a curious tragedy.

well, as if dead rainbows last week wasn't enough, tragedy has struck the anderson household yet again.

on wednesday it was discovered that our hermit crab, curious, is no longer in his cage.  his cage which is on my daughter's bookshelf, around 3 feet from the floor.  curious has escaped.  has flown the coop.  has kamikazed to his death.  or, disintegrated.  i even had the thought that maybe curious was a very spiritual hermit crab (he has heard many bedtime prayers) and was just taken up into the air like Elijah.   because the truly shocking part is:  his shell is still there.  in the cage.  curiouser and curiouser.

now, anyone out there who is remotely like me, is instantly picturing a naked hermit crab (as much as one is able to - what does a hermit crab look like with no shell?) lying in wait in some dusty corner, desperate for a stray toe, a wandering finger to come to close, and then, NAB!  i know, it's terrifying, even if the crustacean is less then 2 inches long.  it's been 4 days and it's quite probable that curious is dead, but if i start picturing him lurking...

okay, i have to stop picturing that.

when we first discovered the break-out i very bravely picked up all four shells in the cage and brought them frightfully near my eye to see if there was somehow a little crabby hiding in it's depths.  but i have to confess to you, that every time i turned a shell over there was a voice inside me saying "please be empty, please be empty, please be empty".  incredibly selfish when my daughter was looking at me with her huge despairing eyes.

she cried in bed the following night.  "i loved curious!" she moan,.
"well, honey, he wasn't exactly a cuddly pet"
"no"
"he wasn't a pet that played or that was even friendly, really"
"he was more friendly than george!" [the other hermit crab that died on the drive here from saskatoon]
"yes, i'll give him that.  but... he was a.... hermit."

who thought of making a hermit crab a pet in the first place!? didn't the word hermit clue them off to the fact that these crabs are not looking for loving companionship?  [just to remind you, we were given these crabs, so you can just stop that train of thought about how stupid we were to buy them to begin with].

if i don't sound incredibly sensitive or sympathetic to my daughter, trust me, you wouldn't be either.  one look at those wandering antennae eyes and snapping claws...what if he's under my bed right now?!  no, okay, i did try and console her with the fact that curious died in a fitting way - on an adventure.  he lived up to his name.  "curiosity killed the hermit crab".  he threw off the confining structures of his world, broke free from stereotype and conventional thought, and walked out of that shell.  he died a free crab. (as i was waxing eloquent on these points she looked up at me and said "in this light, it looks like you're joking" - as though, the dim light of her bedroom must be tricking her eyes because there's no way her mother would be trying to comfort her in such a manner.  whoops!)

and to her credit, my daughter has handled the searing loss quite well.  just last night she was online researching turtles.  which, from what we can tell, are highly poisonous and should never be considered as a pet.  fantastic!  my life as an adult pet-owner has been quite the ride:  gerbil poop in the kitchen, escapee hermit crab, why not add poisonous environmental hazard to the mix?  how about a komodo dragon?  electric eel?  baboon?  oh the places we can go.

and to you curious: despite your general lack of affection, gross ugliness and obvious unhappiness, you will be missed.  my daughter's heart was big enough to welcome you in - as she makes pets of wood bugs and names earth worms and once carried a wounded dragon fly around on her shoulder for an entire afternoon.

please don't take it personally when i say that, wherever you are, i hope you are no longer among the living.

okay, i have to stop picturing that.

dead rainbows.

'i saw a dead rainbow today mom.  it was lying in a puddle.'
                                      -my son, this week, 6 years old.

i started to explain that there was probably oil or gas or some sort of chemical in the puddle, and that it wasn't the same as a rainbow, and that nothing had died.....
scott started explaining that that's what happens to rainbows when someone finds their pot of gold.  scott is by far the best at 'creative explanation' in our family  (he hates it when i call it what it is: lying).   i wonder which of our children will inherit his giftedness.  since i found an entire game hidden behind a lunch box today, a game my son had assured me he had cleaned up, i think i know who to bet on.  along with the fact that he saw a dead rainbow.

i have made it through my first of five weeks of crazy, where i'm working at my new job and teaching two art lessons on top of what has here-to-fore been my full time job of being a housewife and artist.  in the last two weeks i have moved from having no schedule, other than housework and painting, to having to colour coordinate my day planner.  well, i probably don't have to colour coordinate, but it does give me a sense of satisfaction :).  green for meals, blue for household, black for appointments, purple for work, pink for art classes.  it's a freakin' dead rainbow!

there is definitely a degree of satisfaction when i hit the pillow at night - like, "i'm doing it".  i'm the modern woman who works and keeps the house humming and makes valentines and attends PTA meetings and does her hair.  i have joined the ranks of bagged lunches and professional dress and speaking sentences like "sorry, i work that day".  it's been almost exactly 10 years since i've done this, and MAN am i ever filled with gratitude that i didn't have to when the kids weren't in school.  and MAN am i ever filled with awe at my friends who do!  it is a constant rotation of responsibilities.  but also a satisfying sense of competence - like i'm living at my highest potential.  add any more speed and i might literally explode, but i'm humming along the highway, marveling at how quickly the trees are flying by me, and periodically enjoying the wind in my hair.

and tomorrow i stop the car.  sabbath.  hallelujah.  hopefully the rain will slow and scott and i can find the ocean tomorrow.  it's harder to find than you'd think - like all of your responsibilities and worries and laziness keeps you from its shore.  but the last time we were there it felt like we were at heaven's edge.  we were shrouded in mist, rocks jutted out eerily from the cloud and water, seagulls walked right up to where we sat and looked at us questioningly.  we saw a seal pop it's head silently above the surface, and scuba divers waddling to shore.  it was silent, save for a few bird cries and the lap of the small waves.  it ignited something in me - dissatisfaction? desire? and also quieted me.  the seemingly endless vista.  i wonder what it must have felt like before people knew vancouver island was there, before the world was mapped, and the ocean spoke of chaos and the unknown.  to some the brink of adventure.  to some the brink of terror.

and now i stand at the brink of a new week, my toes wet, the tide pulling me deeper in.  will i let the rainbow of my weeks work terrify me, or will i adventurously plunge?    will i kill or be killed?

right now it's 50/50.

movie lesson

on wednesday night scott and i, exhausted and in need of escape, watched the movie "about time".  i won't give anything away, except that it's a great movie, and that one of its themes is the pleasure of living life to it's fullest:  eyes open to wonder, a heart of gratitude, simplistic enjoyment.

friday was a pro-d day, and a day for me to gear down from my recently accelerated life of work and art classes and painting and mothering and housework and wife-ing.  a day with long stretches unclaimed.  i thought i would do my best to enjoy it 'to the fullest'.

i kept my ears open, and heard the hygienist in the cubical down the hall exclaim over my son "best seven year old ever!!!"  i then marinaded in the moment of telling her "he's actually six".   i listened as my daughter explained to her little brother that the tooth fairy couldn't bring him the giant pokemon tin because "she can't carry it in her little hands!!".  i cherished the little smile the sales lady gave me when i quickly bought some pokemons behind his back.

i washed the floor to taylor swift.  seriously - if you start feeling sorry for yourself halfway through your vacuuming, i highly suggest her "red" album for a quick cleaning pick-me-up.  there's something about the tune "i knew you were trouble when you walked in...." that just makes my cleaning regime as close to fun as i think it can be.  i belted it out and set my floor to sparkle.  my kids sang along as they built lego.

i told my little ones the story of how their father showed me my first blue angel when we were first married, and how i laughed the hardest i have ever laughed.  and how lighting your farts on fire is actually akin to waving around an uncontrolled flame thrower so under no circumstances should they attempt it.  and their eyes were round as saucers and they covered their smiling mouths with their hands and looked at their father like he was a walking miracle.

i kept my eyes on the row while my family watched the lego movie, watched my son look like he was on the verge of tears when the main character was told he wasn't special, later watched both my kids laughing their heads off, teetering at the edges of their seats, and my husband smiling with his mouth wide.  i was sitting beside leah and at one point i said "i am seriously crying in the lego movie" to which she responded "i'm bawling" and then we laughed and laughed.  i love watching movies with leah, i can always count on her to have my emotionally sensitive back.

later we crossed the street walking like lego characters - "no knees!" i cried.

so, i would say it worked, this "in time" theory.  i thoroughly enjoyed my highly normal day of dentist and cleaning and mothering and friendship.  i suppose walking through your day with the expressed desire of looking for the best in whatever comes is a lot more fun then my usual - just making it through whatever comes.

so here's to tomorrow with open eyes and ears and heart, tastebuds ablaze, deep breath, fingertips alive, and spirit soaring.  i hope you live it to its fullest.

(whoops!  i posted this three days ago with the wrong movie title at the beginning.  yikes!  that could have got me in some serious trouble...thankfully the movie "in time" which i had mistakenly referenced is a Justin Timberlake movie, which i have also seen, but did not learn any life lessons from)

grump

i woke up grumpy today, for no apparent reason.  i ran through the scenarios while journalling...am i sick? am i over tired?  did i eat something i shouldn't have? am i stressed?  over worked?  pms?  nope, nothing.  just grumpy.  so, shoulders back, smiles on, fight fight fight!!!  working through a day where your reflexive expression is "be quiet!" is a lot harder than surviving a day founded on a positive outlook.
but here i am, children reading in bed, a small bowl of olives and my computer.  i've survived.

my children are actually reading in the same bed, side by side on their tummys, one with garfield, another with a junior novel about pre-teens who are remarkable responsible for their ages and have started a cupcake company.  man my nine year old is sheltered.  she stirred a pot at the stove for thirty seconds today, terror written all over her face, until she finally bailed with a "it's too hot!".  she did however let me know that cooking safety dictates saucepan handles face into the stove.  and people poo-poo our public school system.

the reason they are sharing a bed is that today one of my husbands dreams for our home came true:  we bought a loft bed for our son.  his room is teeny tiny, covered in lego, and sticking his bed four feet in the air has literally doubled his play space.  yippee scott!  he's been researching and checking craigslist and dreaming for months now.  i don't know who's more excited about the purchase, my son or my husband.

maybe that's why i'm grumpy - images of my 6 year old careening off his bed in the middle of the night.  stop it janet! stop it!

there is much to tell you in the way of celebration.  it has been a full month, getting my website up and running and planning two art classes that begin in february.  the plan back in september when i entered my season of "rest" was that the season would end in january.  things looked a little bleak when the second week of the month hit and i was still unemployed.  i have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to make some money - pressure that feels like i'm a boiling pot with a too-tight lid.  my mind swirling with ideas and what ifs and hows, and sometimes why.  guilt.  dismay.

needless to say, i was in no mood for blogging.

but something miraculous happened this week.  truly.
to give you the full girth of the miracle i need to back up a bit.  in november i was offered a job as an executive administrator for the hypnosis society of canada.  i know, totally random, but a friend at our church currently holds the position and needs to give it up.  it was great hours, great pay...great.  but there was this little niggling feeling about it that wouldn't let up.  i talked to multiple counselors that i admire and all confirmed what i believed, that hypnosis is a viable and helpful psychiatric tool.  i had seen an ad for one of the society's functions though, and it mentioned something about accessing your past lives.  i was concerned that i would be working for a foundation that i could not wholeheartedly endorse.  so i said no.  which was difficult, let me tell you.  definitely a step of faith.

last sunday one of the counselors that i had called to chat with about the hypnosis society position beckoned me over to him. [ it was one of those movie scenes where he's across the room, curling his finger my direction, telling me to come over, and i'm looking behind me wondering who he's summoning, and i point my finger to my chest - "me?!"  yes, me.]  he let me know that a man in the church who is a financial adviser was looking for administrative help.  "should i give him your name?" he asked.

by friday i had the job.  and it's awesome.  walking distance from my house - i could walk with the kids to school and just carry on.  positioned in the neighbourhood shopping complex - above the library of all places (!!!), beside my dentist, and meters from my grocery store.  really flexible part time hours where i can still be home when the kids are.  good pay.  and, best of all, i am working for a man that uses his financial wisdom to make the lives of others better.  a great, god-fearing man who i can wholeheartedly endorse. yay!  it is such a gift to find meaningful work that will not follow me home and will not place me in any moral dilemmas.  seriously.  miracle.

my step of faith was met with great faithfulness.  thank you God.

one of the really fun things is that he told me i "had him at my handwriting".  he had been complaining that a previous-hire had really bad handwriting "in this business a 6 needs to look like a 6!".  i discreetly give him one of my business cards and hand wrote my new website address on the front (what a clever girl i am).  "oh my!" he exclaimed.  and that, my friends, is how it's done.

no, seriously.  praise God that there is some good reason for my lifetime of anality when it comes to my penmanship.  

so, truly nothing to be grumpy about.  actually, writing this seems to have cleared away a few cobwebs.  or maybe its the fact that the kids are falling asleep and it is now adult time in the anderson household.  cue the popcorn and Doc Martin!  i know, good thing we wait until the kids are down.  so feisty.

i wrote in my journal this morning that next week the gun goes off, and i start running again.  i hope i have set a good pace for myself - monday sabbath, tuesday and thursday work, wednesday and friday paint and teach an art class.  i must remember to keep hydrated, breath deeply and stretch out a few times a week with yoga.  i feel ready.  i am at the starting line and i'm smiling.

we'll see how long that lasts grumpy pants.

ps.  my husband just read this and said "you should have blogged earlier in the day if it helped you get over your grumpiness".  hmmm.  i guess he noticed.