Fall cleanup

I had grand plans for a fall cleanup this year. We have a bedroom in the basement -- it serves as guest room and storage right now but within a year or two will need to be torn up and remodeled to create a legal bedroom for Garrett. He wouldn't sleep there now but it won't be long.

The room has a double bed, the cherry dresser we used in the nursery, a side table from my grandparents' house, a couple of bookshelves, and a closet FULL of stuff. Old Boy Scout and cheerleading uniforms, my old Army uniforms, dress and BDUs, my wedding dress in its lovely preservation box, the Christening dress worn by me, my brother, and all 5 of our kids (also in a preservation box), old Fisher Price toys, my great-great-great grandmother's china that was brought over from Prussia but is too fragile to actually use .... oh my goodness. You get it. It's a nightmare.

I *think* I'm getting rid of a bunch of Spencer's Dora and Diego toys today -- I listed them on Craiglist and it appears they will go in one big lot. They are nice, and he played with them a lot, but he's gotten past them and they take up a lot of space.

Also going? The Play Doh stuff. I have a TON and it is also on Craigslist, hopefully to be snatched up by a bargain shopper soon. Can't be soon enough for me.

I have a bag of pajamas and winter hats and mittens for a drive my friend Kara does every year. It all will go to the Women's Shelter here in Rochester. I just have to connect with her and run it over to her house this week.

I guess it's good for me to be busy; occupying my mind and body with stuff is better than sitting around being miserable. But now there's not enough time; my parents arrive Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holiday. My mom will stick around afterward because she's retiring and we are looking forward to a little girl time; but we have the memorial service for Kris to attend in Chicago on the 4th of December, and then there is simply time to gear up for Christmas if I'm lucky.

It appears that I need to make a list or two and do some goal-setting here again. Wish me luck!

Here we go again ....

I hate the holidays. I really do. Too many sad anniversaries, too many people missing. Too much for me to handle.

And now Kris is gone. And wouldn't you know it, we spent a good number of Thanksgivings together in the past 12 years. She and Thanksgiving go together in my mind.

I am excited because my parents will be here this year for Thanksgiving.

But I am dreading it because once again, someone is missing. And the wound is raw. And it is just the beginning of an interminable season where everybody is jolly and gay and I just want to wear black and growl at everybody.

Grrrrr.

On friendship

Who can say exactly what it is that creates a friendship? Who can identify the exact moment a connection is formed? Who can pinpoint the moment their entire life is changed because they made a friend?

I suppose there are people who can identify those moments in their lives. That instant spark of kinship, that moment when you realize you are experiencing something magical.

I didn't have that with Kris. I remember singing "Happy Birthday" to a beautiful blonde on the bus to Brasilia. It was June 29, 1987. We were exchange students embarking on a summer of exploration, discovery and adventure. It was an amazing summer, one in which I learned a lot about myself, met many people I liked and admired, and made one friend who made a profound difference in the way I look at the world.

As we spent time together that summer, I first saw myself in Kris, and I relished our same-ness. We were midwestern girls, brought up in small towns. We were both probably a little too smart for our own good, and we knew just how smart we were. We were bold -- after all, it's not every day girls like us left our small towns for exotic locales like Brazil -- and we were going places. For sure.

We both craved something more than the life we had ... something exciting, something where we felt more alive, something where we made things happen instead of watching from the sidelines.

And even our differences complemented each other -- she loved theater and fine arts, I loved books and literature. We were two sides of the same coin. Okay, except for politics -- I love the political process and she was thoroughly bored and annoyed by the whole concept. LOL

As we grew up, we followed very different paths. Kris pursued her big-city dreams as a single career woman and I ended up a stay-at-home mom. There was never a moment when we didn't honor each other's choices, though. We talked about my living vicariously through her when I was mired in toddler paraphernelia and dirty diapers ... and she sometimes confessed that she envied my relationship with my wonderful husband, who loved her as much as I did.

She was "Auntie Kris" to my kids and the love and care and generosity she showed them was immense. She once spent a long weekend at our home. Our eldest son was not quite 2 then, and she read, "The Monster at the End of this Book" again and again to him. In Grover's voice. I have no idea what she had to do to repair her voice after that, but I do know what it meant to me that she would spend that time with him and how very much he loves and misses her today.

On the whole, though, we were both happy with our paths and we experienced the same daily ups and downs that everyone has until her diagnosis in 2007.

It was so hard for her to ask for help, and I wanted so desperately to do something, but I waited, hoping that she knew my offers were genuine.

When the call came, I said I would come, without hesitation. I made the arrangements to stay as long as I could, and left my husband and kids at home.

Those were the hardest days of my life. It was so hard to accept the situation; the pain, the frustration, the thousand indignities that made up each day for her.

And yet.

They were good days, too. Days when I cried and she cried with me. Nights when we lay on her bed and talked. Moments of grace amid tremendous suffering.

Kris, you were my friend and sister. You will forever hold a place in my heart and in the hearts of my family. In asking me to come to you, you gave me a wonderful gift -- the chance to DO something. I know you felt it was my gift to you, but in reality, it was the other way around: in asking me to help you, you gave me some closure, some peace, some measure of comfort -- and you gave me your friends.

I always knew you had surrounded yourself with remarkable and amazing people, and I counted myself lucky to know some of them through you.

But now I claim them as my friends. These are people with whom I share an incredible bond. They showed me tremendous kindness and generosity in the face of their own grief and pain. They held me up, they encouraged me, they cared for me as they did you.

So I am sad that you are no longer here for me to talk to, to encourage and guide my kids, to do the teaching that fed your soul, but I am grateful that in leaving you gave me the gift of being a friend to you and the gift of turning your friends into mine.

You are an amazing spirit, Kris. Your light was so bright in life -- and even now it shines. And I know it always will.

... the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

~Emily Dickinson

She never lost hope.
She never gave up.
She fought to her dying breath.

I don't know how to live without her.

Kris
1970-2009

So

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I am just in the midst of a crisis right now. I am fine, my immediate family is fine, but I have things I need to take care of right now. I will be back sometime after the 15th.

Exploding Circle Album

Someone mentioned an Exploding Circle album on a scrapbooking website the other day. I thought it sounded interesting, so I Googled it and found this easy-to-follow tutorial.
I assembled some supplies, picked up some Debbie Mumm fall themed-papers and a little ribbon, and got to work. (Note to self: your aversion to orange and all things autumn did not serve you well in this instance. Please try to live in harmony with all seasons and colors so that emergency internet coupon searches and trips to JoAnn fabrics will not be necessary in the future.)
Above is the album when it is closed.

I planned it to be a keepsake of this Thanksgiving for a friend. She can either keep it or give it as a hostess gift. The numbers on the small brown rectangles correspond with tan rectangles I have cut for each spot (they're all different sizes) so that each person can write something they're thankful for and they can then be mounted on the mats. The squares are all the same size and correspond with tan squares for the same purpose or to mat photos. The little orange plastic tag hanging from the flower says "together" and I think it's from Doodlebug Designs. The orange rhinestones are from a multicolored pack from Michaels, the Thanksgiving paper is from Die Cuts With A View and the vegetable paper is Debbie Mumm.

The scalloped circles were cut with my Silhouette (love that thing! Love it!).






This was a fun project and went WAY out of the norm for me in terms of colors. Thanks to Sarah at Paper Tree for a great tutorial and a really cool hostess gift for Thanksgiving!