Life in a Small Town

When I first turned sixteen and obtained a driver’s license, I made a deal with myself that I would still bike and walk places.  I did not want to become someone who couldn’t get around without a car.  Most of the rest of my reasoning as a sixteen year old driver was awful.  But this decision serves me well even twenty-four years later.

Now that I’ve lived in a small town for four years, I can say I’ve walked nearly everywhere, though seven months of the year I’m pretty limited by cold temps.  Even then, when I start to feel like I may go crazy, I do battle with the temperature, bundle up, and stomp around my neighborhood block, just to defy the frigid demon that wants to steal my sanity.

Today, though, I just want to tell you a couple funny small town stories.

Last week, as we perused Downton Dollar Days, where the businesses set out merchandise they want to get rid of, some cute Christmas ornaments caught my eye.  The bookstore owner handed my kids cups of root beer and then eyed me, deciding he was going to make a sale and get rid of twenty of them once and for all.  I asked him how much they were.  With an evil gleam in his eye he asked how many I wanted.  I said three.  He set his jaw and told me I could have three for a dollar each or I could take them all for three dollars.  I told him he was naughty, and then I walked away with way too many cloth animal Christmas ornaments.  Thankfully, I got a really great deal on a kids’ book series I’d been wanting, and he confirmed I had a good eye.  So we’re still friends.

This morning I went through airport security.  The security man who called me through the x-ray scanner has eaten dinner at my home.  His kids hang with mine and I chat with his wife pretty often.  Unfortunately I’d forgotten to take my earbuds out of my back pants pocket and it was a horrifying moment when the machine showed a big red area to pat over my right buttocks.  He’d also had to tell me to take off my lightweight jacket, under which I just had a scanty running shirt on.

Awkward and funny.  Thank goodness for regulations that require a female to come do the patting.

Anyway, small towns are funny that way.  This one is growing on me.

Snails, Cockroaches, and Fashion

I apologize this blog is not about Christmas.  Except that part of Christmas is reveling in the now.  This is my now.

Timothy is a snail-lover.   There is a rookery (I'm not sure what snail hatching areas are called) on the north side of our house.  The kids get snails for Timothy and keep them in a container in his room.  The other day they decided to play hide-and-seek with them.  Of course they got bored or distracted or something and this is where I found one while doing the laundry.

We celebrated Raleigh's tenth birthday last week.  We encourage the kids to get gifts for the birthday person.  Unfortunately Conner came up with an idea that still leaves me scratching my head.

Conner had seen Raleigh find great joy in catching a large cockroach when they were visiting family in Mississippi.  So he wanted to get him some for his tenth birthday.  My husband couched it in terms such as: "I want to encourage his heart of giving."

Now just last month my dear friend blogged on the adorable puppy they got their seven year-old for his birthday.  Not I.

I, on the other hand, possess cockroaches.  Two giant, will-get-four-times-the-size-cat-food-and-scrap-eating hissing cockroaches.

The only consolation is that the woman at the exotic pet store wouldn't sell the females because she's getting low.  I really hope she knows how to tell the difference.

A man at church asked how their mom felt about possessing cockroaches as pets.
Conner told him that I did admit their backs were a pretty combination of colors.

Our cats are gray and brown, the snails are gray and brown, and the cockroaches as well, though they mostly have black and brown.

I'm glad fashion has recently decided that gray and brown are good together.  Now a lot of my old clothes are getting a new lift as I pair different things together.  I felt like a wild rebel wearing my brown slacks with a gray and navy cardigan to church on Sunday.

Watch out, Mom, next it's going to be black and navy, though I hope I don't have any pets to match.

The Eight-Year-Old

I read something written in passing.   The author was making a completely different point, but something on the way struck me.  She said she loved ten year-olds; the way they act, think, look at life.

Ever since then I've been thinking of my children with that vocabulary: the three year-old, the eleven year-old, etc...

I remember to enjoy their stages that way.  I stop to appreciate what's going on inside them.  I consider that a stage means it will be over, often sooner than later, so I better enjoy.  Now.

I thought I'd record a little of their current stages, starting with my just-turned-eight year old.

 

Dawson is in second grade, is learning to play the violin and piano, mostly wears his Seahawks football uniform, loves building things, making things out of recyclables, finding out what makes people tick, and ticking them.

He's a great table setter and compost dumper.  He loves all things new.  If it's new, he's there to figure it out and use it until something newer comes along.  You can often find he and Raleigh together, though he loves all his siblings.

He thinks for himself and has a soft heart toward God.  I am deeply humbled and regularly flummoxed through the gift of being his mom.

Turn your head sideways and you can see a wolf howling at the moon, maybe???

I include a poem from his Pugga (Grandpa):

These days the trees release their leaves,
Then, standing bare and stark,
They prophecy of winter sky
And ice upon their bark.

But while the air is warm and fair
Let's laugh at winter's fear.
Let's jump and dash and twist and smash
In Seahawks football gear.

A Few Funny Thoughts

 

A neighborhood mom stood in front of my home with a baby in a stroller.  She told me how she wasn't sure what to do now that her kids were in school--minus the baby.  So she's getting ready for Christmas.  I stared, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

For some reason this fall has been challenging for me...and trying to get through each moment is about all I can do.  Christmas will have to wait for December.

Because of my challenges, I'm trying to find things to laugh at.  On my last grocery trip I found out that you can buy watermelon seeds in bulk; they're next to the sunflower and pumpkin seeds. 

I also found an inflatable mounted moose head at the thrift store.  I mean, this could change lives.  Men wouldn't need to go out hunting if they knew of this.  Women with great decorating skill could hang these in their living rooms and people would be amazed.  But at a steep $12.00  I had to leave it there.








Today I sat with a few home school moms during our kids' Spanish class.  I mentioned, in the course of conversation, that I like to lay in bed and think about different outfits I could put together from my closet.  Then I looked down at my old Crocs, worn out, too long jeans, and black athletic jacket.  One mom remarked, "You must stay up all night figuring that out!"

All said, maybe if I hang a moose head above my bed and get my winter clothes from the basement, my challenges will seem a little less challenging.