Organized

Was it worth the time? Probably not.  But it makes me happy to see the books organized by color as a result of the library I loved so much at the hotel Arlo in New York.

Was it worth the sliver I now have lodged under my fingernail?

The jury, unlike the sliver, is out.

Hole in the Fence

It isn't fair how much we tease Adam. But my highly intelligent son has a frequent habit of letting his mouth move faster than his brain, and I just can't keep myself from laughing. Similar to the way I would have chronicled his first words when he was tiny, I wanted to record a few of our favorite Adamisms lately.

- Cheddar incense (it was really cedar)
- Exit salad (Dad chronicled that one on Facebook)
- This look he gets every time he doesn't quite understand that David is joking

But my favorite happens this last weekend when we were spending some time with Logan and Ehlana.  Adam struggles when words don't match tone, and will take the tone every time.  This has been a problem for him when dealing with adults all his life. Sweet primary teachers would smile at him and say, "I really need you to sit down." All he could hear with the kind tone was, "She really likes me! I should keep doing exactly what I'm doing."

Well, this means he is fairly likely to believe anything that is said by someone who sounds believable. Ehlana had him completely convinced that they had cut a hole in the fence just big enough for their dog to cross from the back yard to the front yard. All of Ehlena's body language indicated that she was kidding. The statement she was making sounded completely false. But her tone sounded serious!

And so when he was asked to open the gate for Alex, he responded, "Can't he just go through the hole?"

Girls Day Out

David asked if I would be interested in a girls day out.  A girls day out.

Of course I had all the questions. Which girls? Doing what? I have a core group of female friends, but I knew if they wanted to hang out with me the invitation would have come from Amy.

Whatever it was he had up his sleeve, he wanted to keep as a surprise. But I'm kind of a difficult person to surprise. It's possible I might be a diagnosable control freak. And it is all together entirely true that I am over scheduled all the time. Letting someone else put something on my calendar? That sounds like the definition of hell.

But I assured him that if he could promise me it was with people I liked doing something that I would rather do than spend time with him, I was up for the adventure. He tried to continue planning the surprise, But ultimately decided he needed my input in order to finalize the plans.

I stood in the hallway with a facial expression I am sure was a mix of complete disapproval and delight as I waited for him to spill the beans.  Really... what could he have planned that I would actually enjoy.  With girls?

"Would you like to go skydiving with Mena?"

That's his idea of girls day out?

No wonder I love this man.

Going Back

I am going back to blogging. Long before Facebook, I cleared my mental space by draining words straight into my blog. And while I did It for my own sake, others seemed to actually enjoy reading it. Perhaps that's when the problem started. Perhaps that's when I got an over-inflated sense that what I have to say matters.

Then came Facebook. And it's early days, it was a friendly place for sharing potty training stories and pictures of your dinner. It helped me feel less isolated when my children were little. But Facebook has changed, and so have I.

In order for me to confidently click post, I have to edit not only for spelling and grammar but for audience perception. Will a world of acquaintances catch my subtle tone? Have I tagged anyone would prefer not to be publicly acknowledged in my story? Have I gotten Adam's approval to share stories and pictures in a space he shares? My words have become carefully guarded. Spun for what I think will be accepted when received.

That does not help my brain declutter.

So I'm returning to blogging, and it's going to be more word vomity than ever.  Read it if you want. Judge it if you will. And get to know me if you stay.

Sometimes It Is About the Nail

I had a dream last night that I was working with a partner to put away a large stack of chairs in a corporate environment.  Together, we put these chairs away at lightning speed, but as I stepped back from the project I noticed that a piece of trim for a doorway we'd gone through had managed to attach itself to the skin of my left leg, running ankle to knee.  It was sort of just wedged in there, but one thin finishing nail was burrowing into my leg, making sure the over-sized splinter wanna be couldn't go anywhere.

The problem was obvious!  There was an obnoxious piece of lumber stuck loosely to me with a nail.  The solution was easy: remove the nail.  Except it wasn't easy.  I was new at the company, and I didn't know if there was a correct procedure for this.  I couldn't walk to HR on my own, so I sat in a wheeled chair and had a friend push me.  I arrived in the HR office, where I was wheeled directly between two women having a seemingly important conversation.  I waited silently as they continued, not at all noticing the nail in my leg or even that I was there at all.

I finally had to interrupt.  "Excuse me?" I started timidly, "I got injured moving the chairs, and I don't know if we have a sick bay or anyone who is supposed to handle this sort of thing?"

The HR woman looked annoyed that I was wasting her time.  Wordlessly, she reached toward the wood, took a firm hold, and yanked.  My problem was solved, but I felt both stupid and in pain.  I could have easily done that myself.  It would have hurt a lot less.  Did she understand that I was perfectly competent enough to pull that out?  Did she know how much effort I had gone to in order to not do something that might have been someone else's job?  

When I was younger, my mom noticed that I liked to work my problems out in my sleep.  If she walked by my room and heard me sleep-talking, she knew I was facing something in life that I didn't even yet know was bothering me.  My conscious self wasn't ready to admit the problem, but my subconscious was already digging in.

I am pretty sure I don't sleep talk anymore, but I do still tend to identify the root of my conscious problems while deeply slumbering.  Sometimes it takes a minute to piece together.  Sometimes it is obvious.

This one was obvious.

This summer I am learning to delegate.  Actively practicing it.  And it is a beautiful thing!  But clearly my subconscious has not gotten the memo and is trying to remind me how much I prefer to just pull every nail out myself.


Sometimes it is about the nail.
And sometimes pulling it out isn't as simple as it seems.

tl;dr

I am working on a thing: learning how to give a "Cliff Notes" style answer when pages upon pages are piling up in my brain and spilling out onto the unsuspecting questioner, overwhelming them entirely before I've even taken a moment to breathe.

To be honest, I am no good at it.

Which is why I am very excited about a new thing I just learned.

tl;dr

It apparently means "too long, didn't read," and it can be used by those who know they write way more than most normal humans are willing to wade through to summarize their own verbosity without having to choose to just say less words in the first place.

I think I am in love.

But that's not even my point.  The point I am excited to unapologetically state in too many words is that my brother is awesome.  And it is really fun to be able to trace back the little things that led to him doing something awesome.

The awesome thing he did is this.  And he has done an excellent job of explaining the product in a business-y way on his website.  I have to admit that my favorite part is when he puts on his engineering cap and says a bunch of stuff I didn't read.  It fills me with all sorts of sisterly pride that he has grown up to know stuff that bores me.

But there's a bit of backstory that he didn't share.  Because it doesn't really matter.  But when I read the things he wrote, my mind jumped instantly into word-vomit mode, and here I am.

#1 - The Coolest Uncle Ever

The promo picture on the website is my kid.  Having Uncle Jack as an uncle has got to be just about the coolest thing in the world.  This is the second time they've gotten to be product testers, and Uncle Jack makes pretty cool things.  I loved loosely supervising when they tested the directions for a wooden model he makes and sells.  In fact, I love loosely supervising anytime they are with him.  Slightly more safety conscious that Grandpa Casdorph sometimes appears, Jack is the perfect blend of adventure and caution, and I know that the things my kids learn when they are with him are unique and invaluable.

#2 - Kinda My Idea

Okay, it really wasn't my idea at all.  But I did go to Cub Country last year, and I did watch Alex and his friends have a great time shooting water bottle rockets, and I did mention that to my dad and Jack hoping they'd engineer something, and I did get to participate in a sunny day of family fun that probably spurred Jack's desire to do it better.

And I do have the video evidence of the fun.

#3 - Shameless Plug

I was going to say all the reasons I think you should buy from Jack.  But really, I think his stuff speaks for itself.  If you haven't visited his website or his Amazon store, you really should.  If you like gifting unique things or supporting local businesses, you'll probably really enjoy buying from him.  Oh, and purchasing from Jack supports Adam, too, since Adam is able to have the coolest job ever offered to a 13 year old.  (Did I mention that Adam's Inspirations entry, which he made using the skills he's learned at Art of Steel, won 2nd in state?)

tl;dr
Jack is awesome.  Buy this: https://www.artofsteel.net/buy-comic-art/bottle-blaster

Sound's Good

I was listening to NPR the other morning (…wait… Andrea… NPR… I know.  That’s a whole ‘nother tangent, and I’m not ready to get distracted just yet…) and I learned something brand new to me.  The Library of Congress preserves sound.  Intentionally.  There is a committee that chooses which sounds have earned the honor of being on the registry and intentionally preserved for future generations.  The concept here is far more interesting to me than the actual list of sounds they’ve chosen this year, but if you want to climb down that rabbit hole, begin here.

What makes a sound important?  The question has been ruminating in my brain for about 72 hours, probably making it more likely that I would click a link to a video posted by a Facebook friend.  I can't seem to find an embedable version of the full video, but here is a small clip:

The full video featured the stories of two individuals who had chosen the sound clips to help remember their deceased parents and to keep their voices with them at all times.

There is something about this idea that just resonates with me.  (Pun intended for sure, but not at all for comedic impact.)  As someone who has a difficult time wearing a t-shirt with words on it or choosing art that I like enough to display it on my wall, visual imagery just isn't my thing.  Sound, however, has an ability to cut right through me.  If I am every going to well up with emotion, it will be the result of the incomparable feelings generated through a beautiful sound.

The other thing that I love here is the subtlety.  A moment is captured and permanently displayed, but not just anyone has access to the full meaning.  And when someone asks, that all important sound gets to bounce around again if even for only a moment.

And that leads me to wonder:

If I had to choose one sound to carry around with me forever, what would it be?

Would I choose a clip from Twas the Night Before Christmas, a sound recording my Grandma Casdorph made for me a few Christmases before she died.  Maybe even just the first word she recorded, "Andrea."  Even now, I can hear her voice in my mind.  Would I carry that around to share with those bold enough to ask?

Maybe the moment in my family's recording of "Prayer of the Children" when my sisters and I start a unison line with a crisp, explosive "c" then carefully control our vibratos and vowels to match each other as perfectly as possible.

The distinctive sounds of each boy's laughter?  Dylan's giggle; Adam's chortle, Alex's maniacal mischief? 

What would I want to hear?  What would I want to share?

It takes 17 board members to make the decisions for the Library of Congress.  Perhaps I just don't have enough resources!