Light and Momentary

News!

I just got a job offer! It's a half-time postdoc starting in August -- it would let me focus on writing up the work I've been doing as a doc student without any teaching responsibilities. It is exactly what I would like to do next year, and I can do most of it from home. Hurray!

Whoa

I was driving home thinking cheery thoughts like, "It's impossible to be gloomy when the forsythia is in bloom." And then I checked my email.

A dear friend was urging me to pray for a mutual acquaintance, whose daughter is in grave condition after being shot at close range by her boyfriend.

I learned from a Facebook friend that a guy we went to school with from sixth grade on was just found dead in his apartment. It's not clear how long he was there before someone discovered his body.

The priest who baptized four of our children just lost his mother, ten days after she was diagnosed with cancer.

Holding my kids a little closer this afternoon.

Kind of like "sleep in heavenly peas"

Joe: The words to "Farmer in the Dell" don't make any sense. Why would the kid kick the baby?

Me: Pick. Pick or take.

Joe, undaunted: Wait, I know. I think the son should kick the baby first, and then the wife could kick the son as a punishment. It doesn't make sense for the wife to kick the son before he kicks the baby.

Small Successes (Plus Pictures)

First, I finished a lingering knitting project yesterday. It was as much finishing as knitting, and I do not love finishing. It's Knitty's Blu, which I would totally rate as piquant instead of tangy because of all that annoying backstitch seaming and embroidery. Shown here with the bib I made from the leftovers, modeled by little Miss Destruction-In-Her-Wake.

Second, in the week since my defense I have been working away at the mess around here. I am the person in this marriage who deals with paper clutter, and I was behind. I haven't finished, but the grown-ups' paper tray is empty (wheee! empty!! totally empty!!) and the rest of that space is much tidier. I have smacked down my inbox from 80+ messages to zero. I have purged the playroom, which is a hydra-esque (hydrarian? hydrapalooza-like?) task in a family with 5 children. (Before, please don't judge me too harshly, vs. after (the pic at right in which the cardboard blocks, the toy food, the toy tools, and the Play-Doh accessories rotated down to the basement shelves to rest there for a while. Nobody was playing toy food or toy tools, and their bins just kept getting dumped on the floor.))

Third, we had a fun St. Patrick's Day, with an Irish flag gelatin mold for dessert.

More small successes here.

In which I observe that it is easier to ululate plaintively than to pull my socks up and get on with it

So I went to confession on Saturday and I talked to the priest about SLOTH. Selective sloth, not all-around sloth, because I can be extremely disciplined about getting things done for school. It is specifically this business of running a home that brings out my inner Jabba the Hutt, who wants to loll about and have people do her dirty work.

Which makes me suspect that my problem is sloth with a side of vanity. People act impressed about my finishing a dissertation with five kids. I would be impressed with myself if I could manage to keep the laundry folded for two months. Just imagine: sixty days in which no one ever had to look through the clean laundry on the guest bed for matching socks. I liked writing a dissertation. It was hard and a little scary and it took a long time, but I really liked doing it. I don't like pairing socks.

Lately I have been thinking about Linda Hirshman, who wrote sniffily about the tasks of at-home motherhood: "They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings." And you know, she's right. Up to a point. As I've written before, Hirshman and I disagree about what's fundamentally important: I believe that it is more important to do the work in front of me lovingly than to seek out work based on its status or remunerative potential. I believe that the laundry is part of my path to heaven: a form of service to my family that will teach them the importance of doing necessary work cheerfully and diligently.

Unfortunately, I'm not doing so well with the diligently part.

Joshilyn Jackson was just writing about how keeping a tidy home doesn't come naturally to her and it made me say ME TOO ME TOO. Left to my own devices I am not a very tidy person. I am also rather absent-minded. (EXAMPLE: Three weeks ago my MIL was here watching the littles while I revised my dissertation. Pete was playing with his older brother's Buckyballs, throwing them at the baby. I got up, my brain still mostly occupied with chapter 4, and stashed the Buckyballs in a Super Secret Hiding Place which WILL NOT reveal its whereabouts to me. Where did I stuff them? Where where WHERE?)

Where am I going with this? I don't really know. The priest reminded me that it's important to pray for grace to live out my vocation, that God supplies abundant grace when we ask. My tendency is to think I should just be able to plow through it because it's only laundry. Maybe I'll start there and report back. You have not because you ask not, somebody I love once said.

Beware the Ides of March

Does clutter dream? If so, perhaps mine had a Calpurnia-esque night. It is not long for this earth, or at least for my corner of this earth. I am tagging along with the crew at Five Full Plates in an effort to vanquish clutter. My house has been sorely neglected of late.

Today: toys, papers, email, and a symbolic start on the Office of Doom. Do I dare post before-and-after pictures? I will have to think about that.

Verdict

Pass! Minimal revisions, enthusiastic committee. Relieved and thankful and a little bit disbelieving.

Accomplish My Going Forth

Tomorrow at noon I will defend my dissertation. Please pray for me if you're so inclined. I'll try to update afterward via text message.

Speedy

In the time it took me to retrieve a load of laundry from the basement, Stella pulled a glue stick off the table and whipped off its cap. She was applying it to her hair when I found her.

She is indignant that I took it away.

Blargh

Remember when I told you that my defense was open to the public and (HA HA HA) you could come if you were in town? and listen to my talk about my dissertation for two hours? Remember?

Well, guess who's coming to my open-to-the-public defense! Guess!

[wait, you can't really guess without more backstory]