needs one; it's a cold and lonely feeling to think you're in it all alone. I've had that feeling, and I don't anymore, which is why I love being in church and singing songs that remind me of that....

I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear....

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Well, At Least I Don't Have to Take Away His Keys

I'm a total TMI mom. I'm a firm believer that when children ask questions, they should receive answers. No hedging, no lying by omission (unless absolutely necessary to avoid nightmares)...the whole nine yards.

In my quest for "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," I tend to put an emphasis on the whole part. Questions about the veracity of Santa Claus expand to include the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy - might as well get all that destruction of childhood out of the way with at once. A query as to the meaning of the phrase "September 11th" results in an extended discussion about imperialism and the necessity of looking past heinous acts to the underlying motivation.

And the birds and bees? Let's just say that if we end up with STDs and/or teen pregnancies in this house, it will not be because I introduced the topic of safe sex and abstinence too late.

So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this conversation from last night:

The Boy: Mom, can I have some of your beer?

Me: Nope. It's a grown-up drink.

The Boy: But mom! I don't even know how to drive! How am I possibly going to drink and drive? What am I going to do, take your keys and go out to the car and try to figure it out?

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Vendredi V - "Can I Have $750 to Buy Vegetables?" Edition

Nothing says spring like the return of that favourite feature here on PGT - Vendredi V, right?

Another thing that shouts "SPRING!" is the planning of gardens and anticipation of fresh produce. Since I don't have a garden (yet...), I signed up this week for the next best thing: a CSA.

CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) are basically rent-a-garden (plus bonus gardeners!) for city folks. Someone else plants, cultivates, and, because I am lazy found an awesome one, delivers fresh produce for the entire growing season.

I was a Janey-Come-Lately last year and was only able to get the winter storage share from the CSA I found, but it was fantastic. So I stalked their website all winter and was first in line when they finally announced their 2011 season. Can't wait until June!

I wonder if all this veggie-love is why this time of year also brings to mind something else that for me is pretty spring-y - being a vegetarian. It was in spring 11 years ago that I was eating a delicious chicken breast. I started it as an omnivore and, by the time I ate the last bite, I was a vegetarian. In practice, it took awhile to officially join the team, but in my head and heart, I was done.

And so, how much more spring-y than:

Top 5 Reasons Why I'm a Vegetarian:

1. It keeps me healthy! I gave up the ol' carcass just before I got pregnant with The Girl. (After a year of infertility, but I'm not claiming causality.) People around me worried, but I had a healthy pregnancy, a healthy daughter, and wash-rinse-repeat the same two years later (well, except the daughter part). The past 11 years have been the healthiest of my life. Again, it's not necessarily the absence of meat, but perhaps the concentration on veggies and beans and whole grains, but whatever - I'll take it!

2. It's good for the planet! No proselytizing or condemnation here - y'all can eat what you like. And certainly I have no moral highground - every time I go into the co-op I can just feel the vegans getting all judgey on me for the dairy in my cart. But I do believe that a vegetarian diet helps fulfill God's commandment to care for the earth and all the creatures in it.

3. It keeps me nimble in the kitchen! If you're used to the meat + starch + veg combo, vegetarian cooking is daunting. Gone are the "defrost something from the freezer while you figure out rice vs. potatoes and corn vs. peas" days. Absence of meat does not automatically equal a healthy diet - heck, Old Dutch chips 24/7 would technically be veg. (And be technically awesome!) So it takes a fair amount of creativity to make sure you've got enough protein. I've got three picky eaters in this family, so I spend a lot of time with cookbooks (and hearing complaints). But hey, at least we're trying new things!

4. I'm indecisive! You know that feeling you get when you go to a restaurant and you're totally overwhelmed with the options and it takes you fifteen minutes to decide, going back and forth between your final two dishes until the server finally comes for the third time and you blurt out whichever choice happens to be winning? Well, there's none of that analysis paralysis when you're veg! Unless I intentionally seek out one of those local food/caters to the hipsters restaurants, I usually have two, maybe three choices tops. It still takes me fifteen minutes to decide, but I'm not nearly as lathered up with anxiety by the end.

5. It's dee-lish-uss!! Honestly, going veg wasn't very hard for me. I admire people who lurve meat and still give it up for moral reasons - I don't know if I have that kind of fortitude. I love veggies with my whole heart (except eggplant - we're still eyeing one another with suspicion across the table). I love beans - oh black beans, I heart you so. Truthfully, my diet is so full of amazing food that there really isn't room for meat.

Oh man, my mouth is watering right now - bring on the spring spinach! And bring it directly to my door, you fabulous CSA fairy!

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HouseHunters International

I'm going to go look at someone's house tonight.

It's not my house.

But it could be.

(EEP!)

Yes, the time has come, the Walrus realtor said, to talk of many things...

...like how many bathrooms. And bedrooms. And which postal codes. And we'll-compromise-on-the-bathrooms-but-we-need-a-fourth-bedroom-because-Hotel-PM maintains-a-higher-occupancy-rate-than-anticipated.

And (gulp) mortgages.

(Well, "mortgage" singular.)

In theory, we are pretty much the best positioned buyers in America right now: rates are low, inventory is high, sellers are desperate, we've got jobs (count'em - two!), and best of all, we've got no house we need to sell first.

Still, I'm pretty nervy about buying a house. It's a big decision.

For those of you keeping score at home, we've lived at eight addresses in as many years (alas, not always together). We're nomads who have become quite used to the almost annual cycle of get damage deposit back/sign new lease/pay damage deposit/get rid of stuff that doesn't fit anymore/buy stuff for the extra spaces.

Renting is quite liberating in lots of ways. You're never more than 12 months away from leaving if you don't like a place. No worries about furnaces. Or roofs. Or other big-ticket items. Little to no maintenance. The buck stops somewhere else, so while your neighbours are out there raking leaves or calling plumbers, you're headed to the beach.

But I've long said I'm a perennial kind of gal, not an annual one. I long for a garden again. And I lurve painting.

(Not so much that I'll paint your walls, though.)

In some ways, I've never really owned a home. Even the Mitchell duplex, although my name was on the title, wasn't really mine since I was always thinking ahead to the next owners.

So this is super exciting for me. Nerve-wracking and nail-biting, too, to be sure, but nonetheless, it's been a dream of mine for a long time. (It was also a condition of the move: I held up my end of the bargain to move to Minneapolis, now someone has to pony up and help me buy a house.)

Just think - this summer I'll collapse all my boxes and for once I won't think, "better put these somewhere safe; we'll be needing them again soon."

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Running is Mental

Yesterday I related my cautionary "don't try this at home kids" tale of treadmill-falling woe to a coworker who does triathlons. (Or is that a "triathlete who is my coworker"?) I needed to try get some sympathy from somewhere, given that all I get is laughter from The Husband whenever he so much as thinks about it.

As I demurred showing Friend Triathlete my scrapes and only motioned vaguely in their direction (since pointing out their true locations would have a) taken awhile and b) made me blush) while nonetheless assuring him that there is a perfect waffle-weave indentation on my left knee from the treadmill belt, another coworker gave me a strange look and said, "oh, do you do lots of running, too?"

I shrugged and said, "oh, I don't know about lots, but I do some." To which the triathlete responded with disbelief, "you run 10 miles every weekend. I'd call that lots."

My curious coworker gave a dismissive little laugh and said, "oh, wow, that's, um, lots. Good for you...

...I could NEVER do that."

I know that laugh. I have laughed that laugh many times. I, too, have told people who run that they are crazy, that I tried it once and hated every step, that you could never get me to run, that I'm allergic to gym.

Yet here we are.

Lots of people ask me how I got started. I can never tell if they're looking for inspiration or a heads-up on the kind of thinking to avoid in order to dodge the same bullet that got me.

I tell them that my husband started running (which, truth be told, didn't do a whole lot to get me going - he'll be the first to agree that him telling me I should do something or that I would like something is a guarantee that the suggestion goes to the top of my 100 Things to Never Do, Whether Before or After I Die list). And then I saw yet another coworker training for a marathon (for a software company, we're pretty fit). And then I kept bumping into other runners, so it seemed like all the cool kids were doing it.

Then I mention the fit of insanity that gripped me, upon recovering from which I realized I had signed up for a half marathon. And how the fear of that race got me out there, running first 2 miles, then 3, then 4, then more.

But I think what matters more is not how I started running, but why I keep doing it. At first, I did it because it felt so good to stop. Then, I did it because of the sense of accomplishment.

Now I do it because that two hours every Saturday morning (yeah, I'm sloooooow) is my most precious time every week. I lace up my shoes, slap in my headphones, and don't come home until all the grossness and the anxiety of the week has been wrung from my system.

When I walk in the door after those 10 miles, it's like I'm totally empty. Clear. Clean. Like someone hit the reset button.

I know that this entire post is pretty much eating humble pie. I mocked runners for so long; it's a fairly large piece.

But this post is also a reminder to never say never. Since the Grande 1/2 Marathon Experiment, I have realized that so much of what I can't do is simply a don't do. That's kind of scary - makes me wonder what else I could accomplish if I were driven/scared enough.

But it's also pretty liberating to think that so much of it is in my head.

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Saddle Up, Everyone!

31 days, 31 posts - starting today. You excited?

I'm excited about my new template. It is all spring-y and happ-y and bike-y. In fact, that header pic looks just like my bike.

(I'd like to say the girl in the header looks just like me, but she's got that jaunty scarf thing going on. Try as I might, I am neither jaunt-y nor scarf-y. I do have those shoes, though.)

So what's the plan for the next month? Well, I promise you one thing: no more complaining about the weather. I am rising above my obsessive checking of the forecast, my friends. I am walking blithely down the street, oblivious to the five-foot drifts and the wind that tries (and fails, bwa ha ha) to cut through my North Face.

I'm also going to try for more pictures to liven this place up. I haven't figured out the camera thingamajigger on my fancy new phone yet, so it might be a few days. I did figure out today that simply selecting the unknown number from Tacoma, Washington that called me (why? who do I know in Tacoma, Washington?) actually places a return call rather than just showing more details.

(Five bucks says I'm the only person who has to carry a pay-as-you-go circa 2005 flip phone along with her iPhone just so that she can actually make and receive calls.)

And perhaps we'll see the return of our annual spring-is-in-the-air-and-the-sap-that-is-my-brain-juice-is-running-again feature, Vendredi V. Because who doesn't love Top 5 lists?

So, onwards and upwards, friends. The Husband thinks that a post every day is too much. I retorted that no one actually has to read them all.

Read what you like. Here's hoping you like what you read.

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