Christmas song that made me cry

Why I don't have/won't have a job

Suzanne suggested that I get a job. I have considered it. I have missed working outside of the house. Here is my conclusion.

NO.

I do a lot in this house. I could do more. A few months ago, I read the book Quiverfull. More here. To entertain myself, I took the position that the man was the head of the household, and I was simply his helpmate in success. For a week. Quiverfulls seek to be helpmates in religious success as well, but whatever Chris and his faith do is totally not my area. Part of the program was to submit my list of things to do each day so that Chris could approve them or edit them. If there was a discipline issue with the children, I called him. I asked him if what I was wearing was pleasing to him. I made myself 100% sexually available, enthusiastically (enthusiasm is mandated). The only thing I did not do to experience this fully was yank the IUD and see what blessings were produced.

We had fun with it. He would ask, “Are you still worshipping me?” The thing he hated most was the list. When he saw what I did in this house everyday, he was stunned. With Will gone all day, the list is just as long, though different. I can conquer larger tasks like dealing with the playroom, washing windows, cleaning grout. Those things skipped by when I had to do lesson plans and execute them.

When Will went to school, the question started. “What will YOU do now?” Well, I still have a preschooler who loves her mommy and wants to be with me. She will only be half days until September 2011, so I thought I would keep raising her. Am I going to start working hard at freelancing soon? Yes. Once I get my house where it needs to be. That should be in March sometime.

When Chris asked what I was going to do, we talked about when I would go back to work and how that would look in our house. I know he would like help with the financial burdens, and I would like to contribute. So I showed him my daily lists again. “You will need to do 50% of these things.” He looked stunned. I smiled and closed Monster.com on my browser.

I find it mildly irritating that Chris’s life has changed very little since Will was born. He continues to take a class a semester. He continues to train for martial arts. I cannot even get a Saturday to take a continuing ed class. Part of that is totally on me. I would not miss one of my kids’ sporting events to take a class, and Chris does. I can name the ONE time my parents could not be at an event of mine. Out of my whole life….one. His parents went to almost nothing of his. I know how important it feels, and I am surprised that he does not understand it as well.

I don’t go to the gym as much as I could because I do not have faith in his ability to handle the kids’ nighttime routine and for people to be in bed, lights out, to sleep. This lack of faith is not unfounded. Plus, I have one-three meetings during the week for the kids’ things. I could choose not to be involved with their schools, but that seems wrong. Having them both in one school will help.

If I were to continue to do what I do and have a full-time, out-of-the-house job, there would be full-scale war here every evening. Suzanne jokingly recommended that I get a job, but it is my knowing of her experiences as full-time all-things-to-all-people that makes me hesitate. I would still have as much to do with less time to do it. I would become an insufferable nag. Yes, I would finger point and blame. Yes, I would throw fits about the inequality. I am not going to stress myself out like that. I am not going to stress my family out like that.

This is what our house looks like from 7:30 to 8:25. You can see there is some inequity.
Anna:
Get up.
Turn on lights in everyone’s rooms.
Get dressed.
Rub Meara’s back, kiss her, gently wake her by telling her how much I love her and how great her day will be
Same process with Will, plus tuck his clothes in with him because he wants to dress under the covers
Repeat the Meara steps
Return to our room to implore “breakfast guy” to get up
Whisper to each child, “Let’s start our day”
Make breakfast for me and Will (we don’t want eggs and toast everyday. We are oatmeal people)
Make lunch for Will and on Wednesdays for Meara too
Walk down to get the paper
Eat breakfast as a family
Start telling kids to get shoes on, brush teeth, get backpacks, etc
Brush my teeth, put on make up, comb through hair

Chris:
Get up at 7:45
Get dressed
Make eggs and toast
Maybe make his lunch
Brush teeth
Act exasperated because kids are not exactly where he wants them when he wants them to be
Leave

Unless I can get a part-time wife, I will continue to be a full-time mom.

Faulty memory

Yesterday morning was one of those instances when I thought, "If we were still homeschooling..." There was about a 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. Everyone was so happy, tucked into flannel sheets, covered with thick comforters while darkness prevailed outside. "In the old days," I thought," Chris would not get up for another 30 minutes, and we would all stay in bed. Breakfast would be waiting for us, and our day would not really start until about 10." When Meara was born, and I was trying to get Will off to preschool, I told Chris that he either needed to dress the kids or feed them. Invariably, just as I was about to do one of those things, Meara would need to nurse. We have had eggs and toast every morning since February 2005.

The lazy morning seemed like the beginning of a perfect day. Will would do his seatwork without complaint while Meara and I mixed the batter for cranberry/chocolate chip muffins. We would cut snowflakes, and maybe spend the afternoon playing with friends. Aaaah, heaven. This is how I imagined most of our homeschool days would be. The dreamy, fireside, harmonious-family homeschool experience. That is what I thought of yesterday morning as I began waking the family.

Can I take you back to the reality of last December? I think the families that we typically saw most had at least one sick person from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Seatwork was a nightmare at that point. The homeschool co-op was not doing anything formal. Will's other classes were over. We did not leave the house much except for errands which were not QUITE as bad as seatwork. The house was a constant disaster. No one was happy. This explains why we started looking at options in January.

The reality of yesterday. Will wanted to go to school. Meara wanted to go to preschool. I ran errands alone while they were gone which were quick and painless and then DONE. At 4 PM last night, every member of the family was still happy instead of thinking, "Wow, I had too much of you today" which I know Will and I both thought frequently.

I remember thinking that sending kids to school was "the easy way out". I remember feeling selfish because I wanted to do something other than spend every moment of everyday with my children. How dare I not be 100% dedicated to my children! What kind of mother am I?!

I have had two conversations in the last few weeks that have brought this into perspective for me. One, parenting is hard. It is work, and it can be draining. The mark of a good parent is how you handle those times. It is NOT about making your life harder than it needs to be, then beating yourself up when you fall short. A "good mom" is not the one who is constantly striving for unrealistic expectations. It is the one who creates a good flow for her family.

I am not cut out to be with anyone 24/7, and that eliminates the option of being a really good homeschooling mom. Will needed me to keep him home for those two years, and the timing of the transition has been perfect for him. The timing was not so bad for me either. I was talking to a mom about preschool. She has two children very close in age, and they are getting the social interaction they need right now. She said she was in no hurry to have them out of the house. It was that very sentiment that helped lead us to homeschooling.

Now, I have been home 8 years. I am sick of this house. I am sick of simply being in this one spot all day. I am sick of every single thought involving my kids. It is true. I am ready to move on to something for myself. They are ready to move into an amazing school. We all are ready to have the tranquility that will come from that.

Head slamming

I always have been conservative with money. Some might say tight. Some might say that I have a little OCD when it comes to the cash. I would say that it has served me well and that delayed gratification is what allowed me to go to Europe a few times. I am a saver.

We have been doing the Dave Ramsey plan, and we are tantalizingly close to ending Baby Step Two. A few months away. So. Freaking. Close.

I have found a way to spend $435 a month. Normally, I would look at that number, scoff and say, "BAH!" It actually would only be an additional $335 per month.

Meara's new preschool is fine. No place is perfect, and I understand that. However, Will's school is only 3 minutes away, and I spend at least 90 minutes with drop off and pick up for Meara on Mondays and typically 50 on Wednesday and Friday. That is a huge time suck. She could be just across the field. Three minutes WITH traffic. The difference is $335 dollars for her to go to Will' school.

The Montessori school only has a 5-morning program. Nothing for three days. I would be willing to pay the difference if it were a pro-rated amount, but the private school does not have that option. I like to think that I would not send her all five days, but let's be honest. NOT having her here is easier than having her here. I suspect the desire to get to the gym more often AND write AND keep a clean house would entice me to send her all five mornings.

The main thing is that we love the Montessori school. It feels like Meara is just being parked at her current school until she can get into the "good" school. It is not convenient, simply affordable. She does not love it there, but she is so adaptable that it is hard to know if she is unhappy.

So, we are tempted to push off the completion of debt relief for the betterment of our daughter's happiness. It would only be 5 months. When I put it that way, I can't believe I have to assign a price tag to that.

More birds

Stupid Cooper's Hawk came, scared all my little friends AND one of them freaked out so badly that she flew into the window. A window to which I have attached the "do not fly into the window" clings. Natural selection, bah! I encouraged the hawk to move on, but the little ones are not back yet. Probably at a bird funeral.

Crazy bird lady

I bought two new bird feeders to add to the variety of flight friends I have at our front window. I have a third addition (total of five) in mind as well. I also purchased squirrel corn. And put out some black oil sunflower seeds for the chipmunks. I have spent hours sitting at the window with with my laptop while I visit What Birdand Cornell Bird ID site. It is nerdy, and I don't care.

I am not an expert. I do not know their calls. I do not know their migratory patterns. I don't know the mating rituals. I barely know what they eat. I cannot identify them in flight.

If one is sitting 10 feet away from me, I am not going to offer its name unless I am sure of its general family. Yes, I get my finches mixed up. There are many of them with red markings, and I sometimes confuse them. I love my many varieties of chickadee, mostly because I am juvenile and like to say "titmouse".


I won't argue with you about what it is, because it is not that important to me. I will wonder why it is so important to you.

The space in front of you

When a relationship is over, there is a space that is created that another person used to fill. The space is physical, emotional and in time. It can feel daunting and wild to recognize it.

I used to have a phone call around 9 AM most mornings during which I would clean my kitchen or a bathroom or fold laundry. It was lovely, and I miss it. I still have to clean my kitchen, but I left that space open for a while intentionally. This was something I had learned from a million years ago.

When someone leaves your life in whatever way it happens, their physical non-presence is disorienting. If you have ever had a pet die, how long did it take for you to stop looking for it? You expected to see it greet you at the door or a shadow would make you think it was coming around the corner like it had every single day you were together. When you exist in a space that used to be occupied by more people, you can feel the distance between you and inanimate objects more keenly. You understand how large or small a room truly is.

Whatever emotional space that person held is even messier. The grief, the fear, the pain not only usurp the places where you once felt tender and loving, they leak into other emotional spheres as well. What used to confound me, and probably still does to a lesser extent, is how you can feel so much so strongly and still feel incredibly empty. I have mentioned my broken engagement here before. I was overwhelmed by the loss, but I distinctly remember feeling a hole in my chest.

The absence of someone also creates a huge space in your time. No more phone calls, no more hanging out and chatting, no more after-work plans, nothing to DO. When the engagement ended, I lost a golf partner, 5-night-a-week dining out companion, someone to stay up way too late talking to, poker pal, lunch-break-check-in-caller POOF. gone. That was the immediate loss. I also had to look past that to see that nothing in my life's script was the same. Everything that I thought I knew: wedding, vacations, house, babies, back to work, retirement; all of those things were gone and the time and space stretched out beyond anything I could begin to see in the first few weeks.

I rarely mention this, but my husband was married for quite a while to someone else. When he came home and found her and her belongings gone, he gave himself a year and a day before he would date anyone else. He gave himself time to fill the the immediate and long-term space in the way he was choosing. He did not feel he had to rush out and fill every moment, though I can argue that with him all day. I think he spent a lot of time in activities to avoid an empty house, which is not a bad motivation. He started mountain biking. He began martial arts, which he had wanted to do since childhood. While these things did not replace her, they occupied his time in ways that helped fill the space physically, emotionally and with his time.

After my break up, I looked at my options and decided to get a masters degree. It met all my needs at that time.

What concerns me is seeing people who are quick to fill that emptiness instead of just being with it and looking at it. I did not run to the CD cabinet to find a way to fill the silence while I cleared the breakfast dishes and unloaded the dishwasher. I worked with the absence until I found something that could never replace those conversations, but still makes what I feel is good use of my time.

That open space gives one both isolation and freedom, but focusing too hard on one or the other makes it difficult to move from that place of staring down a part of your life that is now missing. Sit in isolation, and you loose the chance to fill that space thoughtfully and carefully. Relish the freedom, and you run the risk of filling the space with the trivial or harmful. Both of those opportunities can bring guilt. "I feel bad that I am using my time more wisely and that I am sitting here wallowing." "I feel bad that I am enjoying this loss a little too much." Mostly those two pieces sit together, on top of each other. There is a point where the 'shoulds' become 'coulds' and that is when you know you can act from a place of having been true to yourself. You had the space, you looked at it carefully and filled it passionately.

Test of compassion on the horizon

I cannot complete a Year of Compassion in good conscience without addressing the relationship in which I have made NO attempt to be kind, mend fences or seek a compassionate heart. If you have read anything here before, you know of whom I speak....the MIL.

Yep. I need to work on that one. I have no place to begin. We have no common ground. We have no specific wrong to address. The truth is that we just don't like each other that well. She has no idea how to take me and gets offended easily, which I kind of promote when I am fed up with her. I think she is closed minded, narrowly focused and too in need of validation. She thinks life is a series of events you cannot control that rip your heart out. I think life is an opportunity with some unexpected challenges.

When I separately mentioned to my mom and sister that there was one relationship that needed to be rebuilt, they both said, "I hope you mean Pat."

We will go there on Saturday, and I will propose to her that I feel she is unhappy with our relationship. I will offer her ways for us to discuss it: then and there, over email so that it is not so intense or not at all. She has said that she cannot change, and if she feels that way about this as well, I can accept it.

I see the biggest hurdle for me. It will be explaining why I have trouble giving her the benefit of the doubt without it sounding like I am enumerating all of the ways in which she has pissed me off in the last 10 years. Devin and Teresa are dead, so they are no longer an issue. But they were central to the way she treated me and treated Chris in those first seven years. There is much more damage done than undone.

"Can't you just be nice to her?" my mom asked. Um, no. If it were that simple, I would already be doing that. I can adopt a strong pro-wine policy though. It may come to that; I don't know.

The key to this is that she is going to have to stop with the unsolicited, crazy advice and personal questions. I am not interested in putting Neosporin up my nose when I have a cold. I don't feel like sharing the value of my home, the amount of my mortgage payment or how much I spend a year in food. I am not AT ALL interested in telling you my medical history, getting your advice on childrearing or hearing your thoughts on foreign policy (she thinks no one can enter Israel if they are not an Israeli citizen).

I think this can be fixed if she will learn to think before she speaks. If she doesn't, I have to assume mental illness on some level and approach it from that viewpoint.

This is not going to be easy. Part of me hopes she plays dumb and says, "No, everything is fine. There is no work to be done here." I don't need a 100% success rate to learn the lesson.

Ms. Judgy McJudgerson

Yesterday, I touched briefly on being judgmental. It seems to be a topic all its own as it relates to my Year of Compassion (hurrah).

I have a friend (Hi, TR!) with whom I have spent so many beautiful hours in intentional sacred space. We also have spent many beautiful hours in intentional goofiness, which is another reason I love her. In moments of creating dreams for ourselves, she often has said that she wishes to be less judgmental. I have to remind her, “If you don’t judge them, how can you rank them?” Her typical reply is, “You’re terrible”, said with equal parts of disgust and affection. Not everyone can pull that off.

I cannot speak for TR and how she came to her judgy place, but I certainly can tell you how I got to mine. I went to a school where being right was held above all other values. I do not recall a single lesson about being a good person. Character education certainly was not around. It was more of a “be nice or be punished” set up. However, if you were smart, you were glorified.

In first grade, we did not get grades (much to my dismay) until second semester. Our papers were marked with a star, a check or check minus. Oh, that star! It certainly set you apart from the check people. If you got all of the problems right, you got a scratch and sniff sticker (“You’re grape!” “Berry good job!”). Clearly, you were better than everyone else, and you had the sticker to prove it.

This was pretty much the entirety of my education. Be smart, be the best, be rewarded. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING is more important than being right. Don’t ever forget it. If you are right, you are special.

Who wouldn’t want to be special?

The Quakerism I was raised with was much more mainline Protestant than the Liberal Quakers on either coast. If you were right, you went to Heaven. If you were wrong, you could be forgiven, but you had to ask for it, and you had to mean it. If you were wrong and unrepentant, you were a sinner and you went to Hell. Being right…choosing the right thing, being Right with God, knowing the laws and following the path of RIGHTeousness. Again, there is nothing better than being right—you get eternal life with your Creator which is so much better than eternal burning.

In my family, we have a story. No one remembers what led up to it, but my brother said, “That’s thing main thing in this family; everyone thinks they are right all the time!” And we do. One thing I learned early was that I do not argue debate or discuss things about which I know not. This accomplishes two things: 1) You are never wrong, merely absent from a conversation. 2) You appear to be right a large percentage of the time. There are many, many topics that I will never discuss. Many people in my group of friends practice yoga. I simply listen when it comes up. I don’t know enough about it to be right, so I just listen. Legal matters? Unless I have a computer on my lap so that I can look something up, I say nothing.

To this day, there are few feelings that I enjoy as much as being right. Happiness is never having to say, “I told you so” because it is so obvious that I told you so.

So much for the Year of Compassion (hurrah). Not judging, or at least correcting myself when I judge has been as byproduct of this year. I did not set out to put an end to my judging. Why would I? That would eliminate my feeling right and special, which I enjoy.

This should be the part where I get all Nicholas Sparks on you and realize that there is something better than feeling special….feeling love and unity with my fellow humans. Seriously? It is a Year of Compassion, folks, not a brain transplant.

However, I will say that being able to say, “It is not about me” helps cut down on the judging tremendously. I start to put on my superiority ….I am not sure what fictional garment works best here. I was thinking vest, but I dunno. Hat? I will go with cape. I put on my superiority cape, and I pause to realize, “This is not about me. Lady, if you want to feed your kids fude, go for it! It is not about me. Blessings to you.” When I say it enough (crappy food mom and I intersect in each aisle), I start to really want blessings for her. And for her kids, because eating that load of crap she serves them, they will need it.

See how I am conquering it in small parts? It is still very much a work in progress.

I started the year trading my behind-the-wheel curses for yelling, “Blessings to you!” Will found this to be hilarious. The blessings were delivered with the same tone and venom as my negativity, but I believed if I kept it up, I would start to believe it. I have. Overtime, my voice has softened. I try to believe that they would not be jerks if it were not important. I understand that in times of great lateness I have been the jerk and could have used a little forgiveness. When I call out “Blessings to you”, I mean it about 90% of the time.

We all judge. It makes us feel better about ourselves. It tells us that at least there is one poor soul out there doing worse than I am. Some days, I am the poor soul that serves to give someone else’s spirits a lift by doing something less right (not wrong…can’t be wrong) than he or she is. If I can continue to focus on the truth, which is that it is not about me, I can reduce my need to right and thereby special, and I can greatly reduce the judging. I am not sure what that accomplishes in the aggregate other than it is one branch on the tree of compassion.

Year of Compassion continues

In the Quaker tradition, the congregation sits in silence with the belief that the Spirit will “speak to your condition”. If you are still and keep quiet, that which is on your heart will be heard. Yesterday, the Reverend Amy Kindred (isn’t that the best name for a UU minister EVER?) visited our church and did, in fact, address some of my issues.

She spoke on the book, The Four Agreements. It is a Native American story that tells of four rules for creating a peaceful world. I don’t remember the last two; the second was so directly related to my Year of Compassion on my work on forgiveness that I glossed over the last 10 minutes.

The first agreement is: Be impeccable in your word. I don’t have an issue with this 99% of the time. Having been raised Quaker and its all-truth-all-the-time core, I do not mess with untruth. It makes one untrustworthy, and I don’t have time to go back and cover up lies all the time.

The second agreement is: Don’t take it personally. She gave wonderful examples to illustrate how we often take things personally, and how when we don’t, we are probably seeing the world more accurately. This idea strikes at the heart of Year of Compassion and issues of forgiveness.

I want to start with the person who has committed an injurious act. It is not about the injured person. What is happening with the person who acted outside of right relations? Why were they so caught up in themselves, their own pain, their own need to be special that they brought conflict? Becky Bailey notes in Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline that anger is born of fear. If you are angry, you actually fear something.

An exercise that I do with Will to diffuse his drama is to take his fear to the meta conclusion. “You are angry because I told you to clean your room, why?” “Because I don’t want to.” “What are you afraid will happen if you clean your room? That you won’t have Legos all over the floor? That you will be able to find a book when you want it? You’re right, that sucks.” He is much easier to deal with when I use humor. It usually comes down to his being afraid that he will not have time to play with his friends and being afraid that he is going to bossed around and not have control of his own schedule. Both are things we can address and fix.

Let’s look at this from the injured party. In Reverend Kindred’s example, someone breaks a lunch date, you think, “She must not want to see me THAT badly.” Something probably has come up; it is not about you. Someone doesn’t say “hi” as she passes your desk at work. “She doesn’t like me.” Again, it is probably not about you. Sometimes the injury is more direct, and someone hurts your deeply. While it does of course hurt, it probably was not about YOU. You were probably collateral damage.

There is a UU podcast, Voices of Liberal Religion, which I love love love. I think I have mentioned it here before but he says that we should not forgive our wrongdoers, we should love them. By speaking of traditional forgiveness, we put ourselves in a place of ego. We have the power and control over the situation by determining who gets our forgiveness, who is deserving, how it is meted out. We put our specialness above loving kindness. No one is so special that they should feel they have the power to demand penance for a wrong or to make someone pay for a grievance.

As UUs, we are called to believe that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have at any given moment. Reverend Kindred made the unforgettable point that sometimes our “best at the time” is not so great and leaves pain and heartache in our wake. Your best in one moment may not be your best in another. When you choose not to forgive, when you hold on to your anger, when you judge….these are not your best moments. Release them and find your better self. Rise to the moment, open your heart, let go of judgment and act from a place of true love. I am sorry for your dark places which hold you back. Please be compassionate with mine.

When I look at the people whom I have the hardest time forgiving, I do the meta fear exercise. I find it extremely hard to forgive my MIL for the way she parented and the way she treated Chris and I were Teresa and Devin were still alive. It is very hard for me to suspend my judgment and go with “She did the best she could at the time with what she had.” I grit my teeth at seeing that as someone’s “best”.
What do I fear?
I fear that she will continue to hurt Chris.
Why is that scary?
I don’t like to see him hurt.
Why is that scary?
Because when he hurts, I hurt.
Why is that scary?
Because pain is an out-of-control emotion.
Why is that scary?
Because I like to have a grip on things. Are you new here?
Is that something you can let go? Can you go back to your belief that pain and disappointment are a part of life. Light and dark. Happy and sad.
I can arrive at the point where I accept the pain as shitty, but temporary.

To bring this idea of compassion all the way around, the irony is that when we choose NOT to forgive or to love, we are perpetuating pain. When we choose not to accept the apology of someone, we need to recognize that it is a fear within us that stops us from restoring right relations among us. We are creating the same damage, either intentionally or accidentally, as was done to us. My harbored resentment for MIL hurts her. I don’t mean for it to. I do not set out to seek revenge. But I know that my frosty disposition and my withholding affection from her upset her. I am working on it.

Knowing that none if this is about you also helps you stop judging. When I see a grocery cart full of shit food, I judge. I really do. If I accept that she is doing the best she can at the time and that this is not about me, I can continue on my obsessive-label-reading way. I also make a note that my judging was not the best me either.

Sometimes, the injury is intentional and punitive. “You screwed me, and I am giving it back 10 fold.” Again, we have to assume that there is some darkness in the person who feels the need to seek revenge, administer justice and inflict on you the pain that they hold. When you are faced with this, try to have compassion in your heart for that person and believe that they are doing the best they can. It may not be the best that you would want, but in the end, it is not about you.

If you want something fun to do today, try applying this to foreign relations. It will blow your mind.

(also…I am not doing NaNoWriMo, but I am going to try to blog more this month. You have been alerted.)

All kinds of crazy

Everyone of us is crazy in someway. Or at least not crazy in a way that others find crazy. Well, someone, somewhere thinks you are somewhat crazy. Or something.

My husband's unique brand of crazy would be funny if you did not live with him. He has an unreasonable attachment to stuff. No kidding. His big fear is that I am going to throw out everything he had before we got together.

This fear is not unfounded. Specific items have been threatened. In my mind, they serve no purpose. They will never be used. They are ugly (he has some really horrible sweaters from the 80s that are still here). They are things to which I cannot imagine anyone could form an attachment, but he has.

One of those things is a TV. I hate the TV. I always have. It is HUGE. I find it obnoxious. I also find it ironic for a family that does not have cable, satellite or even an antenna. We don't do TV here. We do some Netflix. We use our computers for most of our screen time. I have not missed the TV since it died over 18 months ago. However, it has sat in our living room as a monument to.....I honestly don't know.

We have gotten by using our DVD players on the PCs or the kids will watch my tiny 20" TV that has undefinable colors that fade in and out. I have been OK with that. I told Chris from the beginning of our relationship that I don't like the message the BIG TV sends. It is not who we are. His family? Hell, yeah! His parents watch 2 hours of soap operas everyday and who knows what all evening. TV is not important to us. Even at our peak, it was an occasional use item.

Chris's theory on big purchases is this: Either get the best or just enough to get by. I honestly have no comprehension of this. Because he got the best TV in 1995, we still have it and that apparently is not changing. We have his parents' truck for the week, so he has loaded the TV to take it for assessment and possible repair. I don't care if we ever have satellite again, but it would be a great TV for Wii. If we had one, which we don't. Those who know me know that I am far too cheap to consider purchasing one.

I do have a limited understanding of attachment to things, though not ugly sweaters. When Chris and I had been dating a while and I was spending most of my time at his place, every few weeks I needed to go to my apartment to see my things. I know---my own brand of crazy. That apartment was the first one where everything in it had been purchased by me. Lots of items purchased with six months same as cash. My TV, furniture, stereo, VCR, deluxe mattress...the products of a lot of overtime and careful budgeting. You know what? Most of that crap is gone. I did not shed tears or demand that we keep them. We gave things away, some things wore out, sometimes we realized we did not need two of something and it went to Goodwill. I was OK with it.

The TV from Hell will come back this week, repaired and ready for action. Have I mentioned that no one here has time for TV now that we have kids in two schools? Plus, Chris is taking a class, doing consulting, plus all the grease stuff and auto maintenance. Who does he think will use this, and what does he think we will watch?

Honestly, I have grown to enjoy the cozy of a laptop to keep me toasty while I watch my own little screen with my headphones on.