Monthly Archives: January 2014

Goals, Outcomes, and Daffodils

daffodils in snow

As I left my office yesterday afternoon to walk to the car, my heart was equal parts heavy and joyful.  Heavy for a friend whose life is in a tangle right now.  She’s sad and confused and overwhelmed.  I remember those sunless days in my own past and ache for her.  I know she’ll figure it out and find herself on the other side of this, but right now she has no place to rest.  The path ahead seems so long and dark and she’s having a hard time believing that she will find her way.

The other part of my heart was joyful, because yesterday I reached a goal I had set for myself a few months back.  February 4th marks the one year anniversary of Baddest Mother Ever.  I wanted to reach 100,000 page views on the site in that first year.  That happened yesterday!  Thank you so much for reading and sharing and building this community.  I feel great joy that I have stuck with this and it is growing.

These are the thoughts that were on my mind when I looked down into the snow and saw green shoots of daffodils peeking up into the frigid air.  Those shoots took me right back to a time in my life when I had no idea what my future would look like.  My birthday is in late October, right around the time you plant spring bulbs so that they can sleep through the winter and surprise you in the spring.  I got a big bag of daffodil bulbs from my mom for a birthday present about a month after Fartbuster came home with lipstick on his collar that first time.  I hadn’t told anyone about our situation because I was ashamed of my husband’s behavior.  One bright Sunday afternoon, I took my bag of bulbs and a trowel out to the backyard and started planting them around the pine trees and along the fence.  On my own and with time to think, my thoughts gravitated back to our marriage, my trust in him, and whether we would ever get back on track and feel normal again.  With each bulb that I tucked into the earth, I wondered, “Will I still be living here to see these come up in the spring?  Will I be married?  Will we make it?”

I tried to bury my fear and sadness with the bulbs.  I committed to a goal–I would be in that house in the spring to watch these flowers bloom.

Well, I reached my goal–I was in that house in the spring when the daffodils bloomed, but Fartbuster wasn’t there.  My marriage was gone.  That’s the difference between a goal and an outcome.  A goal is a milestone along the path.  An outcome is the result of all those goals…with a measure of dumb luck thrown in.  So yes, I reached my goal of seeing the daffodils bloom, but the outcome wasn’t what I had imagined.  Simply achieving the goal didn’t predict the outcome.

We don’t always get to control the outcome.  We control the goals.  I planted the daffodils at just the right depth and I added bone meal.  I tucked them into the warming red dirt and I covered them with a layer of pine straw.  But that’s as far as I could influence the outcome.  Floods or freezes or insects could have taken it from there and the outcome would have been out of my hands.  Same thing with my marriage to Fartbuster.  My goals, like going to counseling and working on my own self, were reached.  Instead of saving my marriage, I saved my self.

So if you’re walking briskly through the cold wind, with your chin tucked to your chest, look around for that little shoot of green.  That daffodil has something to tell you.

man of the house

Cry Havoc and Let Slip One Inch of Snow

1781958_10202268250500702_631927003_nIt’s a Snowmaggedon here in Georgia.  Tuesday, as I made my way to Kroger for essentials (cocoa mix, milk, cheese, wine, toilet paper, apples, marshmallows), I laughed to see that there was only ONE cart left in the giant corral of carts by the entrance.  One.  But you better believe I hopped on it like a duck on a bug.  Winter weather in Georgia is cause for panic.  The mood of the day put me in mind of that line from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” where Antony worries that Caesar’s pissed off ghost will “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”  In ancient times, “Havoc” was a military command that basically gave the troops permission to pillage, murder and sack.  So when the commander cried HAVOC…things ended up looking much like the bread aisle at Kroger.

I have friends from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maine, Illinois–all of whom roll their eyes at us Southerners when we panic at the first sign of snow.  Yes, WE GET IT.  You have seen more snow in your lifetime.  You don’t understand what all the fuss is about.  In your book, this is NOTHING.  They would NEVER close schools back where you’re from.  Good for you.

For those of you who have grown jaded to snow, here’s a little insight into a snow day in Georgia:

  • As long as you get to choose when to be out in it, we still think snow is FUN.  It makes the dogs all giddy.  It even glosses over the piles of dog crap in the backyard.  It’s so unusual that it makes our kids all hyped up, like your kids would be if they suddenly got a pleasant day–sunny and 65–in the middle of January.  We get sunny and 65 all the time and it doesn’t freak us out.  We don’t rush to the store for sunscreen and margarita mix like y’all do.  
  • joySnow means “play” for young and old.  I spent $60 on sleds from the Army Surplus store this morning and my boss–who grew up in Indiana then Colorado–said, “YOU CAN’T SLED IN ONE INCH OF SNOW!”  Um, yeah–you can.  My kids would sled in the ice maker if I would let them give it a try.  We have a steep hill in the backyard coated in a bunch of crunchy grass and a thin skin of snow.  We. Are. Sledding.  I don’t care if it’s on an old shower curtain liner, a trash can lid or a fancy sled that will dry rot in the garage before we have a chance to use it again.
  • Yes, lots of snow is better for snowy activities, but we are snow beggers and cannot be snow choosers.  I have been snowboarding in Utah on two feet of fresh powder and it was delightful.  I have skied down the Stubaier Glacier in Innsbruck, Austria (in a very pokey fashion) and it was ripping fantastic (once I found a pocket of oxygen).  But an inch of snow can be a treasured childhood memory if it only happens once or twice in your life.  I still remember the week we were out of school in 1982 or 1983 due to snow.  Our house was the only one in town with a wood burning stove for heat and a gas stove for cooking.  Someone found an old sled at the antique dealer’s house.  My mom made real cocoa in a pan on the wood stove.  Our Irish Setter played until his coat was matted with icicles.  I’ll never forget that week because it not very often that we have an excuse to stop what we’re supposed to be doing and play.  
  • OK, we do talk about snow incessantly if there is any threat of a flake falling.  It is the only topic of conversation, whether the conversation be with a stranger, your coworkers, or the weatherman on the television set as we beg, “Please please please say it’s going to happen!”  Again, we talk about snow because it is exceptional for us (the same way transplants to the South talk about gnats and humidity and the fat content of mayonnaise–things we got over long ago).
  • chickenGo ahead and make the jokes about how we run to the grocery store for milk and bread.  Things can get dicey here pretty quickly when the roads freeze up, the power lines start snapping and the trucks can’t keep up.  We lost power for two days when Vivi was a toddler and it scared the crap out of me.  My brother got stuck in that epic traffic jam in Atlanta tonight–almost 10 hours to go from Buckhead to Marrietta (10-15 miles).  But guess what?  He made it OK because he had an 8 piece pack of chicken in his truck.   He had the good sense to stop by the grocery store first!

So y’all go on and roll your eyes if you must while we Southerners dash around with our mismatched mittens, insufficient footwear, and complete lack of black ice driving maneuvers.  I will be over here on my shiny new sled, just like it’s Christmas morning.  Or I will be in the E.R. with a head wound and some fried chicken in my purse.  

Moving On

After Richard died and left our house to me in his will, many people assumed that I would be selling it.  As one friend put it, “It will be easier for you to move on with your life if you’re not still in this place.”

I didn’t want to give up our house.  Yes, it was too big for just me.  Yes, it was a lot to maintain on my own.  Yes, every corner and crook held a memory of our time together there.  But I didn’t want to give up my house.  One blazing hot July afternoon, I came home to an HVAC unit that had been struck by lightning, a green pool, and a leak in the basement.  I stomped around cussing and pouring chemicals and mopping and panicking.  I didn’t want to let myself start crying because I wasn’t sure how I would stop.  I remember glaring up at the brick face of the house as I turned the hose on and shaking my fist at it.  To be so huge, it was hugely empty–just me and three dachshunds.  That night, as I watched the Atlanta news and ate my dinner all alone in the den, the anchor introduced a story about kids who needed to be adopted.  Three siblings who hoped to stay together.  It’s hard to find a house with that much empty space–but I had one.  A part of my wretched heart opened up at that story because it dawned on me that maybe the house would give me options down the road that I wouldn’t have otherwise.  Like any gift, my house held possibilities.

kids

One of the dearest things about Richard’s gift to me is that he knew how much owning a home meant to me.  He had grown up with a home–his parents lived in the same house from the time he was in elementary school until after he was out of college.  He loved the little yellow house so much that he was furious when the next owners cut down “his” azaleas.  My childhood memories were scattered over several places–the trailer in Greenville, the brown house in Hollonville, the old plantation house, the tin-roofed house on the Circle.  By the time I was an adult, neither my mom nor my dad lived in a place where I had ever had a room of my own.  I didn’t have a childhood home to go back to.  Fartbuster and I had bought a house together, but it never felt like a place to put down roots.  I didn’t know any of my neighbors there…or my husband, for that matter.  When we divorced, I felt like I was being forced into the decision to sell.  I rented two more places on my own before Richard and I bought our house.  After he left it to me, I had a place I would never have to leave unless it was my choice.  So I chose to stay.

Within five years, all the bedrooms were full with three siblings.  Not those sweet kids from the evening news–my kids.  Yesterday, two of them and I were playing in the backyard when I witnessed something that taught me a new lesson about moving on.

The very idea of “moving on” is an illusion.  We put together our lives not by moving away from the past, but by integrating the past into the present and the future, regardless of where we might be.

bluebirdI’ve told the story before about the bluebird who appeared at our backyard wedding (A Tuesday Kind of Miracle).  Well, yesterday, as I sat in the sun and watched Vivi and Carlos playing in her wagon, a pair of bluebirds flitted out of the forsythia bushes on the far side of  the yard.  I thought I was seeing things.  One perched on the fence down by the river–in the exact spot where the wedding bluebird had sat almost nine years ago.  As I was marveling at the beauty of the bluebird–and the memory I associate with them–Carlos caught my eye and chirped, “Hello, Mommy!”  Time collapsed in my backyard as my son stood in the same place Richard and I had stood to say our vows, and called me by my new name.  Mommy.

If I had sold this house and moved in to a new place, I would have missed that moment.  I would have missed seeing my Now blend so seamlessly with my Then.  As I sat there being happy, it dawned on me that that is what HOME is–being somewhere long enough that stories have time to come back around.

Sunday Sweetness–Your Wings

There are going to be times when the place where you were resting safely falls away beneath you.  Your job disappears in a reduction in force.  He comes home late from work with lipstick on the collar.  The doctor calls you personally with some odd test results.  You hear, “We did everything we could…”  

Or it just dissolves.  One day the branch is there and the next day it’s not.  Gone.

Those moments are going to happen.  But your wings will be there in that same moment.  

bird-photo-21

Saturday Snort–Trash Talk

Here are two of my favorite examples of trash talk.   Try one out next time you’re being a bad mutha!


If-you-dream-of-beating-me-up-youd-better-wake-up-and-apologize.-Muhammad-Ali

Barkley

An Ounce of Quit

Have you ever heard the expression “an ounce of quit?”  I associate it with sports, some bandy-legged kid who has more determination than the rest of the team put together:  “That kid don’t have an ounce of quit in him.”  It’s a high compliment. 

Last night, when I set the alarm for 5:01 a.m., I gave myself a pre-sleep suggestion:  “Wake up feeling like a bad ass.”  Don’t hit the snooze.  Don’t sit there on the edge of the bed feeling tired and sleepy. Get your feet on the floor.  Put on the clothes you’ve already laid out.  Eat some protein and GO.  It may be 13 degrees outside and you only had six hours of sleep, but GO.  Don’t apologize, don’t half-ass it, don’t quit.  GO.  

And it worked.  Until it was time to run.  

When I run, I can’t escape the simple fact that I am carrying 40 lbs more than I carried back when I ran long distances.  Try doing something you like with a large bag of dog food strapped to your back and see if it still feels the same.  It doesn’t.  Still, I forced myself to focus on each footstep, on one victory at a time.  I didn’t think about anyone else in the gym–just myself.  But my calves were screaming and I wanted to walk, just for a little bit.  I wanted to quit.

That’s when another music moment happened.  As I was rounding a corner, Kelly Clarkson belted out:

You ain’t got the right to tell me

When and where to go, no right to tell me

Acting like you own me lately

Yeah baby you don’t know a thing about me

You don’t know a thing about me

(from “Mr. Know It All)

I’d like to dedicate that song to the voice in my head.  To Fartbuster.  To every other person, including myself, who ever told me I wasn’t quite good enough.  You don’t know a thing about me.  So sit down and shut up.  

I kept running.  It was only a couple more minutes.  I told myself, “You’ve done harder shit than THIS.”  In my head, I heard a color commentary football announcer voice crowing, “She ain’t got an ounce of quit in her!”  

The truth is, I have more than an ounce of quit in me.  I have many many many ounces of quit in me!  But “quit” is what I push out of my body every time I sweat.  Every time I put my feet on the floor and remind myself to choose to be a bad ass.  

I got inspiration this morning from some Wesleyan sisters who are bad muthas:

-Irene has lost 75.1 pounds and she ain’t quitting.

-Wyanne had to give up her tongue to beat cancer, but she kept her voice.  She’s sitting up in bed today and painting–she ain’t quitting.  

-Stephanie has spent 2 years learning how to walk again after she was almost killed by a driver who was texting.  This fall, she and her horse made it to Nationals.  She ain’t quitting.

-Kristina is going home from the hospital today after fighting her way back to life for the last two months.  She’s going to be a teacher one day.  She ain’t quitting.

Sometimes it’s so easy to quit, to slow down–or to never try in the first place.  Don’t quit.  Don’t let that little voice in your head that wants you to be less win.  That voice may be inside your head, but it doesn’t know a thing about you.  

7-Muhammad-Ali

Why I Have a 10 Year Old Case of Big K Cola In the Pantry

Seriously.

I do.

Richard purchased it in 2004.

Like most everything in grown up life, it all comes back to money.  Click the butterfly to flutter on over to Work It, Mom! for today’s post!

money

A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf once wrote, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Well, now I have one less excuse to write my Great American Novel.  Here is my room:

It's so CLEAN!!!!

It’s so CLEAN!!!!

This is a short list of  things that will not be allowed in my room:

  • Sticky fingers
  • Legos
  • Nick Jr
  • cymbals
  • whining
  • kvetching
  • malingering
  • moaning
  • farting
  • dirty dishes
  • Gogurt
  • any of those TV shows with Hitler or aliens or Hitler’s Aliens
  • Juice
  • Glitter (with exceptions made on a case by case basis for drag queens)
  • Glue
  • Glitter glue

Any stains on the carpet will be made by ME.  Any books left lying around will be left lying by ME.  If the window is left open, it was left open by ME.  The only person flopped out on the couch in front of an open window with a book…shall be ME.  I will NEVER walk into the room and find anyone else already in there because no one is allowed in this room except by express invitation from ME.  Seriously, I am going to put a sign on the door like a teenage girl.

My Grandmother Eunice's platform rocker. I loved this chair when I was little because it was low enough to let even the shortest legs reach the ground and rock.

My Grandmother Eunice’s platform rocker. I loved this chair when I was little because it was low enough to let even the shortest legs reach the ground and rock.  Not that any short legs will be rocking in it anytime soon…

A short list of things that will be allowed in my room:

  • daydreaming
  • napping
  • lolling about
  • lollygagging
  • ruminating
  • vegetating
  • cogitating
  • staring
  • lounging
  • sprawling
  • contemplating
  • musing
  • pondering
  • mouth breathing

This morning, I snuck down there for five minutes to sit in Grandmama’s chair and look outside in peace.  Out one window, I could see three fat birds waiting in the sourwood tree for their turn at the feeder and the moon hanging white against the morning sky.  It was quiet enough in my room to hear the moon.

Once I get a couple more bookcases in there, I will officially have more bookshelves than books for the first time in my adult life.  I hesitated to put a TV in there–it’s a sanctuary, after all–then I thought about being able to watch a movie with cussing and/or kissing whenever I wanted to.  I’ve got a table that will be my writing desk and a futon for flopping.  An old traveling trunk that Richard found in a dumpster for my coffee table.  His grandmother’s floor lamp from the 1930’s to read by.  A painting of a mother and child that G gave me a few years ago.

That shelf?  That shelf is high enough that I can put precious things OUT OF REACH.  There’s the print of a sleeping puppy’s belly that I bought in an antique shop in Bath, England.  Tiny dachshunds I picked up in a model train store in Aachen, Germany or some at the Lakewood Flea Market.  Copies of Vermeer paintings I brought back from Amsterdam.  And a sampler I found in my Aunt Mary Fuller’s things after she died.  She was Grandmama Eunice’s younger sister and a real sweet lady.  It reads, “Give to the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.”

Grandmama Eunice's baby sister, my Aunt Mary Fuller. left this sampler. She was a sweet lady.

Grandmama Eunice’s baby sister, my Aunt Mary Fuller. left this sampler. She was a sweet lady.

Amen to that.  Now get out of my room.

The Smile on His Mama’s Face

baby MLK

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has compiled 30 photographs from the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I learned so much from them that I thought I would share the link with you today.  Click here to view the gallery.  As a picture is worth a thousand words, this gallery left me speechless.  

Dr. King died before I was born, so I’ve only ever known about his life along with the knowledge of his end–that’s why that smiling laughing picture on the balcony in Memphis is so heartbreaking to me.  We can’t look at it these days without also hearing the sound of the gun cracking.  It’s hard to see a moment for what it is, when we know how it all worked out.  Some of these pictures took me back to see the joy of his life.  The hard work that was worth it.  The delight in living.  The great well of love that drives courage.  Before today, I had never seen the smile on his mama’s face.