Friday night. As it turns out, I am alone in my house for a little while and quite happy about it.
It has been a busy week and I'm tired. Kendall had a training in Winnipeg Monday and Tuesday. I took the opportunity to go along with him as a last little get-away and take a long shopping list along. The boys stayed here with friends. We got back late Tuesday night and the days since have been busy, including substituting in the Kindergarten classes at the school. I mostly enjoy working at the school, but this 8-month pregnant mama gets very tired. So by the time I was leaving for the school this morning, I was...umm...grouchy.
Kendall was on a reserve overnight, so after I got the call to work this morning, the boys and I were on our own to get out the door. It was rather difficult. I was rushing around being impatient. Evan and I had some unhappy interactions. Then, as we were finally driving down the road and I was delivering one of my important, life-enriching lectures, Eli tried to interrupt. "Just a minute!" I said. "Is this important?!" Yes, he thought it was. Okay, then, What? "Someone called from the school to say you don't have to hurry to get there." What?! After we all yell at each other and fly out the door late, Now you tell me someone called while I was getting ready?! I needed to pull off the road to re-group. Well, I tried to re-group and salvage any damage done, but in truth I was still angry. Not the best way to start 3 hours with 5-year olds. (By the way, Kindergarten is not my forte.)
I had to go back to the school for lunch and recess duty, then on to the grocery store and a meeting at the bank. By the time we were sitting in the meeting, I was exhausted. I tried to formulate a question during the meeting, but not sure it ever came out clearly. By the time the meeting was over, the banker couldn't help but comment on how tired I looked. I went home and collapsed into bed. Unfortunately, I only had a short time to drift off before the doorbell was being urgently and repeatedly rung by 2 locked-out boys. Oops. I got them a snack (which we had to argue about). After snack, they decided to used their computer time. I took a book out to the deck. They finished their computer time and one of them lost computer time because of a slight indiscretion. They were not happy with me. I was not happy with them. They didn't realize that the deck door was open a crack and that I was NOT oblivious to all that was happening inside. Evan came out and announced their plan: "If you aren't nice to us, we're not going to be nice to you." I could hear Eli inside saying, "No! Evan!" Apparently, this was supposed to be a secret plan. Now, the previous 12 hours had been rough. I'm not saying I had been nice. However, in my defense, some of my 'not nice' activities had been taking away computer time for a blatant lie, taking away a game for fighting over it, and fining a slowpoke for making us wait.
All this to say that by the time Kendall got home, I was just about done in. And this is where I'd like to brag on my husband: He patiently listened to me vent. He took over the supper-making activities. (He made homemade chicken noodle soup, an old specialty of his.) Then he took the boys outside to work with him. I sat down with hot chocolate and finished a book. Ahh... We have a busy weekend coming up and this peaceful interlude was just what I needed. Now I can be ready with hot chocolate to share when the males of the family come in for the night. Thank you, dear Kendall.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu
July 1, 2008
This journey so far has taken me one thousand and four miles from my hometown, but I’m having trouble putting my finger on the single step that began it all. Was it Monday afternoon at the border when they gave me my official document allowing me to pass? Was it Saturday morning when we started the car and drove out of Goshen in our funny little caravan? Was it in February when we came up to Red Lake for a job interview at the hospital? Was it two Christmases ago being up here with Kendall’s family and all of us rating our desire to live up here? (I can’t say my number on a scale of 1 – 100 was high, but it was the highest of all the in-laws, so I guess I’m the chosen one.) Was it three years ago almost to the day that Kendall first said, “What if we’d move up here?” (I tried to ignore that one for several months, thinking surely it would go away.) Or was it June 10, 2000 when I married Kendall and made some solemn promises before God and all these witnesses? Was it a night before Kendall and I were married when we talked about moving to Red Lake? (It was a far off and romantic possibility at that time.) Or was it living in and visiting different cultures at different times in my life? Could the first step have been when my parents brought me as a baby to this same area for a year of voluntary service? (Kendall wasn’t born yet, but I surely saw his parents as they chatted with mine from time to time.) What about when my dad lived on a nearby reserve for two years before he was married? Or when my mom visited this town with her family as a teenager? Or maybe it had something to do with choices my grandparents made? Or other ancestors farther back?
At any rate, moving into this house where I slept for a few weeks as a baby and where my dad stayed as a teenager, has made me very aware of roots. And how they affect our lives and choices and passions.
I suspect there is no single step that began our move a thousand miles away from Indiana. It seems, rather, to be a coming together of so many different factors. (Not the least of which is marrying a man who has taken this land as a very part of his being. And for all the ways I can tease him and get annoyed at some of his woodsman ways, I really do mean that in a reverent and respectful way.)
So here we are, a thousand miles from nowhere. (Oops…I meant a thousand miles from Goshen.) I know that we safely made the journey here, but mostly our journey is just beginning. And mostly I’m excited.
This journey so far has taken me one thousand and four miles from my hometown, but I’m having trouble putting my finger on the single step that began it all. Was it Monday afternoon at the border when they gave me my official document allowing me to pass? Was it Saturday morning when we started the car and drove out of Goshen in our funny little caravan? Was it in February when we came up to Red Lake for a job interview at the hospital? Was it two Christmases ago being up here with Kendall’s family and all of us rating our desire to live up here? (I can’t say my number on a scale of 1 – 100 was high, but it was the highest of all the in-laws, so I guess I’m the chosen one.) Was it three years ago almost to the day that Kendall first said, “What if we’d move up here?” (I tried to ignore that one for several months, thinking surely it would go away.) Or was it June 10, 2000 when I married Kendall and made some solemn promises before God and all these witnesses? Was it a night before Kendall and I were married when we talked about moving to Red Lake? (It was a far off and romantic possibility at that time.) Or was it living in and visiting different cultures at different times in my life? Could the first step have been when my parents brought me as a baby to this same area for a year of voluntary service? (Kendall wasn’t born yet, but I surely saw his parents as they chatted with mine from time to time.) What about when my dad lived on a nearby reserve for two years before he was married? Or when my mom visited this town with her family as a teenager? Or maybe it had something to do with choices my grandparents made? Or other ancestors farther back?
At any rate, moving into this house where I slept for a few weeks as a baby and where my dad stayed as a teenager, has made me very aware of roots. And how they affect our lives and choices and passions.
I suspect there is no single step that began our move a thousand miles away from Indiana. It seems, rather, to be a coming together of so many different factors. (Not the least of which is marrying a man who has taken this land as a very part of his being. And for all the ways I can tease him and get annoyed at some of his woodsman ways, I really do mean that in a reverent and respectful way.)
So here we are, a thousand miles from nowhere. (Oops…I meant a thousand miles from Goshen.) I know that we safely made the journey here, but mostly our journey is just beginning. And mostly I’m excited.
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