touch the sky

 "Close my eyes 

Feel you sigh 

A desperate aching wonder 

Will you ever, ever let me off my knees?"

~Bleed Out, Blue October

 “You went- how was it?”

“It was amazing. I couldn’t breathe- it sucked." big happy sigh  "It was so awesome!” 

stirred

When I was a little kid I was sick a lot.  I spent a few too many nights in the old Primary Children’s Hospital and good deal of time in bed beneath a plastic tent stripped of stuffed animals and familiar blankets. I had asthma, bad asthma the kind that could drive a family out of hotel room in the middle of the night to flee a trigger.  But as I grew up, played soccer, and started running the symptoms all but vanished only to reappear in my first 2 children.  

Oddly enough I don’t always mind being sick (which I am a lot!) it slows down my body long enough to trap my mind.  But today under dark skies I can’t help but to relate to child me sneaking out of bed and pressing my face against a frozen window wishing to be out. 

I’ve only been sick 7 days hardly alarming but while I was ’away’ I missed class, miss a day of work, missed being a mom, and it snowed.  I feel like the only kid missing recess.

Sure the snow is keeping up high, one would have to climb a mountain to get to it and I can’t even carry in groceries without falling into a coughing fit.  But I dream of running downing narrow mountain shoots, flying calf deep through snow like a train wreck waiting to happen. I want to fall without consequence, jump without having to think about where I'm going to land, I want to stomp like a rabid giant, and when it is all done I want to throw myself down sweaty and wet into the open back of little red peeling off layers with one hand the other searching for a thermos of steaming hot coffee.  Then sleep the sleep of tired sore bliss.  Dream of icy mountains, of the sound the wind makes breaking through the trees, dream of falling. 

First snow dust of 2013 Wednesday night outside GTC

I really, really just want to go out and play.      

hey you, down in front, quiet!

The last words I was able to speak were "Beach, save Jack!" How awesomely dramatic, no, just a cat fight and Jack as usual getting her ass handed to her by good Old Lady Bug, don't mess with Smalls!

So unfortunately super sick has progressed into this: silence >                       < 

And you know what? It feels fantastic.... well after I got over that whole scary moment when I honestly thought I might be choking to death.  And passed the confusion of waking up looking for the body of the black dog I thought I had been carrying with the intent to set him down and let him run one last time....

Yep that kind of sick that line between real and not real is hazy at best

Ironic too, the kid I am in charge of teaching to read and write is my only link/messenger and if I really needed something I would have to write her a note.  Talk about a heavy job performance assessment! 

Further down the line the October Pro Shop schedule is out and when you add one night of school and the one night Boo has gym I don't work we have one day a week OFF from busy.  Heap on a tenth birthday, a week long trip to LV form the ladies, good camping weather, a story for the paper coming due, and hunting season for the men, that would BOLD Capital B BUSY!  But that is the good busy, I think.  Not the busy that helped get me sick.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to crawl back into silence and hot cup of tea.    

in a nerd family

Alex, the nearly-grown calls, "Mom, I need to borrow baking soda, vinegar, and cinnamon. Can I stop by and get them on my way to work?"


"Sure, but what's the cinnamon for?"

"To make it smell like a fall volcano!"

*She's making apple volcanoes for her students to blow up today :) She's a good teacher. 

before I go to bed tonight...

despite being so sick that when I talk the only response i get, no matter what i say is, "You sound like shit.", yes, despite that i had a really nice day. i know how sick i am which sometimes i can deny but this is bigger than i am- for no,w and yet this too shall pass. 

the mountain giants that sleep the summer long 

wake to crowns of clouds resting about their heads

I can feel them watching the valley below

waiting

growing dangerously deep and strong 

pray for snow

~mlb, a skier's prayer 

knight [sick] (that's a grammar joke)

Through swampy stickiness BC’s hand reaches in searching for me. My ears raw like opening  mining pits.  
“Misty, you are on fire.”  
His hand moves from my arm to my neck to my forehead.  My eyes are scratchy, my throat a beehive, my chest a marsh.  With sickness comes anxiety.  Who will watch Beach for me?  School? Work? BC can’t get sick we will starve. Raspberry bushes. Dogs. A car stuck in the mud.  
“You need to take something.”  
I respond by suddenly sitting straight up from sleep.  I cough and blood trickles from my nose.  I stare down at the corner of bed wondering.  The conclusion: “My head really hurts.” My voice is less than a raspy whisper. 

I feel his weight leave the bed when he returns he carries water and 2 white pills.  
“I feel like I am stuck in a sleeping bag inside a tent but it's hot.” 
Overdoses.  Dead chickens.  Twisted old trees. Glasses. Hotel rooms.  Car rides. 
“It is amazing how fast that works” His voice breaks into my sticky brain as thick chills run up my body.  

My doctor is out of town and not due back until at earliest Thursday.  If I'm not better by then it has already been agreed to contact him...
The desert. A rocky path.  The smell of juniper trees.  The edge of an abandoned mine. 

And then it is morning.   

a million and a half

That is how many things I have to do in the next 24 hrs.  School, homework, housework, a piece for the community paper, house work, garden, pack and shop for camping, extra ninja pick ups and drop offs, ninja sleep-over, work twice, gym twice, and an eye appoint for Beach. It however does not include putting up 40 pounds of grapes for juice and yet somehow it does now.  BC the walking disaster that he has been lately has some issues in the kitchen during what we call my 'busy phase' this week.  Left to handle dinner a few nights in a row he has managed to fumble every single one. Hence the fb post:


“And it came to pass that for 4 nights and 4 days he did fuck-up dinner. Wearily I say unto him let the children lead you, for it is they who knowith how to put out fires and order pizza. Amen.”

Okay 'get it yourself' might have been too vague for 3 nearly adult males to find the left over tray of enchiladas in the fridge or the left over chicken and rice so let’s try ‘put is and this in a pan and cook it‘- no, too complex.  How about ‘throw this in the over to bake‘- too time dependent.  Let’s try turn on the crockpot- seriously asshole? one button I mean really the dogs could have done it! (meant in the most loving way of course)


In the end I have come home every night from school or work to cook dinner at at least 8 PM plus while grownish men look as frantic as chickens caught eating in my garden.

Today the million and a half things to do day started with leaf shaped pancake, coffee (lots of coffee), farm chores, making grape juice, a little home education, some trouble with the boy children, a phone call from mother-in-law, and a reminder to BC about Beach’s eye appointment tonight while I (the stay at home parent) is off at work.  Not kidding end of paragraph reminder of appointment. I say, “I guess since I will be gone you need me to cook dinner too?”    
“No, I got it I don’t have anything I have to do tonight.” hysterical laughter inside my head laughter! It is easier to laugh than cry :)

Suppose I have a million and a one and a half things to do in the next 24 hours…...
     
On the upside: BC sure does know how to make a girl feel needed   The events of this week follows a discussion triggered by another couple’s fight about the value of a stay at home parent verses the value of a double income.  Point one scored in my stay at home favor.  BC gracious conceding the point: staying home is hard, valuable, and should be regarded with high respects and occasion gifts of cheap beer.

Now a last piece of parting wisdom for the good of mankind: if you happen to see a woman dressed in the exact same outfit as she was wearing the day before you should make a point to tell her how fabulous she looks because she just might be trying to juggle too many things all on her own and could use the complement.

small scale farming (don't expect much)

 The other day I told Beach if she was hungry we could go out in the field and dig up potatoes.  And despite being raised here on this crazy little farm most of her life she told me that was over the top strange. 

"Mom, most people say go the store and buy potatoes."  

"Okay, then you can go out back dig up potatoes and I will charge you for them."

"Do we have Top Ramen?"

Okay then I will do it.  I have to work tonight so how about some slow cooker chicken-potato-carrot chowder? Nice potatoes, right?

 But while I was out there toiling in the fields (hahahaha)

Anyone remember the time I encountered an angry charging stray-ish pitbull? 

Would you look at that, hello old friend.  Like our new fence? I sure do.

 Okay so I came away with the perfect basket full of produce for soup and something else that cracked me up.  A hand full of miniature produce.

 Carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes.

 Don't forget this guy- a very personal watermelon.

 Late summer basket of goodies and

some honest to goodness small scale farming :) 

too much of a good thing

In her final act of desperation, run out of ways to put up peaches she did the only thing left to do: bake pie.

Death by peaches, so possible. Honestly we have been dealing with them by the bag full partly thanks to my mom and dad who keep dropping them off when I'm not home. That BC isn't a crust guy, he wouldn't even eat the bottom crust.  He just scrapes it off the same way he does breading on fried chicken so I left it mostly topless for him ;) and some of the peels on for my mother-in-law who would happen to stop by and comment about all the waste if I didn't. I am a people pleaser. 

PS I think I like using that big ass star cookie cutter. And even though I am actually not half bad at it I don't love making pie. 

Monday with stars

 So I have this big old cookie cutter hanging above my stove, actually I don't know if that is really what it is because that would be one big cookie!!!!  Every once in awhile I get the urge to use the silly thing or throw it out.  So today I made a pizza star and while I was trying to get a good pic of the damn thing (food is not easy to photograph!) those little fingers came creeping in... oh-well, the pizza star was for her anyway. 

 Some days need more magic than others. 

Where are your glasses?

TODAY"S SCHOOL LUNCH: PIZZA STARS

a kingdom in the eye of the storm

 Doesn't this weather scream trail run to you?

My Dearest BC,  

When I said I had a mountain of laundry to do I meant to say I had a mountain and laundry to do today... 

I hope you don't mind I borrowed your low profile running shoes because they have a little extra room up front which I needed today because I split my big toe open writing;

No, I don't care to explain.  

You know how I can get.

 The mountain was in rare form.

 The leaves are changing.

But don't worry I took it easy the whole time.

I dressed right for the weather.

  And when I saw trouble moving in I moved out right away.

You would have been proud me.

 And I was very, very careful since your shoe are a bit on the slippery side, especial in the rain and the mud AND when running top speed straight down a mountain. 

 I packed a healthy lunch AND I stayed hydrated. 

I can defiantly say at least one load of laundry went through the wringer and the rinse cycle, probably more than once.  Busy, productive day as a housewife.  Hope your day at work was a good as mine! XoXo Sweetness

PS.  I also washed the car.