dropsinthewell

It’s been a hectic holiday season, and I was able to spend the majority of that with my children and their children. It was crazy and fun, but it also made me give a lot of thought to how my role as a parent has changed.

It’s an odd coincidence that my daughter just wrote about how she feels my parenting as she was growing up had some benefits for her, because I, too, believe that there were a few (perhaps only a few) moments in their childhood when I managed to be a competent parent. I actually never even doubted that, even while I know that like all parents, I made some glaring mistakes.

My problem, as it appears to me now, is how do I act as a parent when my children are now adults and with some children of their own? Obviously, I’m no longer giving out allowances or setting curfews, but is there still a place for parenting with your adult children?

I find I’m more apt to hand out advice now than I was when they were children. I tell them how to handle family relations, what to say to their doctors, how to manage their study time and what to use to clean their toilets. Even as I am saying these things, and I can read from their polite expressions that they find me intrusive, I know in my own mind that it is not necessary. I know that I can be a help to my children without burdening them with a step-by-step instruction on how to run their lives, something I seldom troubled to do to them when they were still children at home.

I have to remember that the decisions they make now are not just concerning themselves; they have significant others, different lifestyles and different philosophies to consider. But there are still things I can do, right? One thing I’ve got to learn not to do is open the checkbook too often. Even my children tell me I have a habit of distributing money too quickly, when sometimes they need to work out what they need on their own.

So, except for curing my quick-draw on the checkbook, what else can I do to prove that I am a parent, but that I also know that my children are grown? How do I tell my children that I’m proud of their educational endeavors without sounding condescending? How do I express that I think their choice of significant others is both sound and intelligent without sounding creepy? How do I offer advice or opinions without sounding as though I think they don’t know how to do it?

I contemplated this during my entire holiday with them. I do a lot of the clean-up in the kitchen simply because I like to leave the house in good shape when I go home. I was glad of this on Christmas night, because I found myself caught in an attack of the “weepies” (I can’t call them baby blues at this age), because I felt myself inadequate as the parent of adults. I was able to spend a few minutes alone, counseling myself on this question.

I think the answer I came up with is pretty brilliant. The answer is, that my parenting of my children is not what defines me or them. I can be their support and I can offer my opinions, but life does not balance on whether or not they follow me like willing sheep (I really don’t want that, by the way). I can appreciate them as both family and a part of my world, as long as I have other things there, because I no longer need to spend all my time setting their curfews or giving out allowances (okay, I’m really going to work on that open checkbook thing.)

By the time I was finished with the kitchen and headed back out to join the Christmas crowd, I had not only re-gained my holiday spirit, but I found myself with a huge surge of enthusiasm for the coming year. I can’t explain why, but I have the most optimistic feeling about the future right now and I think it boils down to the fact that I have come to grips with my role as a parent of adults.

So, I will try to compliment without instructing, listen without directing, and most of all, I will try to enjoy the wonderful adults they have become…whoever is responsible for it!

I’m sure there are plenty of people who will shoot me for this, but I absolutely love a genuine snow day. When I have no place to go, and no livestock outside, I love to curl up with a blanket and maybe a good book and just stay out of the weather.

I will even wake up particularly early on a day when school has been canceled, or we’re having a weekend break. I want to enjoy the snow day to the limit. And I’m always a little disappointed, when on days like today, the weather dies down early. I want my full day indoors…with electrical power, of course.

Once that one day is over, however, I want it to be just that OVER. I want the roads to be clear, the snow to be melting so it won’t blow again and everything to be moving normally. I don’t want to sleep through the night, listening to the weather blowing fiercely and I don’t want a second day of curlling up with a book that nine times out of ten wasn’t that great. Just one really good, authentic snow day and no more. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Unless, of course, you live in South Dakota–the state whose nickname should be “Our weather is a law unto itself.”

I baked some cookies and made some ornaments and wrapped all the rest of my Christmas gifts because I was indoors. I suppose now I have nothing left but to do that thing which I hate the most…clean!

It’s been a very difficult week but high points have included my children (okay, so my grandchildren were there too) on Skype, with no bad news to deliver and the first of the Christmas cards arriving. I love those…usually full of letters and news and pictures.

I’m still searching for that extra time, but I tell myself I’ll find more time after the holidays. I won’t be making gifts or baking or etc. However, it is my goal to find some time for exercise before the holidays..It might be hard to do, but I need to stop finding excuses to do no more than spend a few minutes on the treadmill.

At the exalted of (whatever age I am) I thought I knew everything there was to know about myself. I know I like chocolate, I hate exercise and I feel lucky to have my job. I sincerely believed there was nothing new to learn.

This last year has proven that wrong in several ways, but one interesting thing I’ve learned is that I am a jigsaw puzzle addict. And just like any good addict, I am fine unless I expose myself to one.

Once I have set down that box on a table and starting spreading out the edge pieces, I’m hooked until the last, stubborn, completely unrelated-looking piece is locked into the last opening. I could work on it for hours and on nights when I have work in the morning, that can be bad.

It’s such an insidious addiction. You make up your mind to put together the lighthouse, which leads you to put together the cliff it sits on and then the rocks below and the green water and the blue sky. When you work at it and get a few pieces to fit into place, the adrenaline takes hold and there you are, a helpless victim of the vicious cycle.

Today,I went to school functioning on about an hour and a half of sleep. What was the reason? Did I have noisy neighbors? Was I sick? Was I worried? No, none of those. I was simply putting the lighthouse together with the trees and lighted path near the house and I couldn’t go to bed until I had that done. Then, there were the clouds that kept turning up in my pieces so I put that together. After that, I put together the pieces that had the water spray that hit the rocks….this went on, well literally all night.

I looked at the clock finally and saw that it was a quarter to five in the morning. It seemed silly to try to get sufficient sleep then, so I put together the dangerous rocks down on the sandy shore instead.

It was very difficult to function with so little rest, but fortunately, my students are good children and made it easy. Because of this incident, I have recognized that I do have this addiction, and should never take out a new puzzle on a schoolnight. And this morning, when I was yawning sleepily as I drove to the east towards work, what was I thinking as I stared at the greenish sky, peaking through the dark cracks of the storm clouds? Well, I was thinking, “If I could find some more of those greenish pieces in the box, I could finishing putting together that sky.”

I’m going to sign off tonight, knowing that even with my jigsaw puzzle lack of sleep debacle, I am still working to achieve my goals. That puzzle and 8 hours of uninterrupted work were well worth it!

Hope the day went well for everyone. I was able to control some of my random eating by keeping a list. The high point of my day is right now, when I turn this off and sink into blessed sleep…that is, if I don’t find another puzzle….

Two days of blogging in a row when I haven’t traveled anywhere is some sort of record for me. I vowed there would be less eating and more healthful action. Half of that was done today. I was able to resist some of my usual food triggers. Now for the healthful action…yeah, that hasn’t gone so well. The most exercise I got today was going up and down the stairs to do laundry.

School was busy and I do enjoy what I do, but right now, I would prefer to be doing more writing. The closest I’m coming to that lately, however, is when I do this blog.

I love to look at Christmas lights. I put up a Christmas tree for no other reason. I wouldn’t need the ornaments at all, as long as the lights were plentiful and multicolored. Somehow, those lights make me smile; it’s a compensation for the days going dark so early. I think that’s why I’m so melancholy when the lights come down. But for now, I just turn off the room lights, kick back and grin from ear to ear at all those lights.

You understand, they really have very little to do with the point of the Christmas season, but they are a nice candle in the night during the winter days. Sometimes, I admit, I deliberately go to bed and leave them on, but I find all too often that they stimulate my mind too much and I can’t sleep in their glow.  It’s well-worth the loss, however; except at 2:30 the next afternoon, of course!

The high point of the day today was a nice, quiet lunch in my classroom. That might not seem like much of a high point to you, but a few quiet minutes in the middle of my hectic day is a welcome respite.

I’m going to start searching the days for two things in my plan of self-improvement: Both things involve time. I need time for a little (light) exercise and I need time for the characters of my books. They visit me in dreams if I don’t spend time with them in the day. I truly love them and unless I pay attention, they may never make it into print.

Day two and I’m most satisfied!

Okay, okay, so I’m a little late with my New Year’s Resolution. I resolved a lot of things in January and I haven’t done as well with them as I wanted. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up, though. On the contrary, as the year rolls down, I resolve more than ever to work at my “less is more” event.

I’ve decided that the best way to achieve any success with my resolution, is to give it a day-by-day evaluation. Since we don’t do nearly as well on our own, I will go public with my year’s evolution. I warn you, some days will be darned boring, but I plan to go forward with my plans anyway. If you wonder how I’m doing so far, you should know that I resolved to start this blog on Dec. 1…so much for less procrastination!

I plan to analyze my own philosophy on a lot of things, but it isn’t my plan to excuse my own beliefs to satisfy someone else. I know a lot of people out there, both Democrat and Republican, would not appreciate my political ideas. In addition, my religious views don’t coincide with many people. I used to call myself an agnostic, but after looking at a thorough definition of that idea, I realize that I’m just a rather “homeless believer.” I have compelling evidence of the existence of an active God and on my lucid and calm days, I feel the presence of Jesus the Savior, who is my brother as well as my lord. I’m jealous of people like my husband and my daugher, who have foundation in their faith, but it will take some  doing for me to achieve connection with a particular church. I’ve always been okay with this, but I think if you want to know me at all, you must know these things about me.

I heard a man speak today about a hunting trip he took to northern Canada to hunt caribou. I felt compelled to ask him why he undertook such a trip, as he admitted his age had made it difficult. I expected him to say that he had always wanted to shoot a caribou, but that’s not his answer. “I wanted to watch the migration of those mighty herds,” he answered, “I think that would be an awesome sight.” 

How much I understood this! I’ve sat in a chair on the front porch of Jefferson Davis’s home in Biloxi, Miss. It wasn’t because I was so anxious to spend time in the home of the only Confederate president, but because the view of the Gulf of Mexico from his front porch was the beautiful in the world. Our motivations aren’t always what they seem and yet they satisfy something inside of us.

It was a high point of my day to be able to see my grandsons and their parents on Skype. I had to laugh, though, when I realized that two-year-old Royce has begun to associate his grandmother with particular things. During the summer, we sang a lot of “Head, shoulders, knees and toes.” Since then, I have reminded him of the song by repeated singing and acting out. Tonight, as soon as he saw me on Skype, he grinned and grabbed his head immediately as though to say, “Okay, Grandma, here’s my head; now get off my back!”

I’m not sure I’m making any sense here at the beginning of my blogging journey, but I’m hoping all my thoughts will come together. I think my goal is self-improvement, but that’s really just a disguise. If I can improve my attitude, my habits and my relationships, I’m working towards being an even happier person than I am. And that’s a goal I can truely focus on!

While I was on vacation, I drove past a milk farm. It was like many milk farms in South Dakota except for one big difference: this milk farm invited paying “guests” to stay at the farm and help with the milking chores. What brilliant soul came up with this ingenious plan!

I was thinking about it today, as I was swabbing away in my spare bedroom downstairs,otherwise known as “Stefanie’s Room.” I have been painting in there for a few days and it’s been quite a lot of work, considering I painted floor, trim and walls. It occured to me that instead of doing that, I should have had a “painting party” where people would pay a cover charge at the door to come in and paint for all the iced tea they could drink. Oh, well, too late now; I’ve finished. If you happen to come and take a look at it, you will be required to say that you like the color, whether you do or not. I’m not going to change it anytime soon!

It may seem a strange way to spend a birthday, painting a bedroom, but I found it very therapeudic. I actually celebrated my birthday with my children last weekend, so getting something constructive done around the house seemed like a good plan. I had a chance to get a chore done that I hadn’t been looking forward to, and I had a chance to do some thinking; make some decisions.

Most people do New Year’s Resolutions. I, prefering to be different, make my resolutions on my birthday. This year, the theme of my resolutions is less and more.

I plan to spend more time enjoying my children and grandchildren and less time trying to figure out how to run their lives. I worry more about what they are doing than I do enjoying the very wonderful qualities they possess and the very wonderful time I get with them. Even as I think about them, I can’t help but smile–how lucky I am to have them!

I plan to be less attached to television and more willing to write. I love writing, but sometimes, television gets in the way. There’s little of worth or value on the major networks. Who wants to watch another situation comedy which is mostly about cutting other people down, or another cursed “reality show,” which is nothing but an insult to my intelligence. In between those are the commercials, first telling me what I can take for my latest ailment (accompanied by a mile-long list of the completely unacceptable side effects) and then telling me who I can sue because, surprise, surprise, some of these medications are worse than the disease they purport to cure!

I end up watching the old reruns, which as enjoyable as they are, I have seen before. Less television and more time writing. I love to write and I’m in the middle of a book about a South Dakota town, while I am busily begging book agents to ignore the fact that they’ve never heard of me and read the book I already have completed. Believe it or not, this is a fun and enjoyable process; I just need to do more of it and be less annoyed by television!

I want to spend less money on material things and more on charity or in other places it might do some good. I cleaned my refrigerator and was appalled by the number of spoiled things I threw out. I need to be as careful as I can not to waste food in a world where so many are starving and try to distribute more to people who need it. What I buy should be immediately useful and there will be less waste. I don’t feel guilty about having enough of the world’s goods to survive, but I do think I have an obligation to help others if I can.

I have all of the usual more exercise and less eating resolutions. The older I get, the more important it seems to preserve my health. However, one thing that would improve my health would be if the amount of propaganda would reduce. I think George Washington was a true prophet because he predicted that the advent of political parties in the government would cause rifts that would harm the nation. If I have to look at one more political piece of rhetoric from Democrats, Republicans or any other party I may spontaneously combust. So this year, I’m making it my goal to be less attentive to those who are telling me what is wrong and who to blame and be more attentive to what can be done to make our nation healthy, solid and forward-moving.

Perhaps it was the smell of the paint, or the day of solitary introspection, but whatever it was, I’m grateful for the conclusions I have made. I had a good day, a happy day and now, I have all my resolutions set and a newly-painted bedroom besides. I can’t do better than that!

Vacation is drawing to a close and as always, I become a bit introspective about the way it has gone. This has been one of our better vacations in many ways. We had one bad day there, when the phone died, but for the majority of the trip it has been informational, interesting and just plain enjoyable.

I have always journaled about my trips around the country and I have really enjoyed this new way of doing so. And although I have enjoyed the trip, it is not my favorite–as a matter of fact, it is not even second. I guess that means my trips have all been pretty high level.

 I’ve always hated to travel, but with the death of my sister several years ago (who listed not getting around to enough places as one of her chief regrets), I decided it was time to put aside my prejudices about traveling and get into the spirit. Since then, I have been to all 50 states except Hawaii and I have no desire to go there.

These last two days have been less eventful than the rest of the trip, but we did get up to Lake Tahoe, where we took a ski gondola to the top of the mountain (those who know about my fear of heights will appreciate that I did it) so that we could get a breathtaking view of Lake Tahoe below us. I strongly recommend that. We have spent our last two nights on the road at a casino in Reno, even though we are not much for gambling. We wandered around last night, watching the games being played but not being enough of gamesters ourselves to play.

Today, we took the trip out to Donner Pass to learn about the ill-fated Donner Party who could have better been called the Murphy’s Law party because everything that could go wrong with those poor people on their trip, did. They are a tribute to human endurance and I admire their courage and fortitude. I have no judgements on the extreme measures they took to keep alive–indeed, no one, including me, who was not in their place, can ever know what we would do. After that sobering trip, we went into the mountains to visit Virginia City (hello Cartwrights?) to learn about the silver strike and the Comstock Lode. We found little history, but in fact an ancient mining town greatly resemblilng the town of Deadwood in my own state of South Dakota. I regret to say that interesting as the sight of the tourist town was, I wouldn’t recommend it to history lovers. The other thing I found out is that apparently, the Cartwrights never lived near Virginia City! How devastating!

We head home tomorrow, happy to return to our family, but with a lot of new sights and sounds to take in. All in all, I’d have to say my favorite parts were the visit I had with my cousin Bryan and Ruth, his wife, the visit to Alcatraz, the visit to Manzanar and Lone Pine and the informational site at Donner Pass.

I leave this trip with one final thought and that’s for the people who, like me, depend on public transport and hotel living to go on trips: it might be a good idea to throw your cell phones in your pockets, because there’s a lot out there you’re missing when you’re messing with your phones and a lot of your conversations are not meant for my ears, but I can’t escape them!

South Dakota, prepare yourself, because here I come!