He's finally here. I've been awaiting his arrival for so long, and now I can't hardly believe he's sitting next to me. He sits there serenely, strong and quiet, humming just a little to himself. He's mine, all mine, and yet now that he's here...I'm hardly doing anything with him at all.

He's my new best friend: an extra freezer!




Excuse me for a moment while I go hush the pre-kids, pre-marriage part of myself who is shaking her head in shame at the fact that I really am this excited, this happy because one of my birthday presents this year is an appliance. An appliance.

But what can I say? I have come to really enjoy growing and cooking and preserving food. And this little guy is going to make things so much easier.

We've wanted an extra freezer for a long time. But first we were apartment-dwellers, and then we were homeowners, but homeowners handicapped by a long, skinny utility room and a mini-size garage, with no room to put a freezer in either one. And then we realized that there is no rule that says a freezer can only go in a garage or a utility room. We have an office/spare room. Why can't we put a freezer in there? And so Eric's guitars got shoved out of the way a little (sorry sweetie) and our new little freezer has a home in here.



But, so far, I have barely put him to use at all. Seven jars of freezer jam. (The last of the 44 jars that I ended up making this year). That's it! I know he's capable of so much more! I have all kinds of ideas of things I'd like to fill him with. Bags and bags of frozen berries of all sorts. Some good, locally-grown meat. Green beans. Oh, the possibilities are endless.

And now I need your help. Tell me, people. Where are your favorite local sources? I'm lucky, in that there are so many different farms, farmstands, and farmer's markets around here that I hardly know which one to turn to. Which place has the best prices on berries? (Of any kind: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries...we love them all.) How about meats? If you've ever bought local beef, where did you get it and how much was it? We don't have room for a full side of beef, but maybe a portion?

If anyone has any tips, let me know. I need to put my new friend to work.

Have you ever heard the phrase "the tyranny of the urgent?" The idea behind this phrase, so I understand it, is that those things that are right in front of us seem to become the most urgent. We never get to attend to greater-good, big-picture kind of things, because all those little projects right in front of us suck up our time and energy. The urgent crowds out the important. I feel like that's where I live every minute of my days: the land of the urgent.

It's one of those days where it seems like no matter where I turn, there's something or some person that really could use my attention. Laundry to be folded, dishes to be washed, bills to be paid, kids who need stories read, owies kissed, or just a few minutes of me to listen to them.

The idea, I believe, is that you're supposed to find some way to prioritize your day, to let some things wait, to make time for what really matters. But how do you ignore the juice spilled across the table, the kid howling in the back yard, the empty drawers with no clean underwear in them for tomorrow? You don't. You can't. You jump in and take care of them. Because they're urgent.

If anybody figures out a way to tend to the important without sacrificing the urgent, let me know.

I don't think I really appreciated the glory of seasons until I started growing and preserving food. These days, you can go to CostCo and get sugar snap peas and strawberries any time of the year, whenever your little heart desires.



Just imagine how wonderful summer must have been, even a generation or two ago, when that wasn't possible. Just think how excited those gardeners must have been when they saw their pea plants growing tall and blossoming. When I bit into that first sweet, crunchy pea pod last night--when I offered one to Eric and he said "Mmmm..." appreciatively as he tasted what I'd grown--I was happy. But just think how much happier we would have been if it was the first time we'd tasted something so fresh and green since the year before.




And strawberry season? I do love strawberries, and I will occasionally buy them out of season for a special occasion or certain recipe. But the grocery store ones can't compare to the melting, ripe, sweetness of the local Oregon berries.




My kids were thrilled to be out in the fields picking them. But they would have gorged themselves even more, I think, if they knew this was the only time they would get to taste strawberries all year long.





I love making my own jam. But I know that if I do run out (again) I can just go to the store and get more.







What if the jars that we made right now, this week, were really all that stood between us and (gasp!) jam-less toast?



Right now, summer and fall are wonderful times for us, food-wise. But back in the days before long-distance shipping and refrigeration and mega-grocery stores? Summer must have been gosh-darn miraculous.

I thought this day would never come. I thought I was going to be hunting for lids and straws and little stoppers and spigots for the rest of my life. And now, what do you know? My kids are done with sippy cups.


Oh, I've still got some around, don't you worry. The cups were far too numerous to be vanquished overnight. At one point they could be found in every nook and cranny of our house, in every cup-holder of the car, forgotten with half-drunk moldering milk in them every which way I turned.

But they're getting to be fewer and fewer. When I find them, I wash them and stuff them in the back of the cupboard...and then they remain there, unused. Day by day, the amount of wandering sippy cups in this house is steadily shrinking.

Because you see, Evie's hatred of anything baby-ish has suddenly manifested istelf into a refusal of sippy cups. She wants a REAL cup, just like everyone else. And the other girls, at 4 and almost-6, really are too old to be forced to drink out of sippys anyway. And suddenly here I am finding myself pouring milk like a regular person, into regular (albeit small and plastic) cups, without having to go banging through drawers and cupboards and dishwasher racks for the elusive lid that fits the cup at hand. Suddenly, handing out drinks is almost...simple.

And yes, Evie spills a lot. And so do the other girls. Heck, I spill things a lot. But when we do, we just wipe it up and move on with our day. Of course, we still do have some cups with lids. For taking in the car or going to the park, water-bottle or thermos-style cups are the most convenient. But for just regular meal-times? There's not a sippy in sight. I'm actually considering throwing them all out and keeping just one or two for the occasional toddler-age guest.

My gosh, me throwing out sippy cups, Evie learning to go potty, Beth starting first grade...it's almost like my kids aren't going to be babies forever. When you're in the thick of it, part of you sort of thinks that they are going to be little forever, that you'll never, never be done with washing those dad-gum little plastic valves and lids and straws...and then suddenly... you are.

When I was a kid, my dad made blueberry waffles every Sunday morning. While mom got us girls all dressed and brushed and combed and pretty for church, he would mix up the batter, cook batch after batch on the ancient waffle maker (one he and my mom got for a wedding present in 1974), mix together blueberries and sugar and cornstarch and heat them until they were the perfect sweet, syrupy concoction. Then we'd all sit down for a morning feast before heading off to church together.

I don't remember anything in particular that anyone said at any of those Sunday morning breakfasts, but I remember being there, Mom and Dad and Cheryl and I, all together around the table every week.

And then years went by, and my sister and I became teenagers. We spent the night at other friends' houses, or we stayed up late watching movies and giggling with our friends over bowls of popcorn and gallons of Coke and Mountain Dew. When Sunday mornings came, we slept in, rising just in time to throw on some clothes and slump into the back seat of the car.

Dad still made waffles and blueberry sauce every Sunday, but they just sat there, growing colder and colder on the table, and after he ate his share he would carefully wrap them up and put them in the refrigerator, where they would sit for a few more days until eventually someone threw away the remainders.

Finally, he stopped making waffles and blueberry sauce on Sunday mornings.

It wasn't that big a deal, at the time. We weren't rejecting our parents or forsaking our family. We were good kids, and we just liked to sleep in.

But looking back--when I think of my dad, who is a man of few words, caring for us in this sweet and tangible way--I want to take teenager-me and shake her for letting those beautiful waffles grow cold, for letting dad sit and eat them alone.

Love is a gift, something that families choose to give each other every day. And no one, not even a privileged middle-class teenager, secure in her parents' unending care for her, should take it for granted.

1. A couple of my posts have been featured recently on the site Oregon Women's Report. It's a site that includes writing on a variety of topics by women from around Oregon. Check it out if you're interested. I think my favorite recent posts on the site are "Raising an Oregon Boy" by Erika Weisensee--I, too, am proud to be giving my kids a quintessential Oregon upbringing--and "The Horror of Mom Jeans" by Heidi von Tagen--someday, my hip-hugging but slightly flared at the bottom boot-cut jeans, the jeans that I consider so attractive right now, are no longer going to be in style. And then what am I going to do?

It's now mid-June. And even though the blue skies of Monday have given way to a ceaseless, depressing grey, it's still mid-June. You know what that means, right?

You'd think, with the amount of blog posts I have written relating to potty training (this will be number 18) and the amount of time in my life I've spent on it (looks like I've been writing about potty training on fairly constistent basis for the last four years of my life) that I would know something about potty training by now.

As my children and I were out walking today, the conversation somehow got around to Christmas trees. Yes, Christmas trees. In June. It's perfectly reasonable.

And, as we walked, I explained to my children how lucky we are to live in Oregon, which is native land for Christmas trees. About forty percent of America's Christmas trees are grown right here in Oregon. In other places, I explained, real, fresh Christmas trees cost a lot of money, because they had to be shipped all the way from Oregon. And so in other places, I told them, people often buy FAKE CHRISTMAS TREES. (I am strongly prejudiced against fake Christmas trees, and I am not ashamed to be passing on my feelings on to my children.)

"Is that why we live in Oregon, mama?" Beth asked. "Because of the Christmas trees?"

"No, sweetie," I said. "The main reason we live in Oregon is because of our families. Both of our families are here, and we love being near them."

The girls loudly agreed with me, and began naming off all of the family members whom they love. This went on for quite some time.

"That doesn't mean we'll always live here. We might live somewhere else someday, and we would make friends and meet people wherever we might live. But for now we're happy being here," I said.

"But Oregon sure does rain a lot of the time," Beth said.

"Yeah, it does rain in Oregon. And this year has been an especially rainy year, way more than normal," I said.

"But not today," Beth said. "Today Oregon is just perfect."

It's really hard to argue with her on that one. This is what "perfect" looks like here in my yard today.













This is what June in Oregon is supposed to look like.

And all of us Vitamin-D-starved Northwesterners said AMEN!

Yes, that disclaimer is necessary. Because after you read this, ladies, you're all going to go "Awwww!" and be jealous of how sweet my husband is.

For my birthday (which is coming up next month) my husband signed us up for dancing lessons together!

All together now: "Aaaaw!"

He really is the greatest. Because, you see, neither of us really know how to dance. And so when situations come up--like weddings--where there is dancing, we either don't dance at all, or we just kind of stand there and sway. It's lame. I've always admired people who actually can dance, and wished I could.

And so last night found the two of us gathered in a room at a local fitness center with a bunch of other (mostly middle-aged) folks learning to dance. As I knew already, I'm not a good dancer. I've got very little rhythm and no coordination at all. A lot of the students in the class had taken other dance classes, so they at least sort of knew what they were doing. I stumbled my way through the turns, tried my hardest to keep to the rhythm, and actually did step on my partner's feet once or twice.

But. By the end of the class, I could pretty much do the basic dance pattern. Quick-quick-slow, quick-quick-slow, quick-quick-slow. The other variations were learned are much iffy-er, but I had the basic step at least. Progress!

As Eric pointed out afterward, even if we never took another class, we'd still be 100 times better than we were before taking it. When you're starting out at Level Zero, there's no where to go but up.

Here's a video of the type of dance we're learning, in case you're interested. It's called "Nightclub Two-Step." And yes, at the end of the next six weeks, Eric and I are TOTALLY going to be dancing just like this couple in the video. Just wait and see.

I wouldn't call myself an athlete. I sometimes even hesitate about using the term "runner." Maybe "jogger" is more appropriate for my speed. And I sometimes think that if I say "I'm a runner," people are probably looking me up and down and thinking, "Really? You?" I don't look like the lean, toned women in the pages of Runner's World, that's for sure.

But whatever stereotype I may or may not meet, the fact is that I just keep doing it. And have been for several years now. And I keep on liking it. Sunday mornings find me up with the sunrise for my long run. Before I go to bed I plan out my route, calculating exactly how many miles it ought to be this week. I lay out my clothes and my iPod and my shoes. And (I'm not kidding) I actually wake up excited for it. It's peaceful, just me and the birds and the occasional passing car. Afterward, I'm proud of myself. I stretch my tired muscles and throw off my sweaty clothes and reward myself with an extra egg at breakfast and an extra-hot shower. (This good mood lasts until early afternoon, when the exhaustion sets in and my muscles start to tighten up again).

But those nice long runs are private. They're just for me. Nobody's out there watching me, and nobody's clocking my time.

This year Eric and I signed up to run in the Hood to Coast relay. This race bills itself as "The Mother of All Relays," and it is quite intense. It's 197 miles long, all the way from Mount Hood to the Pacific Ocean. Twelve thousand people run it every year. One hundred ninety-seven miles. Twelve thousand people. That's a long way. And a lot of people. And if I choke--if I totally run out of steam and fall behind--people will know it. My team--which has a lot of runners who are much more experienced than I am--will know it. I don't want to be the loser on the team who slows everyone else down.

I've known it's coming for a long time. A year. But today I got my leg assignments. They are comparatively easy--two them are actually rated "easy." But that last one is rated "hard." And suddenly I'm nervous. Looking at the map of where I'm actually supposed to be running in a measly couple of months makes it frighteningly real. So I'm running. I'm sticking with it. Because now it's not just about being healthy or staying in shape or achieving a personal accomplishment. It's about not embarrassing myself.

That's a worthy goal, right?

Today's poetry challenge at The Little Stuff of Life was to write a triolet--a type of poem with a tight rhyme scheme and repeated lines. I've always wanted to write a villanelle, a type of poetry that also has repeated lines and a tight rhyme scheme, but never managed. The triolet is shorter--perhaps it'll be my warm-up for a villanelle someday? Here's what I got out of it, anyway.

Blowing wishes away

Standing in the grass, blowing wishes away

What if she wants them back?

Why can't she hold them close, for a rainy day?

Leaping through the grass, blowing wishes away

Wide eyes glow as they fly where they may

The magic’s in not keeping track

Standing in the grass, blowing wishes away

She doesn’t want them back.

See links to more triolets at The Little Stuff of Life.

It was lying crumpled in the ditch, all folded over on itself, so that only a portion of the foot-tall letters were legible. "...LCOME" was all that I could see.

I kept on running, stride after slow and steady stride. Green grass waved at me from the fields. Red-winged blackbirds soared into the Sunday morning sky and let out their bright cheeps with all their hearts.

Whose homecoming was being celebrated? A soldier coming back from overseas? A son or daughter coming home from college? A long-lost friend or relative? Whoever it was, his family loved him, once. He stepped off the bus or opened the door of his car and there they all were, grinning, an enormous banner stretched out over their heads, welcoming him.

A brown-and-white spotted rabbit bounded off into the field ahead of me, all fluffiness and speed. Farther along the road, the stiffened carcass of a possum was glued to the asphalt, its mouth fixed into a final snarl. A woodpecker pounded his beak fruitlessly against a telephone pole before giving up and flying away.

Who goes out and buys a giant "Welcome" banner, and then leaves it to rot in the ditch? It seemed like the saddest thing in the world to me.

A handful of sparrows scattered into the sky at the sound of my steps. All except one, who hopped away, his broken wing thrust upward at a stiff, painful angle. And then that was the saddest thing in the world.

The sun went on rising, the green fields kept waving. Rain misted the earth, cool on my sweaty face. It seemed like there was a lesson here, a metaphor about life in the midst of death, joy and sadness, beauty and ashes. A welcome home banner, discarded in a ditch, surrounded by wildflowers. The sparrow hurt but still hopping.

But I wasn't wise enough to put it into words, so I just kept on running.

Flushed, cranky, legs aching from a round of immunizations, she cries out for me. She, my youngest, my baby who wants to do everything herself and who tells me all day long, with a flip of her hand, to "go 'way," actually wants me. Cuddling her and putting her back to sleep won't do; neither will singing a song. All she wants is the comfort of mama's arms. So I hold her soft, sturdy little self and she slumps and snuggles against me.

In the other room, from where she too is supposed to be sleeping but is not, my 4-year-old sings "Halle-lu-jah...halle-lu-jah." (Lest you give us credit for being holier than we actually are, let me tell you that she is singing the version off the movie "Shrek," not from an actual hymn). But in this quiet house, a big bundle of blankie and baby held tight to my chest, it is a moment for giving thanks after all, no matter which tune we're singing.

.

We partied for Lucy (and Evie) last week, but today is the actual Day Of. In honor of the birthday, I told her I would make her pancakes for breakfast (weekday breakfasts are generally a low-key affair around here--cereal, toast, eggs. Nothing that involves mixing and measuring and getting out the griddle). But for her birthday, I said, we'd do pancakes.

And, I told her she could have whatever she wanted for dinner. Anything, I said. Whatever you like best, I'll make it for you.

She paused. Thought for a minute. Then her eyes lit up.

"I want pancakes... with bacon!"

So, for breakfast we had pancakes, and for dinner we're having them again. This time with bacon. Two breakfasts in one day. She's a girl after her daddy's own heart.

For the amount of time I spend on the computer, you might think that I'm a very technologically knowledgeable person. And while I certainly consider myself a reasonably proficient computer user, I am in many ways still a pen-and-paper kind of girl. I don't make spreadsheets or databases or slideshows or anything else fancy.

Instead of keeping track of things on the computer, I have my notebooks. Yes, notebookS. Plural. I need to have several notebooks going at all times--one in the kitchen, one in the office, one in my purse--so there's one close by all the time. Then, when I need to make a list or take notes during an interview or jot down something I don't want to forget, I have some place to write down this crucial information.

Just the other day I was going over some end-of-year surveys from my MOPS group and writing down which of our meetings and guest speakers were most popular. I was doing this by hand, in a notebook page, making tally marks behind each speaker's name to keep track of the votes. My husband took one look and started laughing.

"Oh, that's so cute. You're doing it by hand!" he said. When I asked him how else one might be expected to do it, he started talking about Excel and writing scripts and manipulating data, and I immediately tuned him out. I don't know how to do those things, and just taking a few minutes to write it down is much faster for me than figuring out how to do it digitally. I LIKE my notebooks.




That's not to say that I'm not open to change, though. The problem is, that with all these notebooks everywhere, each one of them is very...multi-purpose. That would be a nice way of saying "a completely disorganized mess." (Hey, that's a pretty good way to describe my entire house!) Let's take a look at the notebook on my desk right now, just for fun.

• First page: a list of recipes. I must have been meal planning. Also a phone number scribbled in the margin. I have no idea what that number is for.
• Next page: grocery list. This must have been my kitchen notebook for awhile. Also, at the bottom, this mysterious notation: "$569. 2-3." Did I spend $569 on something on Febuary 3rd? I don't know.
• Third page: OK, now we get into interview notes from a veterinarian I interviewed awhile ago. Four pages of veterinarian notes. Then one page of notes from an interview about a high school community service project, for a completely different story for a completely different client. This notebook must have migrated to the office for a few days.
• Two more grocery lists, one to-do list, notes from a conversation with my editor, notes from my story about agritourism, notes from a discussion with my husband about how to prioritize our spending. You get the picture. It's a very mixed bag.

The problem, as I'm sure you can imagine, is that when I need to go back and actually USE my notes, I have to flip back through the pages, hunt around through various notebooks, rack my brain trying to figure out which notebook I wrote that down in.

When a notebook is full one way, I usually turn it over and write back through on the back sides of the sheets of paper. Then, once it is completely and totally full, I toss it into this desk drawer. Just in case I might need something I wrote down in there! I clean out the drawer once every year or two when I'm having problems shutting it, but I'm always reluctant. What if there is something important in there?

You organized types have probably already fainted and are now fanning yourselves and trying to comprehend how I exist this way. And the truth of it is, I don't really know either. I like jotting things down with a pencil and paper. I like the bound notebooks because it's more difficult to lose than, say, a Post-It note. But the fact that I use all my notebooks all the time for all different facets of my life makes things a little complicated.

I could, of course, get different notebooks for different purposes, but what if I'm in the kitchen making dinner and the phone rings and it's a source calling back and I need to just stop what I'm doing and jot down a few notes real quick in my kitchen notebook? What if I'm in the drive-through and a really cool line of poetry pops into my head and I need to pull out my purse notebook (rather than my "writing" notebook) to write it down before it's lost forever (this did actually happen to me in a drive-through last month...but I have not gone back to look at this amazing line of poetry since then, because it's somewhere in my purse notebook and I'm not sure where). Am I going to carry a stack of three or four notebooks around with me everywhere? I don't think so.

So, here's a challenge for you, organized people of the world: any creative ideas for a system that will keep my scatteredness in check, while still allowing me to use my lovely notebooks? How does everyone else keep track of reminders and phone numbers and lists? I feel sure that there must be a better way.

If I come up with one, maybe I'll write it down in my notebook.