sidetracked but in the right direction

Rohr on crisis of faith

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Sun, 20 Jul 2014 12:24:00 +0000

When we grow, our image of God and our self-image normally move forward on parallel tracks. And if one of the two breaks down, the other has to come apart too. We stick to both of them, and both stick together. Every crisis of faith implies that one or the other side is cracking up. If you really grow in faith, then in my opinion this process ought to take place at least every two or three years. This is the darkness of faith: when you've had to drop the old for a time but haven't yet found the new.

Fr. Richard Rohr, Simplicity: the Art of Living

grief is sneaky

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 26 May 2014 10:00:00 +0000

I'm 24 days into life without my dog, and I still habitually look for him when I break open a hard-boiled egg to give him the yolk.

a euology and a requiem

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Thu, 08 May 2014 02:34:00 +0000

My Eli is gone. I have his paw prints in clay on my bathroom counter. I have his empty bed kicking around my room, as it has been for years. I have his leash, his food bowls, his sweaters, his tooth brush, a clip of his fur in a baggie. I have more than eight years of good (and admittedly not-always-good) memories. Tomorrow, I will pick up his crate and a tiny box of ashes.

***

All his life, I had nightmares about his demise. In all of these terrible dreams, he was afraid and suffering and I was powerless, screaming, unable to reach him, forced to see his panic and hear his cries. Over and over and over, for eight years, I watched Eli die dozens of terrible, miserable deaths. I would wake up crying, pulse pounding, often shaking, and reach for my tiny companion. He would always be there, drowsy and asking for a belly rub. It was just a really bad dream.

But last Thursday, it wasn’t a dream. It was a terrifying reality, playing out inches in front of me, and reality was worse than I’d ever imagined. The attack, the worst surprise of my life, happened so close and so fast that it still takes my breath away. For eight years I’d been anticipating that moment, and yet in all those years of rehearsal, I never learned how to stop it from happening. Powerless and screaming, as always, I couldn’t stop it.

I’m so sorry, Eli.

Tiny Eli, in shock and suffering desperately from his wounds, heard me and trusted me enough to haul himself into his crate. I held hope close on the way to the vet, but I also knew. He wouldn’t be coming home. No animal could have survived the attack I’d witnessed from mere inches. When the vet found no internal damage from teeth that went all the way through his tiny body, I was dumbfounded. Maybe there are miracles and maybe God was giving us one. I thought...

And then he wouldn’t wake up. I went back and met the vet who had been working for an hour just to wake him up. Had he been shaken? We all cried.

My choices were heroics that would most likely fail, or cradling him in a peaceful goodbye.

***

The afternoon we met, Eli chose me. Our first moment together, he nestled himself in my lap. Our last moments of normal life were spent together, me kneeling at the door, him in my arms, cut short by a long-awaited nightmare that charged at my left elbow. Our last moments together with him fully alive were in the car, the car he loved so much, me sobbing and talking to him, my Eli in unbearable pain. His last moments of real awareness were probably in a back room, surrounded by people he didn’t know but who cared about him very much.

Did he know they were helping him? Was he looking for me? Did he even know they were there, or that I wasn't?

We tell each other that “they can hear us” or that “they know these things.” I say it, too, but I don’t buy it.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope he knew, on some level somewhere, that these scary people in this scary place were safe, that they loved him and were doing their very best to help him live. I hope he knew I was with him when he took his last breaths, and that I was still taking care of him, and that I loved him very much. I hope those comforts were his last memories. I hope.

Precious Eli, I am so sorry. I am so very sorry I couldn’t stop this from happening to you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you everything would be ok. I’m sorry. I'm so sorry. You didn’t deserve this. I’m so sorry. I miss you, Eli. I love you. I’m so sorry.

***

My priest, when I told her about what happened, said that these are the things we can only live through. There’s nothing we can do but simply keep ourselves alive as we endure the seemingly unendurable. There’s no point that I’ll “be ok” with this, or get a handle of it, or just deal with it – I must simply live through these days until I’m able to do more.

Now I’m hobbling around my house as often and for as long as my wounds will permit, limping around the place where my little dog and I lived together and where we lost each other. It’s unbearably quiet here, with my son at his grandparents and my roommate at a conference. I need to move things around and put things away and change the way everything looks so that I can, someday, walk into my kitchen and not want fall to the floor and sob.

Soon my son will be back from his weekend away, and I will try to explain to him what death is and tell him that we can still love Eli and talk about Eli and look at pictures of Eli, but that we can’t kiss him anymore because he’s not here and he won't ever be here again. I will watch him closely, see how he has changed, wonder how much he saw, find him a helper to heal his little heart. Soon my roommate will be back with her sweet, sad dog who witnessed the whole thing from the other side of a window, and she and I will be gentle with each other or we will avoid each other or maybe we will do a little of both. And I will all the while try desperately not to get attached to this furry four-legged girl, as I will try desperately not to get attached to anything or anyone ever again. How could I live through this another time?

Soon, I hope, I will stop losing my breath when I close my eyes and suddenly relive what happened. I will stop scanning for the spray bottle when the doorbell rings. I will stop expecting to hear the jingle of dog tags when my laptop snaps closed, once the cue for bedtime. I won’t wake up in the middle of the night, no longer having to coerce the heaviest 8-lb. dog in the world off my feet or my neck or wherever he’d inconveniently lodged himself. It won’t seem weird that I can enter my house in silence. I won't wonder if this hair is the last dog hair I'll find on these pants or in this corner. I won't be obsessed by all the minuscule decisions that led to this tragedy, wondering why and how and why again. I won’t lose my vision to hot tears and falter, whispering how sorry I am, that I am so sorry, you didn’t deserve this, I love you, I’m so very sorry.

Someday, maybe soon.

But for now, I trace a set of paw prints with my finger, I nudge a clip of fur and hear the echo of a memory of a toddler saying "eee-yi very soft like a bunny." I am simply living through this loss.

capsule wardrobe vol. 2: delete the obvious

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:56:00 +0000

Last week, I wrote about my ~~breakdown~~ moment of truth about my clothes. It’s time for a change, and while there are many other areas of my home that could use this change more than my clothes closet, apparently it’s where I’m starting.

I first read about the idea of a capsule wardrobe years ago when Hayley from Tiny Twig did a 31 Days project on it. Way back then, I started a Pinterest board the way she’d recommended, so I could get an idea of my style. Some trends emerged pretty quickly, but I never did much with it. I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes – in fact, the vast majority of clothes I own were given to me. And when you’re just grateful to have pants that fit and aren’t threadbare, you aren’t going to worry about whether they’re the right cut or fabric. The good news is that by this point, I have such excess that I’m pretty sure at least 70% of my future wardrobe is already in my wardrobe, and it’s just a matter of finding it and digging it out.

Step 1 for me is figuring out what I like and want to wear. On Pinterest, it becomes apparent that I like layers with jeans – tanks or tshirts with cardigans – and fun jewelry. I also like striped/nautical tops. Lots of solid colors, not many patterns. Okay, I can run with this.

I also like the look of longer tops and short dresses over leggings. This is also practical for me because, as a work-at-home mom, I am not exactly inclined to put on structured pants. I don’t like structured clothes regardless, so this is a big deal for me. I need to acknowledge this fact and run with it, not work against it and pretend I will convert to buttoned waistbands at some point.

So, step 2 for me is wading through what I already have and shedding things that clearly don’t fit with my general style. This is an ongoing process of having repeated “get real, Ashley” moments with myself. Am I really going to wear this ever again? Do I even like this? Do I feel cute or pretty when I wear this, every time I wear it? If there’s even a little bit of “meh” in my answer, I put it in the go-away pile. I’m obviously wearing something every day, and if it’s not ever going to be this particular something, there’s no sense holding onto it.

It’s really hard for me to let go of things right now. It’s too hard to actually get rid of them yet, especially the nice ones...I’m just piling things on a chair in my room. Not a long-term strategy, but at the same time I know it’ll get me there. I already feel so much relief every time I go to get dressed. A lot of these things are nice enough to consign, which is both good and bad because if I consign them, I'll need to hang onto them for months before the shops take this season of clothing again.

In the meantime, the hard part for me is going to be figuring out exactly how big I want my wardrobe to be – true capsule size, or more like capsule-inspired – and then deciding what is really going to stay and what I need to add when it’s all said and done. (Light-gray cardigan, I’m coming for you.)

quotes from the saints on st. valentine's day

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

This is a collection of quotes about love pulled from the works of saints who have gone before us. I copied this directly off someone else's blog and printed it for my liturgical notebook, but I didn't write down the source. If you know the source, please tell me so I can put credit here!

"The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, It produces Love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life." St. Thomas Aquinas

"Pure love... knows that only one thing is needed to please God: to do even the smallest things out of great love - love, and always love." St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul

"Intense love does not mesure... it just gives." Blessed Mother Teresa

"What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has the eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like." St. Augustine of Hippo

"The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist." Pope St. Gregory the Great

capsule wardrobe vol. 1: the moment of truth

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have. It’s not an uncommon thread in the story of my life, but it’s really been tripping me up lately. I simply have too much. I tend to get stuck somewhere between “but I paid $___ for that and I should use it” and “what if I need this someday?” and that’s a tough place to get stuck.

If you’re me, at least.

This is an area of my life that has been under near-constant improvement efforts, despite an almost 100% failure rate. Every time I move, I take more truckloads to the donation center. And yet I still have so. much. stuff.

One area where this has been bothering me particularly is my wardrobe. My wardrobe is a funny thing. I have loads of really nice clothes that I almost never wear, and piles of not-so-nice clothes that I tend to wear. It’s time for that to change.

Part of the reason I have so many clothes is that my current clothing pile covers everything from size 8 to size 14. I was a 12/14 for a while (and I was probably actually bigger than that, just wearing clothes that were too small – which is a miserable way to live, by the way) and last year I lost about 40lbs, taking me down to an 8. About mid-year I gained half the weight back, and I’m sitting right now somewhere between a 10 and a 12. (You’d think a week of not being able to eat anything would have led to some downward momentum on the scale, but you’d be wrong. I think I’ve actually gained weight, thanks only to what I presume is inflammation.)

When I got healthier, I tossed a lot of my bigger wardrobe, but not all of it. Some of those things were just so nice, and I felt like I should hang onto them “just in case.” I won’t blame the beautiful black pants from Brooks Brothers for me letting my weight loss slip, but I also won’t deny having the thought that “at least I can probably wear those pants again.”

Special “big clothes” aside, I just have too much. The other day, as I tried to cram one more shirt on a shelf, I threw my hands in the air. Maybe it was the delirium or the frustration of being sick that sent me into “this must change immediately” mode, or maybe it was just time to do it. I sorted through every single thing in my closet and had a “get real moment” with each one. I rearranged the shelves to make more sense for how I dress. I pulled out some things that I just won’t wear. Even some nice things. And then I sent an email to a bunch of friends to begin coordinating a clothing swap.

Ultimately my goal is to build a capsule wardrobe – or at least a “modified” capsule wardrobe. More on that soon.

liturgical binder

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

The other day, I finally made time to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. I pulled out an old binder, filled it with a bunch of plastic sleeves that I've been carrying around for years (tell me you have a stash, too), and set up my Liturgical Notebook.

Right now it just has a bunch of the plastic sleeves and three pieces of paper on St. Valentine's Day. It's a humble start, but it's a start. On Friday evening, Gabriel and I will have a quiet little dinner (I haven't decided what to make yet: either pink, heart-shaped pancakes for dinner, or something traditionally Irish) and I will tell him a story of St. Patrick and talk a little bit about what love is in the familial context as well as the Christian context. It's all going to go over his head, but I could probably get him to eat some pancakes at least (or "cham-pakes" as he calls them). And maybe if I can kick this bug in the pants within a day or two, we will make it to the library to check out a book on St. Valentine.

Ultimately I'm hoping to turn this notebook into a well-loved family institution. Every month I'd like to observe and celebrate the church holidays -- festivals, Saint days, and the broader aspects of the liturgical calendar. It would even be cool to have some decor in keeping with the colors of the church seasons, too. A table runner on the dining table, perhaps. That should be easy enough to change out. Or maybe placemats. I haven't really gotten that far yet.

I've been reading about celebrating the liturgy of the church year at home for years now, since before I even had a child, and it's something I have "wanted to do" for a long time. Over the past two years, I've put together a very small collection of books that do just that -- talk about the major (and some of the minor) festivals throughout the year and offer information on the background of these celebrations, the significance of them, and the ways they can be celebrated. I've got three books and an e-book. Certainly enough to get us started. (Oddly enough, none of these resources has much of anything on St. Valentine, though there are lots of big and small holy days in February.)

Blogs make it easy to come up with ideas for celebrating, as does Pinterest. Oh, Pinterest, sometimes I hate you, but when it's liturgy time you are a cherished friend.

My deep desire is to have a home that is infused with faith and steeped in liturgical tradition, so that my child(ren) can grow up with the understanding of church and spiritual practice in the greater context of living, time, and the rhythm of life. Faith has always been an every-day thing for me, and this is one of the ways I'd like to pass that practice to the next generation.

If anyone is curious about this stuff, I would love to offer more. There are quite a few others who have said a lot already and as a complete novice, I'm not at the point that I can contribute to the conversation yet, but I'd be happy to share some resources!

noro strikes

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 05:44:00 +0000

We have been waylaid for a week thanks to what might be norovirus. Whatever it is, it's heinous.

Nourishing crockpot soup recipes, nontoxic stain removal recipes, and general survival tips appreciated.

The up-side is that now I can catch some of the late night/early morning Olympics coverage.

More soon.

a happy pappy (papillon) update

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

When Eli was injured a few weeks ago, it manifested as pain and a leg he couldn’t put weight on. It looked just like the occasional knee problem he has but significantly worse, so I assumed that’s what it was. This knee problem is degenerative, so I figured we had entered the next stage of his life in which we do some palliative care and begin thinking about the severity and the options for treatment. It felt very heavy. Every time my little buddy has a health issue, it feels heavy to me. He’s usually very robust, save for some season allergies, and I go from zero to doom in about 2 seconds.

Three days after the major injury, he suddenly returned to normal. Completely normal. He was sassy. He was barking. He was patrolling. He was running up and down stairs with his tail up. I thought it was weird that his knee would be bothering him so much one day and the next day, it was like he was in his youth again. With some time “bought,” I started looking more deeply into the options for managing the knee situation from a preventative standpoint.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I am sitting on my bed chatting on the phone and Eli is in a little ball next to me. Scritches begat tummy rubs, and tummy rubs begat foot rubs. I mindlessly felt each of his feet to see how long the nails were, how long the fur on the bottoms of his feet had gotten, determine just how desperate he is for a doggie manicure, etc. At some point I felt what seemed like a toe with no nail. Weird, but maybe it was a scar or I was mis-feeling it or something. My hand wandered across the rest of the toes on that foot and I only felt three nails. Odd. He definitely used to have four toes with four toenails on each foot. And the nail-less foot is the one attached to his problematic knee – the one he’d been favoring when in pain. I counted the nails at least five times, as if I've forgotten to count to four in my old age. Definitely three nails.

So now I have a new theory. It wasn’t his knee causing him so much pain. It must have been his foot and he must have torn the nail completely off. How that could have happened, I have no idea. But it’s with some relief that I come to that conclusion. Maybe his knee isn’t as far gone as I thought it could have been, and maybe there’s still time to do a lot more preventative care for him. As much as I don’t want him harmed or in pain, there’s some relief in knowing the problem was not the problem I thought it was and I have more time to take care of him.

Eli, of course, being the grumpy-pants that he is, will let me feel the foot all I want because that seems mindless, but the minute I show actual, directed attention to it, he won’t let me inspect it. He’s like that with everything that he knows I want to see. Is anyone else’s dog like that? “Oh, you want to see this? Here, let me just obscure it from you and then run away every time you get anywhere near me.”

we are not the same

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Gabriel is watching Sesame Street while I get some desk work done. Burt and Usher, as in Usher, are discussing the word unique.

My son is disgruntled that neither Elmo nor Big Bird appear on his screen. I, on the other hand, could watch Usher and Burt -- really, Usher and any muppet -- all day. But not Abby. Abby is by far my least favorite muppet, and not even Usher's smooth presence could make me want to watch that screeching, whining disaster of a character.

Usher has just informed Burt that his dance moves are "one of a kind." And now Usher is performing some of his one-of-a-kind dance moves.

I am just saying is all.

the children's hospital

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000

I recently spent a night at the UNC Children's Hospital. Everyone is fine and the little patient was discharged after less than 24 hours because she was recovering so well. But not all of the kids I saw there were fortunate enough to need only one night in the hospital.

There were kids there, and their families, who clearly had been there for a while. A week, maybe more. There were older kids. There were infants.

One little girl had hand-drawn signs on her door letting the staff know when she was awake, asleep, etc. You don't even know what kinds of signs you would need to make unless you've spent at least a full day there, experiencing the routines and the unexpected awakenings and the odd schedule of tests and checks and pricks and visits. And on the window of her room, the most recently passed holiday-themed mural included her name. She had likely been there at least a week. Who knows how much longer.

Late into the evening, I saw a caregiver pushing a toddler around in one of those low strollers that looks like a racecar. This tot looked to be about my son's age, maybe a couple of months younger. She seemed unsettled, like she wasn't sure what was going on around her. I figured she was probably new. Maybe it was her first night, or maybe her second. I would be bewildered for days to know I was sick enough to be admitted, too. The image of the child my own son's age, wide-eyed and uncomfortable, is one I don't think I'll ever forget.

During one of my treks out of the room -- to the linen closet, the snack room, the elevators -- I noticed a lady walking the halls pulling a radio flyer wagon and an IV bag. In the wagon was a baby who wasn't even old enough to sit up on his own yet. I didn't think about it at the time; it was only later that it occurred to me that this floor had a couple of wagons.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: this floor needs wagons, so that parents and caregivers can pull their sick babies around. The linen closet is stocked with tiny, absolutely tiny hospital gowns. The rooms' exterior windows overlook a "memory garden" full of oversized sculptures of flowers, animals, and bugs that move.

We'd anticipated our stay to be brief, and it was. There are some kids -- some infants -- who have spent a lot of time here, though. Long enough that their caregivers didn't even have to think about how to load an infant into a wagon and haul him around without losing track of the IV. Long enough that they don't have to look at the menu anymore to know what they want for dinner. Long enough for the staff to paint a personalized mural on their window. How grateful I am for my son's health. So very, very grateful.

the pervasiveness of pregnancy loss

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000

One of the hallmarks of growing up is the growing awareness, and then understanding of, the issues of pregnancy. The issue may be not wanting to be pregnant or wanting nothing more than to have a baby, or it may be one of the varying degrees of success toward either effort.

Pregnancy loss is one of those issues. It seems, in some circles, as though it’s perceived as something we simply do not discuss, or something we have not discussed and need to discuss. The seemingly pervasive sense that “we don’t talk about this” or “pregnancy loss is the secret, silent pain” used to confuse me, because I had never (knowingly) experienced the silence. Pregnancy loss is not a part of my own experience. It has always, however, been a part of my story. It is a part of some of my most formative memories. There were family stories going back generations, reasons why this aunt never went to baby showers and why those siblings were so far apart in age. There were couples at church who lost their babies, and we would pray for them. There were funerals with tiny caskets that were carried out by one person. Pregnancy loss felt, for a very long time, to be very real to me, and not something that was hidden.

But the older I get, the more I learn that many people really don’t talk about miscarriages and other pregnancy losses. Sometimes they’ll speak of it years later, and I’m sure there are others who never speak of it at all. I hear it in passing comments about why she never goes to that church on Mother’s Day – it was four years ago at the Mother’s Day service that she lost her first baby. I see it in whispers in social media, of veiled “praying for the so-and-sos” and we all draw our conclusions when the updates stop coming for a while.

These days, it can be easy to find community online. There are bloggers who “go public” with their losses, making it easier for other grieving women and men to find solace and know that they aren’t the only ones. I have often been silent, because I can’t personally relate and therefore feel like I have nothing to contribute. I hope, though, that I could be a safe place if any of my friends is dealing with pregnancy loss. My contribution to the conversation is not a personal story, but I do want to be a support, a listening ear, a meal-bringer, a friend that can be called on in the middle of the night. I want to love on these hurting parents, miss these unseen children, come alongside in, and affirm, the grief.

Every moment of every day, I live in the very real grace of having been pregnant only once, and having a thriving toddler to show for it. There are millions of women who can’t say the same – millions of couples and families who have “set a place at the table” for a little loved one who will never join them. My hope, moving forward, is that I can continue to lend my voice in support and love for these hurting families.

i never thought it would happen to me

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

By far the hardest moment of my actual divorce hearing was when the judge asked me if I thought the marriage was irretrievably broken. I had to say yes, and it was hard not to cry.

In that moment, I relived a conversation, confounding at the time, that I'd had with one of my best friends when I had realized I was going to be divorced. I was sobbing, an aching, confused, emotionally bleeding mess heaped on the couch in my mom's living room. He looked kind of bewildered and was trying to help me make sense of what was happening, though to me it didn't seem like there was any sense to be made. I knew my marriage had its share of problems, but I didn't think they were "big" enough to merit divorcing. I thought our issues could be overcome, and I kept saying that. Eventually my friend pointed out that I was missing the biggest "issue" of all - Brian's unwillingness to work it out. That issue apparently could not be overcome, and it was in fact "big" enough to cause a divorce.

My friend's words did little to console me at the time, but a few days later, by the time I'd stopped hyperventilating and leaking from the eyeballs every five seconds, I could see that he was right. Brian wanted out, and there was nothing I could do to change his mind. And that meant that the relationship was not ok, that it wasn't working, and that it really was "that bad."

I have since heard other women echo my sentiments -- the ones suggesting that our problems weren't that bad, that we aren't too far off, that this can be fixed, etc. There's a lot of pain and frustration and fear in that feeling, because you didn't think it was all really going to fall apart and yet here it is, falling apart. There is possibly (at least in my case) an element of denial, of the bad-ness of the state of the relationship. I don't think I've heard a single one of these women (like me) reconciling with their long-gone husbands.

What I've come to realize is that in many of these cases, the other spouse, the leaving spouse, is dreadfully, miserably, terribly unhappy but has spent years, sometimes many many years, pretending that he isn't. There's only so much pretending he (or anyone) can do before it's just too difficult to keep up the act, to try to hide the frustration, to seek other outlets for satisfaction. So he quits. And she is shocked and hurting and has to realize that she's spent the past however many years loving (or trying very hard to love) what is, ultimately, a sham. It's when we come to grips with the fact that everything we thought was our life was in fact a lie that we can move forward.

I am very thankful that that shift came fairly early in the process for me. If it hadn't been for my friend's loving, truthful words, I'm not sure how long it would have taken for me to turn the corner.

again with the humidifier

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

I've had another foray into life with the goofy Aldi humidifier, and I thought I would revisit the topic since I never returned to show a photo of the thing.

Here's the beast in action!

As an aside, I would very much like to take a moment to wax rhapsodic over Aldi, my discount grocer of choice. Aldi does a lot of things right, and I have a lot of respect for the company and I am also really happy to have one close enough to frequent. In short, I love Aldi.

I go there maybe once a week or two weeks, and it’s probably my favorite trip. The angels don’t sing when I go there (the way they do at the fancy Harris Teeter not far from here) but for some reason, I most look forward to this store. Is it the new organic products popping up here and there? Is it the opportunity to get my favorite junk food and snacks for way less than I can get them anywhere else? (By the way, Aldi knock-off Oreos are better than real Oreos, in my opinion, and the knock-off Cap’n Crunch has a permanent place in my heart.) Maybe it’s my favorite “off-the-shopping-list” treat, their fancy chocolate bars. Is it the section in the middle with the “stuff” instead of the food, where you never, ever, ever know what you’ll find but 98% of the time it’s something awesome? My latest obsession: the personal exercise trampoline for $25 that I should have grabbed immediately but talked myself out of. Why, oh why, did I talk myself out of that? It would be fun for the whole tiny family! I can just imagine Gabriel jumping around on that thing.

As I referenced above, Aldi is beginning to introduce organic products. They are part of the store’s Simply Natural brand, which includes both organic and all-natural/simple ingredients. Last week I picked up a jar of organic salsa and a box of organic honey nut cheerios to give to G as a snack instead of conventional snackies. Did you know that to be certified organic, the product is also non-GMO? When I can get non-GMO grains, I jump on it. Especially for my boy. There’s organic produce including spinach, cherry tomatoes, and apples, and there’s also organic honey. I think they are maybe also venturing into organic dairy, even, which makes me really happy because I try to keep our milk and butter organic. (Cheese is an aspirational goal that will likely not come to fruition any time soon.) And my latest, greatest finds: nitrate/nitrite-free BACON and DELI TURKEY. Can I just tell you how happy this makes me? It make me very happy.

There are some things I don’t get at Aldi. Their organic produce availability is growing, but it doesn’t encompass our whole diet yet and I try to stick to organic with the Dirty Dozen (or however many it is this year) so I get a lot of my produce elsewhere. I also don’t get my meat there, because I get the vast majority of my meat from Zaycon. And while Aldi has a lot, they don’t have everything, so there are other odds and ends that come from other places. But my Aldi list is usually a long list! And I spend way too much time there poking around the shelves, looking for new organic things and generally just scouting.

I should also probably disclose that I am not getting paid or otherwise compensated to write any of this. I just really like Aldi and I look forward to my trips there, as weird as that may be.

What about you? Have you ever been to Aldi?

Finished object report: crazy quilt

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Finished! Love it. All it needs is a label. I am considering entering it in the state fair, though that would mostly be for show and not because I will win any awards for it, because it's riddled with mistakes and inconsistencies. The binding is pretty good this time around, though!

sunning a cutting board to remove stains

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Until recently, I was uninitiated as far as the pomegranate. A friend of mine came over to coach me through my first pomegranate experience, and for the mist part it was awesome. But I neglected to clean off my cutting board until the next day, and it was covered in pomegranate-purple stains. I will often put laundry in the sun to get stains out, so I thought I would see if bamboo cutting boards respond the same way. Here goes nothing!

eee-yi

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:00:00 +0000

I have a dog. I call him Eli. Gabriel calls him eee-yi, which is close enough for us.

Eli is a papillon. The papillon breed is the descendent of a type of spaniel, which gave me a chuckle when I learned it because historically I have not like spaniels at all, and yet I love the breed and I really love my own little guy.

Papillons are a tiny breed, and as such they are plagued with common tiny breed problems like bad teeth, bad knees, and a propensity for yapping. Eli is no exception to any of these, though he’s come a long way on the yapping front. (Most days.)

Eli is deep into middle age. The expected lifespan of a papillon is stated about 15 years, though in my experience most of them go to about 12 or 14. Eli is 8, halfway to 9. He’s slowed down some in recent years and the health issues come with a little more frequency than I’d like. Every time I sense something’s wrong, I get a sense of doom – a feeling that “this is it” and this is the end and it’s time to say goodbye.

Like many of his tiny, slim-legged kindred, Eli has a bad knee. It’s called a luxating patella and that means the kneecap doesn’t always stay where it’s supposed to. The problem gets exacerbated as he ages and the cartilage around the kneecap wears down. At some point it becomes bone-on-bone action and that doesn’t feel very good at all. There’s not a whole lot that can be done to alleviate the issue, especially as he gets older. Anti-inflammatory diets help, as does good, regular exercise. Keeping inflammation down, body weight as low as is healthy, and muscle tone strong all work together to keep the knee from degenerating, but it will only take him so far.

Eventually the knee will become so bad and the pain so great that surgery becomes the only possible treatment. Surgery is expensive and hit-or-miss, with a 10% “failure” rate in terms of relieving pain. Amputation is also an option, and while it’s never really the desired option to remove a back leg, a lot of dogs do thrive on three legs.

With Eli being as old as he is, it’s just a matter of time for some of the “senior” health issues to start cropping up – namely, the bum leg. And it seems like, lately, it has gotten worse. He has been limping a lot, yelping a little, and generally living what seems to be a more constricted, more painful life in the past couple of days. He doesn’t jump on the sofa nearly as much and he spends a lot of time hiding under the table or behind my office chair. He can still get to where he needs to go, most of the time with relative ease, but his carefree, tail-up preening and patrolling has been placed on pause until this painful bout subsides.

I’ve been giving him some leftover anti-inflammatory pain meds from a past procedure, and they have helped. But those will run out at some point, and then I will still need to deal with the underlying problems. I’ve started looking into supplementation, and canine chiropractic is also an option – or it would be, if I had the finances to swing it.

The hard part in all of this is that I am approaching the point of having to make choices between finances and his health. I’m not in the position to take him to the vet with any concern and say “do whatever it takes to make him feel better.” I carefully weigh whether I can take him to the vet at all, whether to get him the intensive care that could help him have a longer, happier life. I frantically look for more work to add to my already overloaded schedule, just to scratch together enough to feel secure that I could take him to the vet if and when he really needs it. I give him as many cuddles as he’ll tolerate and I tell him I’m trying to help him. I pray for him. I spend spare moments educating myself.

Eli has not been the perfect dog. He is not my best friend or my soul mate or the dog I will miss forever. He’s cranky. He barks out the window. He doesn’t like it when people come into his house. A lot of times his fear-aggression has been a real pain in the behind. But he’s my buddy and he’s been my buddy for 8 years now, and I love him. He’s been there for my entire “real” adulthood, and his presence is a comfort. We’ve lived in three states together, we’ve seen other people and other dogs come and go from our lives, and we’ve slept in the same room the vast majority of nights over the past 8 years. He’s been my ornery, sometimes loud, furry companion and I promised him, when I brought him home, that I would take care of him. Now he’s getting older and it’s time to make good on that promise, however that ends up taking shape.

listing and listening: how to boost creativity, productivity, and sanity (i hope)

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:00:00 +0000

As much as I don't like Facebook, sometimes it can be good for something. A post by Stephanie St. Claire about starting and growing your small business recently went viral, and as a result of someone posting it on Facebook, I saw it. The post was great, with the kind of encouragement I needed at the time and a vibe that I really liked. So I read more.

As I tumbled down the blissbombed.com rabbit hole, I came across this post about daily list-making for creativity and problem solving. Daily lists? I could totally do that! I love lists! And I can still count to ten!

I've been trying it for a few days now. Most of my lists have been pretty lame so far, but there are a couple that I like. One is titled "what would make my life work better, right now?" and I see things that I really probably need to pay attention to -- and things that are within reach. One is called "ways I can keep my toddler occupied without involving a screen." The effectiveness of these ideas will surely be determined more by his whims than by the creativity of the ideas, BUT, at the very least I have some ideas to burn through next time I plan to shower ~~without an assistant~~. (I'm beginning to think I should have made numbers 1-7 "give him an empty laundry hamper," because homeboy is really digging the mesh foldy/bendy laundry hampers right now.)

Steph first got the idea from James Altucher, another blogger I read. I recently bought his book (it's at $1.99 on Amazon) but I haven't had the chance to read it yet.

All in all, I like this list idea so far. I haven't seen a whole lot of actual fruit from it yet, but the problem solving feels good, regardless of whether any actual problems have been solved just yet.

What do you think about this idea? Are you a list maker?

confessions of a christmas music purist

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I have been listening to Christmas music for a week now.

There. I said it.

I used to be one of those hardcore "no Christmas music until Thanksgiving is over" people. MAYBE Christmas music could be playing while we cleaned up the meal. MAYBE. But Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and it bugged me that it would get "overlooked" by Christmas hype.

Also, I can be kind of rigid.

I was sort of lacking in the Christmas cheer last year. It all kind of snuck up on me and all of a sudden it was like December 5 and I hadn't even thought about Christmas. It's fine -- I was a little busy last year. But this year, I am really getting in the mood. I am eagerly awaiting Advent at church, and all the crunchy leaves and chilly weather have me ready to celebrate something. I feel, dare I say it, festive. As festive as a humbugger can get, anyway.

So that's why I've been listening to Christmas music for a week. Thanksgiving is still my favorite holiday, but I think it's ok to have it share some space with Christmas this year. It's not like I am NOT going to celebrate Thanksgiving and it's not like it means any less to me just because I am hearing Christmas tunes beforehand.

how to work at home with a toddler (or a baby!) (or a preeschooler!)

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I've been a work-at-home mom since the day my self-proclaimed maternity leave ended, around the time Gabriel was 3 months old or so. I really began working for myself in earnest in June of that year, when he was about 6 months old. It's been a year and a half of solid work-at-home-mamaness.

I have done a lot of things wrong and a lot of things bootlegged, but I finally feel like I am actually getting a handle on this home-all-day-with-him situation. And what it really boils down to, for me, as a single mom who must work, who has a toddler, who has no regular childcare, is awareness. Well, awareness and priorities.

The single most effective thing I have found for working at home with my toddler (thus far) is to divide my tasks into "awake tasks" and "asleep tasks." And when I talk about "work" or "tasks," I am talking about everything that must be done. Editing jobs. Dishes. Writing. Packing and shipping for the family business. Laundry-folding. Showering. Even TV-watching. Anything that is done at home and is not "reading a book for pleasure" (as if that ever happens) or "doing whatever Gabriel wants to do" is considered work.

I have learned, the hard way, what kinds of work I can do when he's awake and what I can only do when he's asleep. These days, I get a two-hour nap and a post-bedtime block of time and that's about it, so I've really got to make the most of the time that he's asleep -- it's too limited to waste on things I can do at other times.

Examples of sleep work include most of the writing and editing jobs that I have, especially those that pay by the hour rather than the project. Jobs that don't pay by the hour are easier to fit into the 5- and 10-minute chunks of time I sometimes get throughout the day, but it's nearly impossible to keep track of my time while doing that, which is why I'm such a fan of project-based fees rather than hourly fees. Other sleep work? Folding and putting away the laundry. I have a helper who likes to remind me that laundry needs to be shaken and tossed on the floor, especially if it is stacked too neatly.

The difficult thing for me has been resigning myself to not doing the awake work that need to be done, if he's already gone to bed. That 9pm-1am (or whenever I get too tired to do quality work) stretch is my best shot at real productivity in any given day, and I just can't justify sacrificing it to unloading the dishwasher and wiping down the bathroom mirror, no matter how much I want that other stuff to get done.

Some days -- lots of days -- there's just too much to get done. There's almost never time left over to do the things that are really gratifying but not "necessary" -- like knitting, and blogging, and having my friends over as frequently as I'd like. But having this basic guideline has helped me feel like I am at least making good choices about the things I manage to do when given the opportunity.

What's one of your best productivity tips?

insoles and beyond giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Insolesandbeyond.com is sponsoring a great giveaway over at Messy Wife, Blessed Life.

Mandi, who writes the Messy Wife blog, is one of my favorite voices on the internet and I for one am super stoked to partner with her on this venture.

The prizes are pretty substantial and there are two winners. One winner gets a $50 store credit, and the other gets $25. Head on over to the giveaway page to enter, and you can keep entering every day for more chances to win!

If you are so inclined, I'd also love it if you liked our Facebook page (despite my feelings toward Facebook) and if you followed us on Twitter. (No hard feelings toward Twitter yet, but there's still plenty of time.) We're also taking signups on the homepage for our Insoles and Beyond Newsletter, which yours truly will be speerheading so I wouldn't be sad if you signed up for that, too.

I've been wearing insoles since I was about 16, and I really believe in the product. If you have any questions about what we sell, please feel free to ask me!

bah humbug! or, all these daily thanks on facebook are getting on my nerves

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I am maybe a cynic or maybe a scrooge or maybe a bitter ~~old~~ woman or maybe I just really need a nap. No matter what it is, I am going to come right out and say that all of these daily thanks posts all over my Facebook feed are really super annoying.*

If it's not rhapsodies about wonderful husbands and perfect kids, it's hooray minivans and yay takeout. Seriously? I don't know. Some people -- lots of people -- really get a kick out of everybody being overtly thankful for all the wonderful things in their lives. You have a perfectly behaved dog? Hey, me too! And your $70-a-cut hair stylist is the best? I SO love my cut-and-colors with highlights and lowlights every six weeks on the nose, afforded to me by my previously mentioned perfect husband the huge paychecks! Hey, while we're celebrating our collective awesomeness, which Chinese restaurant delivery service are you most grateful for?

Me, I am exceedingly grateful for the days that I'm able to finish washing my week-old dishes in a rush before my sick, cranky, runny-nosed toddler starts throwing rocks at the dog again.

But because it's the season for gratitude and I am all about lists, I thought I'd mention a few of the things I'm grateful for right here, instead of clogging up everyone's rainbows-and-sparkles-athon.

- I'm thankful that all my lipsticks were recently deemed old enough to throw out without hesitation, before the aforementioned toddler found them and decided to make permanent art on the walls.
- I'm thankful that there's no room in my budget for Starbucks, which means I never have to deal with lines of caffeine-addicted people and baristas who either won't look you in the eye or won't stop singing (or both).
- I'm thankful that two of my closest friends are non-dairy and vegetarian, respectively, because that means I don't have to be careful about how much cheese I pile on when one comes over and I get all the taco meat when the other one does.
- I'm thankful that my Ikea couch slipcover is washable, because when everything is covered in pee, I at least have the amusement of seeing a naked toddler atop a naked sofa.
- I'm thankful that you and I are still friends, despite the fact that I am a terrible person who is complaining about people being happy.

What's on your list, besides the obvious?

*I want to be really super clear right up front that I am not actually talking about any specific friend or collection of friends here. There are so many of these posts flooding my news feed that my eyes glaze over and I don't even pay attention to the content or the post-er. So really, none of this is about you, person-I-probably-just-offended.

all saints, sick babies, and finding a thin place in your own home

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 13:00:00 +0000

This past Sunday, my church celebrated All Saints Day. To be more specific, we held a Solemn Holy Eucharist for the Feast of All Saints. It was a very "high church" service -- possibly the most I've ever experienced. There was incense, pretty much the whole service was chanted, and it was really, really beautiful all the way around. Of course, I'm into that stuff -- worship that feels like worship of the God of the universe.

On my way home, I got a call saying that a certain 6-month-old loved one was being taken to the pediatric ER at UNC Hospitals. The baby was diagnosed with an easily treated pneumonia and (a long wait later) she was admitted to the hospital for an anticipated couple of overnights for observation. As we talked through logistics, it became obvious that I needed to stay the first night with the mom and baby. We settled in, another family member brought some provisions, and we proceeded to do the best we could to take care of ourselves and the miserable but still feisty little one.

After a long night came a bright morning with good news, and I came back home to my own little one. I was exhausted, and he is still recovering from the time change, meaning nap time wasn't too far away. We piled onto my bed and had a transcendent time of giggling, tickling, dancing, and generally enjoying each other's company to the likes of Abba, Boston, and other music I'd loaded on my recently rediscovered college ipod. After having a tough, very full day of trying not to ask myself what I would do if it were Gabriel being hospitalized, it was restorative to have that kind of connection time with my boy. As we goofed off, I kept getting whiffs of something musky and sweet.

It took a while for me to figure out what was going on. But it turns out that in my haste to get to the hospital, I had just tossed my church clothes onto the (unmade) bed, and these clothes still smelled of the church incense. Every time we moved the covers, a new bit of fragrance rose up.

The sermon yesterday talked about thin places, and how sometimes people can be thin places for each other: when we do something that brings someone face to face with God, we can become a thin place. I'm not really on board with this concept -- I think a thin place is a place, after all, and one that offers a consistent and repeated experience of closeness to the divine (as opposed to a one-time event). But there are very real moments when God, maybe through the Holy Spirit, finds us. Maybe it's in a place. Maybe it's through a memory. Maybe it's a conversation with or an act by someone else. And in those moments, we are within arm's reach of God, being touched and ministered to and reached, maybe even healed.

I don't know the theological reasons for having incense at church when there's something death-related to be reminded of, but it seems to be a theme. But there's something about a solemn remembrance of those who have gone before that, of course, reminds me of my own mortality. And thanks to a full year at this church with its reverence its tradition and its deeply moving prayers, my sensory links between and among remembrance and incense and worship are now well-formed.

So as I sat there on my bed with my happy toddler, after a long hospital night caring for a sick baby and her very tired mama, getting lost in my own fight against some very vivid "what if" fears of my own, I kept catching this fragrance -- of hope, of death, of worship, maybe even of God. And in those moments, God found me.

pope francis on ideology and faith

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:00:00 +0000

In a recent homily, Pope Francis said a few things that kind of spoke to me. The whole sermon is really interesting, but this quote grabbed me.

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought…"

You can read the rest here.

h/t to zach

app i love: ibotta

noreply@blogger.com (bashtree) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 12:00:00 +0000

In my never-ending money-saving endeavors, I've tried a few different things. I never really got into the whole app thing when it comes to grocery shopping (or anything else), but a friend turned me on to this new app called Ibotta. (If I've got the pronunciation right, it should sound like "I bought a")

I like the Ibotta app because it deals in actual money that I can earn really easily and then redeem REALLY easily and quickly. It's all done on my smartphone. To date, I've picked up almost $25 extra toward my food budget buying things that I either would be buying anyway or would be really interested in trying.

If you get super excited about it, the way I did, you can earn a cool $15 or more in your first two weeks of playing along. That right there was worth the approximately 10 minutes it took to load the app, load the coupons, and submit my receipts. It's not a high maintenance process, but there are guidelines to follow. Bottom line is, it's really easy to use. And have I mentioned that it pays out real money?

In the beginning, I was a total skeptic because I don't have time to deal with most things like this. BUT, I've continued to use the app -- for about a month now -- and I am really happy with it. I don't have time for fussy apps and weird coupons and odd rules, and I don't get any of that with Ibotta. So I figured it was time to spread the word.

Ibotta is not the next big thing to make you rich or anything like that, but if you're willing to put a tiny bit of effort into it for just a couple of trips to the grocery store in back-to-back weeks, the first payout (a minimum of 10 actual dollars transferred to your Paypal account, with no fees removed) would probably make it worth your while. It is probably my second-favorite "online money thing," behind my beloved Swagbucks.

Note: The links above are my affiliate link. I didn't get compensated to write this post, but I do get compensated if a few of you sign up using my affiliate link.