Oraeley: My Site

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Tonight I’m sitting amid a mess, the usual mess. There’s more down the stairs, and then more stacked around the washer in my basement and through the playroom and office. In the next hour I’ll have it all put in order to be turned over again tomorrow.

Sticky counter tops, table with dinner remnents.
We had left over white rice with a can of store brand tomato soup added in with the rice and a lb of ground beef. Nothing fancy, but good enough for my kids and the neighbor boy to enjoy.

After dinner I went outside to water plants, then I had to feed the baby and give the kids their baths.
Laundry waited, rice dried up, tomato dried on the microwave safe dishes. There’s honey on the floor, maybe from breakfast toast.

I just dumped out the left over half pot of coffee that I made this morning at 6. This is my night, every night. All I want to do is crash in bed, but I wont.

Why? It’s love, I call it Love.

Dang I wish I had a maid.

It’s been three weeks since I cleaned my bathroom. And I don’t even know how long since I cleaned the fridge top to bottom. It blends together if I let it.

Last night as my clean up pace was slowing I decided I ought to just sit down and seek the Lord. I reached for a nearby Bible and as I turned the pages out fell a piece of paper, somewhere around Isaiah 2.
I opened the paper and have read it so many times over.
The whir whir whir of the washer in my ears mixed with the sounds of my kids just above quabbling over something.
This was another moment that Jesus knew just what I needed and showed me.

The paper had three even crease folds as one put neatly in an envelope. It was a note from my husband, a poem actually.

Why didn’t I know that he wrote? Maybe because I never asked.

The more I read it the further away the noice of my life were. I felt sad. Kind of in a tired way.

What do you call Love? And have you taken the time to know your love.

Life isn’t over. Every morning is a new beginning, isn’t it.

This is the day the LORD hath made. Let us rejoice.

I am glad in it.

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The kids are finally interested in learning to ride!!

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The lower side of average. I have to been concious of myself throughout the day at risk of losing myself to the miniature insanities that exist in this world of littles. Problems of half size people, blended up together in an ill tasting smootie.

Little tifts, little obstinence, little melt downs, little mess, it can become something really big. Leaving the boss reeling. If I don’t keep myself over these small clashes rather than in them, everything loses order. Up and down are the same, ten minutes ago is just as confusing as ten minutes ahead.
It’ll be me again, the one in the playroom sitting alone on the floor crying into my hands. Because I forgot that I’m 5ft 8 and 27 years old.

I forgot that I’m mommy and that I never get tired or vulnerable.

Someone took the toy train away, maybe the board book I was reading? No.

Because no one will help me pick it up and I don’t have the gusto to go up stairs and yell at them to come help me. I don’t wanna sing the clean up song another time, or tell them they’ll sit in time out if they don’t get it done in five minutes.

You see what’s happened here, right.

I forgot where my place of serenity is kept. Certainly it’s somewhere out of reach where no one can mess with that quiet placce. It’s no a cup of tea at the coffee shop because I’ll never make it there.

It’s not a couple hours away from my kids out at a yoga class, I’d never make it in time. No, that’s not where I keep it.

Every one has a special place and I know where mine is, and you do too.

It’s the Thinking Spot where most clearly in your world you find God. This place isn’t church, it’s somewhere you can be every day. For me it’s poopy diapers that need to be scrubbed out in the toilet and put in the bucket of OxiClean to soak. Oddly that gets me thru kitchen work and clean up through the house, neatening and straightening and doing it over again. Another place is outdoors around my house. Weeding straightening and picking up again, all in preparation for someone noticing.

Do you look up and for a second feel something else? If you let it happen’m truly lifted away from the little things that can pick away on my emotional well being and bodily strength. My peace is remembering my gift.
That’s where I find my best thinking.
Once I’m there, there’s no where to look but up.
Higher is God, and His abundance of love and sacrifice put down for me.

It’s that peace of having Jesus in my heart that brings me back to my children and husband wanting even more to be a servant in my custom made circumstances.

Know what? GOD never give me more than I can handle.

Know what else? That mansion that’s saved up for me–I bet there aren’t peanut butter and jelly smudges on the walls. Or cloths that need to be picked up off the floor all day long.

My verse for today is “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ” James said that.

The trials of life shift, the little things are only preparing me for getting my children together to face greater things that the Lord will bring for us later.

Happy Wednesday, my dear Internet friends. I hope you can find that special place today to talk to Jesus, where you do your best thinking.

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Today I ought to have a picture of an overflowing laundry basket to start off this entry. But by this time I have a last load washing, and I’m in a hurry to put everything clean away in the proper drawers and closets before bedtime.

My washer was on the kibosh.

After finishing a cycle it would leave the “Lock” light on. Darren thought I was overloading the washer, not sure the connection but that was his thought.

We bought our washer and dryer set shortly after moving in, and that was three years ago. Probaby still under warranty through the company. If that were the case I could get a fix it man out for free.

In the mean time, I’d hate to start Monday with an extra ginormous pile. So I messed around with it myself and seems my washer was just being tricky.
After running a load I turn it on again as if to start another cycle then cancel, Presto! Unlocked.

OK. Mediocre subject to take on for a Saturday night? Turns out my drama was all housewife junk. Honestly! My husband and I had an arguement over how best to clean the kitchen floor. He bought me a vacuum cleaner for my birthday that is supposed to be able to suck dirt off the tile as well as it takes care of the carpet. Darren told me that I ought to sweep before vaccuming. I thought that was crazy, honestly…isn’t the vaccum supposed to save me time? But you know what. He was right. Little crumbs are left behind the broom–there was a button labled “Automatic” that he pressed before vaccuming and I couldn’t believe the clean up. Instead of kindly admitting that he was smarter on this one. I let myself be the one who leave the situation angry.

Under Warranty? Somewhat.
The Fix-It man, whoever that is, can’t take me back to the factory and bring me back with perfect humility, the trait of job description that I failed over this. I can’t be labled with guarantee for an every time satisfaction. And I’d like to think that life would be boring if I were always nice and understanding.
All the same, I’ll apologize and maybe even sweep up before I vaccum as redundant as it might feel. Thinking of the greater good here.

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Koen will pee anywhere. Except in his pants, which is good certainly for age 2. The potty training was incidental, entirely unlike his brother Diederick’s which is just another example of how different my boys are from each other. We had to taunt Deeder with rewards, Koen just decided he didn’t want to pee in his diapers anymore and that was it. Trouble is, he loves peeing outdoors. As pictured here, he’s watering the garden bed. Nothing’s panted there yet.

Looking through old blog posts I see that there are far too many more photos and videos posted of my eldest than there of my third child. I promise that will change. Prepare for a major Koen over load! A video of his twirly Heee YAAAH! spin kicks, or how he hucks cardboard blocks at his sibs. He loves the letter O, his favorite color is Red and his best friend in all the world is Oot Oot.
Koen loves to laugh, draw, and just be with anyone who will pay attention to his antics. Although he would be pleased to be caption of his own universe he does accept the role of Side Kick when told to by Diederick.

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Of course it would help if I read more. I rarely read one book twice, it’s weird though–each I’ve read I remember (so far) forever.

I didn’t learn to read on my own until I wasa 9, maybe even closer to ten. Not for lack of love for literature. As far back as I can possibly go, at least beginning at age three my mom’s read to us. We’d come home from the library with more book than we could carry.

It was the Ralph Moody books. What fascinating recollections weaven together of the life of a hard working boy, you can just smell the leather saddles and taste the greesy breakfasts that the farm hands ate each morning at the crack of dawn.

More recently I read this red book with a rose on the front cover, from beginning to end it was about three inches thick. I con’t put it down! In fact I’d sneek in a bit of a read when no one was paying attention. That one was fiction, about an infant taken for a grocery cart while her mother looked the other way. Guess who never takes an eye off her grocery cart. I read that nine years ago!
Then there’s the Torey Hayden books. She has 18 books, and I’ve read them all. They’re best sellers in eight countries. I like to think that in another life I could be just like her, saving one crazy kid at a time.

And Jennifer Lauck’s book Still Waters, and the sequel. I had a bit of a wait on the second book through the library system, I could hardly handle the suspence.
The style she had captured me. Her life was full of abandonment, abuse and everything bad beyond my imagination but she took hold of her destiny and ultimately escaped. She prevailed.

What really held be, and kept me intrigued was her style.
Everything was written in the present tense. She broke writing rules with fragments and run ons. As these things that structure the literary world were rudimentary, limiting self expression in it’s raw reality. Unbelievable what this and the present tense writing made, against the usual retrospect style in autobiographies. Same thing with Torey Hayden. People love her work because they experience the hardship with her even if their lives are entirely different.

Jennifer Lauck had out another book of short stories following these two books. The style wasn’t againg fascinating. Still having read her Black Bird and Still Waters I devoured Show Me the Way. Although I was disappointed, and I wished I’d become a journalist. If it brought me to her excellence in writing. What does it take to write beautifully.
I mean the beautiful that pulls any reader in. Not the Christian motivational fiction that fill the bookshelves across America.

I wanna be a writer.

I want to remember everything and make something special through text. But what? I don’t have that magic, or the time to study it.
I have cloth diapers to rinse out in the toilet meals to make and laundry sorting to do. Some day I’ll sit down and write it, save it.

And be ever more thankful than I am now just to have been here and seen the beautiful in the ordinary of wiping runny noses and giving toddlers baths every night. Reading Tom and Pippo until my babies sleep, toilet training and spalshing in rain puddles. My name is Mommy. And there really is no better name than Mommy.

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We were given two photo albums by Darren’s co-workers and one of those Your Baby by the Month books that’s like a calander with cool little stickies (thanks, GrammaMomma!).

As I take pictures of my new little girl I try to make mental sticky notes on “This one’s a save” or “That one is a sure print out! I’ll never forget that one!” But before I know it they’re off the camera, never finding their way to that printing station at the drug store, much less into a photo frame on the wall. Someone want to help me with that project? It’s not for lack of caring, just for my ever present weakness–low attention span. It’ll happen, the particular favorites will get collected onto a CD and I’ll get them printed out.
Before that, I’ll clean the house, do the laundry, pick it all up again, vacuum over there again, clean this, sweep that up.
Then, I’ll stand up to admire that calendar, only to realize that I never peeled one cute little sticky off to track my baby’s milestones.
Why? Because I was too busy cleaning up after the milestones.

OK. Enough on that. Here are some sweet snaps, it’s my kids.
Diederick, Carly, Koen and Abegayle. Abbie’s nearly one month old in these pictures. You know who else is there? Someone in their hearts who gives them that love you see in their eyes.
I think that’s God’s love. These kids would give anything for each other. It’s magnificent to see them together, and just to be a part of it all.

Even if I’m in my pajamas all day.

Every day I take pictures of the four sitting together, I guess because I’m still waking up to this! God’s given me four kids. And you know what? They’re OK with it. They have a wonderful way of pointing things out, and overlooking other details that I’ve always considered embarrassing.

All in all, hopefully I’m a better person for whatever tricks they’re playing on me. Thanks, God, for giving me these babies!

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Grows all around all aroud, and green grass grows all around. And the green grass grows all around.

This year it’s all about what we planted last year coming back to life. Not only is it back but it’s looking to be quite the fantastic feature!

I have a confession:
Mowing the lawn is fun.
And sheepishly I admit to caring that my lines are straight out front with the grass cu, and feel only the slightest bit annoyed by clover finding it’s way through that lush sod. Why embarrassed by this? Because last year, the year before too I teased Darren for being such a part of suberbin society, caring about cut and color outside. But here I am now, caring that it’s all even. And loving it. :)
Rain rain go away?

Nah.

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Oh come on. That just seemed like a fun title today. I recently wrote a post about falling back into a state of mind that welcomes in the old; you can take so many steps backward so as to forget to look again forward in clean orderly way.

I’m closer to thirty than I am to 20, certainly at least a few thousand paces past 16.

But I’m the same as ever I was. Stronger at times, weaker and more vulnerable at others to be sure. But I like to believe I’m the same. Liberating? Restricting?
Maybe a different answer on Monday than I would give on yet another dateless Friday. ;-)

Every blog reader here has changed. Where were you that Spring 2005? I was 20 and just engaged.

You’ve changed in ginormous ways–heart breaks never imagined. Is it you, or just the plot of land your standing on that shifted. It’s someone that changed, somewhere. Or maybe you’re taking hold stepping up to an intrusion in your life you never dared look straight on.

Each time I log in on Oraeley.com, I feel like I’m dusting off an old favorite that’s been lodged deep into the bookshelf for fail of having too slight a binding.

What was that poem that I copied onto hereabout six years ago.

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann’d:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

That last clause means more to me than ever I would have imagined.
It is not me who has left as the poem goes.
Rather my memories of youth being found half sighted.

Better by far that I should forget and smile.

Forget that I was wrong? If you have no idea what I’m talking about. Awesome!

The point is that despite hurt I want to reclaim Beautiful. I’ll hope to let my mind linger on things that will help me grow closer to Christ as ought my ambition ever to be until the end of time.

Closer to 30, than to 20. Babies to love, a husband to treasure. A family.

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