if I think no one is reading, maybe I can write

I'm glad my blog hasn't been overtaken by bots wanting to share inappropriate content (why is that a thing?), like a garden being overtaken by weeds, even though if my blog were a real garden it would be, well, overtaken by weeds, because I haven't been attending to it. Entropy is a force in the world. But I'm trying to revisit it in this moment as maybe a valuable space for expression because I think that having an outlet for expression might be a good thing. Maybe I can do it more. I have just sort of lost this sense of feeling like my lived experience is known or valuable to anyone and I think sharing it might help. But I hope that no one actually reads what I have to share, despite publishing it on the internet, because I am afraid about what they might think of me if they read what my true lived experience feels like inside this broken brain of mine. But also I don't want to just write in some other venue because I don't know what that would look like, I haven't got any habits of writing at all, I always imagine having an audience for my writing anyway, and posting on an existing blog platform somehow seems easier.

Yesterday was the end of a very rough break from school/work for me, but I felt like it was a fresh start or new leaf or whatever, and I had some motivation to tackle a few things on my plate. I don't really like New Year's, because although I like the idea of turning over new leaves and having fresh starts and whatnot, New Year's doesn't feel like a natural time to do so. Last year at the close of 2018, I was hoping to have a fresh start, and then 2019 was just full-on continued chaos. And if I'm using the calendar as any kind of guide, then 2019 is looking to be a real mess, too. So please let's just hope that that isn't an indication of how things are going to go for the rest of the year.

Despite feeling somewhat motivated, I didn't tackle much. I started putting away Christmas-related paraphenilia, but didn't finish. I pulled out the drawers of the "art cart" containing any craft- or art-related supplies in the kids' room, but didn't get much further. I started organizing the clothes and sorting things to be put away and washed, but also stopped mid-project. In the morning after I dropped of S at school, I (accompanied by M and baby J) got distracted by trying to find a suitable cardboard box for the aforementioned Christmas junk. I'd noticed some stray Christmas items in the garage, possibly due to the fact that we moved from North Carolina mid-Christmas season about a year ago and just threw stuff in the storage locker on our way out, so I shifted around some stuff in the garage (big sheets of drywall mostly) trying to gather it up.

M mentioned that her preschool teachers wanted to celebrate her post-Christmas birthday after school reconvened, so we went to a local salvage redistribution outlet (my favorite kind of shopping!) to find treats for that.

Tim and I had planned to try to go down to Lehi to return the cabinets. Maybe at some point I'll write about the saga of our kitchen remodel, but TL;DR: we got the wrong size of wall cabinets and have to exchange them. We also need to order countertops and thought we could do so in the same region (IKEA is having a promotion). Turns out the cabinet people weren't ready for us, but we thought we'd maybe try to get the countertops anyway so as to get it scheduled sooner. We agreed I would pick Tim up on the way south so he wouldn't have to drive a vehicle overloaded with cabinets.

I feel like I'm going into unnecessary detail here. I picked up the kids, loaded up the car to go, and it wouldn't start. The battery seemed to be dead. I thought I'd try to jump start it. My first thought was to use the other vehicle in the vicinity, which is an old Ford Excursion (which belongs to Tim's dad) that happened to have a very flat tire. I drove it closer to jump the other car but then realized our set of jumper cables were in the car that Tim had with him. Then I tried this portable jump starter kit that was in the dead car. I'd tried to use it once last year before we replaced the battery, and it had kind of smoked that time, so I worried about using it. I probably shouldn't have tried it, but thought maybe if I made sure I was using it properly, it couldn't hurt. Thinking it might smoke again, but maybe ultimately work anyway, I put on some gloves and plugged it in. It did start smoking. I dropped it. Then it exploded and landed somewhere under the hood of the car. I grabbed a tool to knock it out of the car onto the ground. Then I tried to start the car anyway and it did start. I got a little ways down the street before realizing the gas pedal wasn't working. So then I parked on the side of the road a few yards from our house, and retreated. The missionaries happened to be passing and offered to help me carry home the bags that I hadn't unloaded before this ill-fated trip attempt. Tender mercy, I suppose, even though we could have made it without the missionaries. Perhaps a small lesson here is that the moment of human connection with those 19- or 20-year-old boys was helpful even if there actual service wasn't that necessary.

So, Tim has the car with the cabinets inside, another car has a flat tire, and the other car, which actually belongs to my mom, needs to be towed. We found a place that would repair the tire right before closing time--they actually ended up replacing the tire and I got an unplanned and therefore unappreciated hour of kid-free time. With a new tire, we could transfer the cabinet boxes to that vehicle. Then we could use the van to not be stranded. The stranded car was eventually towed. And I felt like I was actively dealing with all these situations, but by the end of the night, especially when the kids were crying from hunger because dealing with food is a whole problem of its own, I was beginning to feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

And today I feel behind. I've spent a lot of the day in the bed with the baby. It seems our progress in life is one step forward and two steps backward. I am trying to keep moving.

scorched

Well, this happened yesterday. 

I was heating up some oil to fry something--actually I was going to make churros and hot chocolate for a book club activity that I planned for some ladies in the ward and it was gonna be delicious. (I did end up doing book club anyway. Only three people came. Maybe the universe told them the churro part wasn't gonna work out. But it was fun anyway and we had some good conversation. Also it was a nice distraction. I was a little traumatized by the events of the afternoon.)

The oil got too hot and started smoking. You can see the pan I was using sitting on the stove. It's a heavy cast iron dutch oven with a lid. I turned down the heat on the burner. (Mistake. I should have just turned it off completely.) Several seconds later, the smoke was getting much much worse. I decided to take off the lid. (Mistake. I should have left it covered.)

When the smoke got oxygen, the thing lit up in flames. I've seen oil do this before--in fact this happened in the very same pot on the same burner last week when the city was shut down for a snow day. (Mistake: I didn't think to avoid repeating the same conditions when I went to make the churros for the book club.) I was making a practice round of churros because I had never made them before. There wasn't as much oil in the pan last week, and it was small enough to be easily carried outside and chucked in the deepest snow this part of NC has seen for a few years. 

I don't usually deep fry, though. (Mistake: I didn't renew my knowledge of fire safety before engaging in this cooking activity that I'm inexperienced in.) So la dee dah, I didn't think much of it.

The next few minutes were scary. Cue adrenaline and all that. I tried to put the lid back on the pot, but the flame was too big and it slid right off. I couldn't use a hot pad and carry the pan outside as we had done before--the flame was too big. I think maybe a fire extinguisher crossed my mind briefly. (We have one and I knew where it was--just down the hall from the kitchen.) But I have never used one before, and I think I dismissed the thought because it didn't seem like a quick solution to me. (Mistake: I should have used the fire extinguisher.) So I thought water. (Mistake. Do not try water.) I filled up a container with water and tried to splash it on the flame. It just sputtered and grew, and some flames dropped onto the floor even. I even got a little scorched on my arm and forehead (just a slight skin irritation; it's gone now), so I was like,

"Wow, I just set my entire house on fire."

At that point, I decided it was beyond my ability to control. I ran upstairs and got the kids away from the computer. "WE GOTTA GET OUTSIDE!!" (They were watching a show, but I'm glad they understood the urgency in my voice. It takes a lot to pull S away from the TV) I grabbed my phone and called 911 on my way out

That was my first time calling 911. I was kind of upset and the dispatcher asked me all these lame questions like what kind of structure my house was and how many floors it had and all that, and I said something like, "Can you just give me advice on how to put this out?" He said no. "Don't do anything to put it out. The fire department is on the way." I thought that was dumb because, hello open flame. I wish he would've walked me through how to use the fire extinguisher or even asked if we had one (we have one, I just need some help to use it apparently), because I probably could've avoided some damage.

Who knows, though. While I was on the phone, I peeked back in and was relieved to see that the flame looked smaller, or like it may have even died completely. As I was on the phone, Tim pulled up. He told me later that he thought we came outside to greet him as he was getting home from work. I was on the phone with 911, though, and I told him there was a fire inside, and S. was holding his ears and smoke alarms were going off everywhere. (Oh, I guess they do work. Good to know. Last week they didn't seem affected by the failed deep-frying experiment.)

Tim looked at the flame, went upstairs to get a towel to smother it (Why did he grab one of our nicest towels? Men.), but by the time he came back downstairs, it had self-extinguished. Shortly after that the firefighters arrived. 

I tried hard to be invisible to the firefighters because I felt super dumb and I berated myself afterward for a good while for being retarded because I tend to be like that, but I've since seen that my stove is dumb and I'm grateful things weren't worse, and you know silver lining and stuff.

consciousness of self

The whole premise of this post may seem odd because the audience could be the same category as the subject, but I don't think anyone reads blogs anymore (much less mine), so I'm just gonna try to discard any considerations of audience here.

Moving to NC has made me self-conscious about friendship a little more than usual. I feel like I need to do a lot affirmations to get over this and just tell myself  on repeat "You are worthy of love and friendship," "You are likable," and such, despite my current social landscape being maybe a little lacking. It's been an odd two years in some ways on the social front, and I was already maybe kind of overly sensitive in that area?

I have not always successfully avoided conflict in the context of friendships. This territory is very precarious. I think there's a lot of people who believe that conflict has no place in friendship, and if there is any disagreement or discomfort, then avoiding the other person and waiting for time to heal the disconnect, or possibly even ending the friendship, is the best solution. Conversations about ending the relationship are also a faux pas, it seems. (I've sometimes struggled with the proper etiquette here.) I often feel compelled to put everything on the table. When I'm feeling emotionally invested in something, even if those feelings are undesirable, my inclination is to confront them and communicate about them. Having been burned after exposing myself emotionally and feeling vulnerable many a time, though, I've become hesitant about sharing. I don't think that's a bad thing. There's something to the maxim "don't cast your pearls before swine." There must be a happy medium, where you've established a level of trust before you begin to become vulnerable. It just seems tricky to manage the balance. 

There's an individual in my current locale who I've had some feelings of resentment and hurt feelings toward, and I've been trying to figure out how to move on from those feelings. I feel ashamed and humiliated for even having the feelings in the first place. This individual and I never actually built a consistent connection, or developed a close relationship. But it a weird amalgam of things. I was in a vulnerable spot having just moved here and knowing literally no one and being a SAHM without a lot of community access points (which can be a very isolating role). I met this gal from church, and she reached out to me initially in a friendly way. She has a very gracious way about her socially, so when we hung out, which we did on several occasions, I felt like it was easy to talk to her about things that I felt went deeper the surface level. I felt like we were friends enough that I was comfortable to reach out to her. It got to a point where that was painful and scary for me, though, because she would often fail to acknowledge or even respond. I decided to try to step back and not reach out as much to protect myself, but it's been a difficult thing for me to manage because we go to church together and I actually signed my child up to be in her child's same preschool class, as well. I would have preferred to just avoid her entirely. I think my feelings of hurt about the whole thing maybe have gone a little beyond the scope of the circumstances, but it was so wrapped up in my hope and disappointment socially on a larger scale. I'm afraid this poor girl has become a bit of a scapegoat for a lot of my failed social experiments in this place, which she doesn't deserve. She's still a lovely person, I just need to accept that she can't give me the friendship I thought she was offering.

During the same period of time, I initiated an email communication with a valued friend from college. I had been feeling like her level of responsiveness was falling short, too. This wasn't uncharacteristic for this particular friend, but the long distance instituted by my cross-country move compounded with a period of increased unavailability on her part conflated to the point where I felt our friendship was already lost. In an effort to communicate a boundary, I tried to tell her that I would be stepping back and no longer making an effort to initiate unless her responsiveness improved. That whole exchange didn't go very well, and I think I can say we buried our friendship with it. It's sad to me.

My "intensity" is not always an appreciated trait. I feel like my life story has been in some ways defined by this pattern of weirding people out this way. Or maybe it's not that so much as a pattern of intimate friendship that isn't sustained as long as I hope. Maybe it's a combination of those things, but I have a hard time with losing highly intimate and/or highly valued relationships. They are really important to me. I've tried to rein in my emotional vomit and ensure that I'm not placing unreasonable expectations on people, but I haven't succeeded in placing NO expectations on people. I think I DO have something to offer as a friend: I don't mind reaching out and initiating contact even when it requires a little more effort than just talking to someone if you happen to run into them, I'm pretty thoughtful, I am empathetic, I am available, I think I'm a good listener most of the time, and I believe I'm fairly loyal once I've established a connection with someone. I've internalized the message I've been given that I shouldn't have expectations from friends. People tell me that friends come and go, and that I should just be grateful and accept whatever may be offered, whatever amount of friendship might be extended. While I think that is partially true, I think it may be reasonable to acknowledge that I have needs and expectations and I deserve something in return. I am still finessing what exactly these expectations are, but at a basic level, I want to be acknowledged. I want to be heard. I want to feel like I can offer something positive. I want to be reassured that I'm normal.

Since moving here, I've often felt invisible socially. I worry so much about not being enough. It's easy to see my life sometimes as a string of failed relationships, to remember all the experiences and harbor the painful memories where someone actively shut me out because I was acting too intense, or my demands were overwhelming and burdensome to them. I worry that I have a scarcity mentality  and that I will never be satisfied. I think I've struggled with these feelings even when my circumstances have given me a lot more opportunities for social connection, so it's easy to conclude the problem is with me. But I'm also trying to recognize and be grateful for what I do receive. To remind myself that not every relationship ends painfully. Connection is never guaranteed, and I'm trying to be thankful every moment I get it.

the mom thing, and other things

We had our ward's Christmas party last night. Normally I would just show up and babysit my kids, like I do, but last night was different. I performed.

That's right, I performed. There was a variety show, and I participated in two musical numbers for it. The first was a piano duet, and the second was as one of three back-up vocalists in a band covering Guster's rendition of "Donde Esta Santa Claus?"

The lead-up to these performances was ridiculously stressful for me. On Friday morning, I initiated negotiations to call off the whole thing with my duet partner and friend, Stephanie, because from a combination of other factors (not least of which was the fact that I had extra childcare duties in the evenings a couple times so that Tim could do band practice), we had never actually gotten the chance to get together and practice the song! And being a back-up vocalist wasn't exactly my cup of tea, because I am not a great singer and I feel uncomfortable with the idea of being aware that people are looking at me and expecting me to be entertaining. Agh!!

Also driving to the church I turned the wrong way on a one-way road and then also missed a turn and was probably the worst driver ever.

But I played and I sang in the angelic back-up trio of female vocalists, and strangely, I was pretty zen during the actual party and not too nervous. I guess I got all of my emotional energy out beforehand, so it ended up being a lot of fun and made me feel a little more human than I normally feel in my all-consuming role as mother. I usually end up deciding that trying to do anything else outside what I can fit into the purpose I see for myself as a mother (which varies slightly from mother to mother, but for me personally includes pretty comprehensive childcare and household management responsibilities) is just too stressful and too hard and it doesn't usually feel very fulfilling or rewarding in the end, and so I quit.

I did that at my job three years ago, most significantly, and various other things that I've made feeble attempts to get involved in over the years.

I wish I could just be completely and fully satisfied by my role as mother, because it is important work. In some ways, I feel more fulfilled by it than anything else I've ever undertaken because of its importance. But in other ways, it's a little incomplete for me. It has resulted in a narrowing of my world and my brain in a lot of ways! As a result, I feel like I'm always searching for a little something extra, and a lot of times, I try things that I later end up feeling like "Why am I doing this?!" And usually, it's attempts to make money, because I guess I feel weird about pursuing stuff for the sake of my own enjoyment, but I respond well to the pressures I feel to make money and contribute to society that way.

In fact right now I am doing a freelance editing project, and I haven't done one of those for quite some time, and it's really feeling like it's not a good fit for me, but I'm doing it anyway and actually I should be working on it right at this very moment but I'm feeling unable to focus my brain sufficiently on it and blah.

I blame society. Why don't we value the "woman's" work of motherhood in our society? I mean it kind of makes sense that we wouldn't because of how invisible it is, but still . . . I am constantly dealing with the message that I'm not doing enough, as are most women I guess, because I am, at a very basic level most of the time, JUST trying to ensure my kids survive.

ebb and flow

I wasn't quite prepared for being as alone in the world as I felt I was after moving to NC. I thought that the proximity I had to people I knew in Utah was great enough that it didn't really affect my day-to-day life. I didn't see friends on a reliable basis, and I still felt lonely, bored, and socially bankrupt a lot of the time. But I think I still had some level of confidence and engagement in pre-established relationships to a degree that I cannot sustain from this distance. I do think I've started to learn to appreciate that relationships ebb and flow and have their own seasons. It's not like Person A needs to be texting or calling me all the time for me to consider them a friend. We are past that curious stage of life where people are careless and almost universally interested in social investment in some form or another. It is disappointing sometimes when I realize I've been making an effort to reach out and don't feel like it's being reciprocated, and it's hard to know when it's a good idea to let that go and move on or hold out for when things might be a little easier. There are times where we have more to give in the context of friendship, and there are times when we just don't.

I thought lots of people moved to places where they knew absolutely nobody so it was no big deal. Moving here has meant I abide with an extreme, almost physical level of self-consciousness. I miss that confidence of knowing there is someone who cares about me and I can fall back on our relationship history for connection. I occupy a space where there may be potential friends, but no one I can be confident is reliably interested in having a conversation with me if we happen to occupy the same space at the same time. After eighteen months, my level of extreme self-consciousness is easing a little bit, but perhaps only because the novelty's edge has worn off. Acclimating is a weird process.

one year ago

One year ago, I arrived on a plane in Raleigh, North Carolina, with my family. After leaving Utah the week before, we spent some time in Austin, Texas, for my brother's wedding with my parents.

After taking too long to get tacos from a food truck in Austin, we nearly missed our departing flight, but we made it, and after a short layover in Atlanta, we got to RDU around 11:30 p.m.

I remember noticing that it seemed to smell nice when I arrived in NC. The humidity wasn't quite as intense as it was in Atlanta but still noticeably present. Tim went to get the car which he had parked at the airport while I waited with our luggage, almost all of what we would live with until my brother drove our moving truck from Utah.

We drove home but part of our bumper was falling off, so we stuck to Hwy 70 and went quite slow. We slept on two twin mattresses on the floor strapped together. We had a couple of camp chairs, some house plants, our clothes, a few toys, one pot and one wooden spoon and a knife. Not much else.

The apartment smelled like smoke.

I walked with the kids to the tiny town library the next day in a country town with no sidewalks. We went back regularly--it's the only time I've been consistent about going to story time.

Maya was learning to crawl and kept falling and hitting her head because we had hard floors, so we finally bought a rug. That helped.

Tim installed our diaper sprayer but something was messed up on the toilet valve in the apartment and it became a veritable fire hydrant and flooded everything.

I bought a damaged but functional slow cooker from Goodwill and it served me well, and we bought a lot of take and bake pizzas from Aldi. We never eat those anymore.

A few months later we bought a house and moved to Greensboro and started the process of acclimating to North Carolina all over again. When people asked where we moved from, we weren't sure what to say because we had only been in Gibsonville for a few months. It was a weird interim.

I think those fields are tobacco fields? I still don't understand the placement of fire hydrants. Sidewalks are never reliably offered and neither are road shoulders. People put bags in abandoned cars on the side of the road for some reason sometimes. Occasionally you see cars with cardboard signs in place of license plates that say "Lost Tags" with the plate number, or "Stolen Tags . . . " That's weird. People park on grass here sometimes, especially in the country, because I suppose it's not quite so weird to have grass in a place that's not actually a desert. It's lovely not to ever see sprinkler systems, though. I always felt like sprinklers were an annoying waste of water. The country is not a vast no-man's land, but rather a place where a lot of people live. Streets are not straight and sometimes they go in circles. I still can't navigate driving around.

I'll be returning to Utah visit in a couple weeks. I think I've forgiven Utah for the things I didn't like about it and look forward to seeing the rocky mountains that rise above tree lines again.

time to one's self

I read a post recently titled "This Stage of Life? It's Hard." It resonated with me, as I'm sure it could with arguably most parents of young children. But the discussion about what you "need" when you're the parent of young children (especially the stay-at-home parent, it seems) has sort of stuck with me in a nettling sort of way. I find myself constantly thinking in some way or another about what my needs are or are not as a stay-at-home mom. I go through phases where clearly I'm not thriving, and I think maybe it's because I'm not caring for myself as I should. With a little more attention to myself, would I be able to avoid burn-out? Would I take more pleasure and joy in the day to day?

And then there's this part about adult discretionary time. It seems a huge difference between me and pretty much every other parent I know is that I have zero built-in adult discretionary time. We have our kids in bed with us and they depend on us helping them to fall asleep. Our bedtime structure basically involves everyone lying down in bed at essentially the same time. And during the night, we're always there. Nighttime parenting is not a break, a chance to be alone or with one's spouse, or a period to have uninterrupted rest. Parenting happens around the clock. I think we've adapted, but there are some serious limitations to this structure. Obvious restrictions. And I question it constantly! Do I need to teach my kids to sleep by themselves? Do I need time every night, or at least regularly, where I definitely don't have to worry about wearing the "parent hat"? Do we need to go on dates? (Can't remember the last time we got a babysitter and went on a date.) Do we need to go on vacations that don't involve the kids or leave them overnight? (Never done that!) Do I need to sleep for eight hours straight in order to be healthy? (I've not had a night of uninterrupted sleep for over 4 years!)

The author of the blog post writes that you need to "put your kids down for bed early . . .  you need your mom, . . . you need to not feel bad about using your kids [sic] nap time every now and again to just do whatever the heck you want, . . . you need to be ok leaving your kids overnight, and going away somewhere, . . . you need to do something you enjoy, every day, even if it’s for no more than 15 minutes."

So . . . what if you don't have those things? I don't think I'm trying to be a martyr here, although it might seem like that is my motivation. I hear a lot about the importance of self-care for moms, especially in the form of time away from your kids. It seems like we (moms? parents? media? culture?) are constantly talking about that in the conversation of parenting and childcare. "It's very demanding! You need time for you!"I totally agree and support that concept of ensuring that parents have the care and support they need to do right by their children (not to mention themselves)! I'm constantly getting messages about the necessity of structural space away from being "mom." Have I gone about this mom thing all wrong?  I haven't created this kind of structure in the (albeit relatively short) time I've been a mom. In some ways, I don't want to. In some ways I really do want to. Am I setting myself up for disaster? Am I dooming my marriage? Are these sorts of sacrifices inevitable? Are my compromises unforgivable? Is this component of my life simply another choice among many in the world of acceptable family lifestyles and ways to raise young children? Is it more essential and fundamental than that? Is it going to be the death of me and somehow permanently handicap my children's development too?

These sort of questions linger and hover over me a lot of the time. I've probably even written about it before, so sorrynotsorry if this post is redundant.

neigborhood crime

There was a shooting in our neighborhood last week. Where we live seems to be in a bit of a pocket. A few blocks away in certain directions have more issues with crime, but our development seems to have pushed it out a little. This shooting, though, was within the development. After church on Sunday, we walked around the perimeter of the taped off area a little to see if we could discover any information about what had happened. There were a group of police/investigators taking pictures of some street-parked cars. We saw a woman come out of her house to ask them why they were taking pictures of her car. They told her that there was blood on it. "Sorry," said one of the police officers. "I didn't realize that was your car! Otherwise I would have told you." I keep remembering that little exchange. Like it was no big deal that someone else got blood on your car or something? S. has been very interested in toy guns and was playing with his gun he built from blocks even while we were walking around this crime scene. The timing seemed poor. I've tried to explain that guns hurt people, but the association seems lost on him. The shooting was a bit unsettling, as it occurred at a town home within our development, and there was actually a similar incident about two weeks ago not much farther away. The previous shooting three weeks ago was murky. Apparently they found a man who had been shot in a parking lot and it was unclear where the shooting had taken place. This one over the weekend involved multiple victims and possibly multiple shooters who were at a large party where an argument had taken place. I don't know if either of the shootings ended up involving fatalities, as the news reports don't really seem to include follow-ups after the initial footage.

Where we live has some interesting demographics and I am trying to wrap my head around it. We bought a house through the Good Neighbor Next Door program, so we didn't really choose the location ourselves. We knew it was deemed a "revitalization area" by the government, but we were pretty unaware of what the area was actually like. It's probably not that much different as far as crime goes than where we lived in Salt Lake, but I felt like I understood the neighborhood in Salt Lake and despite sometimes being affected by crime while living there, it didn't seem that threatening. But I have never lived in the South before, so it feels like a new ball game in some ways. My kid is also approaching school-age, so my involvement in the community is going to change, probably. I'm thinking about education with a new urgency than I did before, and I'm just not sure what choices to make. I don't know what to think. Neighborhood schools do not seem to be well respected.

I feel like an outsider where we live. It seems like our neighbors are all black. It sounds stupid to say this, but I kind of used to think that race didn't mean much and people were making a big deal out of nothing. But coming here has broadened my concept of racial identity in some ways. I realize there's a lot more culture associated with this racial group than I had conceived of before, and in some ways that's made me feel alienated and like there is even less common ground between me and people in the black community here. But it's also made me appreciate a bit more the complexity of race relations, so maybe that's a good thing? My world is still pretty small, as I spend my time at home with the young children and mainly only know people from going to church. I'm not necessarily proud of that, but it is what it is. People at church don't live in our neighborhood, so the people I might think of as peers normally also seem demographically different. Does that kind of thing matter or does it not? Color me confused.

lost in the move

Strange things get lost in the moves. I get stressed out about lost stuff and can't forgive them for being missing. Not good at letting things go. I must obsess and categorize and record. But sometimes the randomness of such lists seems humorous:

• a suit jacket, but not the matching suit pants
• a gift card that once found a home in a wallet
• straws to Camelbak-type water bottles

Where do the lost things go?

self-conscious in NC

One thing I didn't necessarily anticipate about being in a new place was this uncomfortable self-consciousness and hyperawareness that I carry with me all the time. Sometimes I feel like I'm just bulging at the seams and not holding things together very well while my children yell and throw tantrums in the tiny library story time while everyone else sits there quietly with their kids who've probably brushed their teeth more regularly in the recent past and eaten something without added preservatives.

when kindness hurts

I read the article "A Daughter Too Kind for Her Own Good" and felt I could relate all too well. Gordon writes, "I’m not just her mother, but another girl who grew up being told not to ruffle feathers or rock the boat."

Kindness runs deeper than just being a people-pleaser, so I believe as a virtue it still deserves a priority place. But I know my tendency to want other people to like me, to be self-sacrificing at least under the guise of serving others' interests, and to avoid arguments on issues ranging from personal to political doesn't do me any favors sometimes, and I worry about what I'm inadvertently teaching my children.

And although I hate to admit that I judge other women with the same unfair measuring stick, I notice that I do. I think it's so culturally ingrained in our ideas about femininity. Just yesterday, I was listening to Hillary Clinton speak on public radio about her presidential campaign, and I found myself feeling uncomfortable because, completely aside from her politics, she didn't sound very matronly.

campus dining

There are a couple of college campuses near us and on MLK day I decided we should try the cafeteria at NC A&T, a HBCU (historically black college/university) very close to where we live. I felt a bit out of place on a few counts: first, we were white; second, we had small kids with us; and third, we were not college students. So it was a bit of a weird choice for dining out, perhaps, but also kind of fun. Oh, the days of college when you could eat cereal with every meal on your meal plan.

cross-country move cost, by the numbers

So how much does it really cost to move your person and stuff 2000 miles? Here's what it cost us:

Gas for moving truck:
$546.79

Cost of moving truck, with car trailer towing:
$1284.16

Gas for second car being driven:
$218.07

airfare for two people and a baby from SLC to RDU:
$497*

storage unit for 1.5 months:
$42

* Just a note--I did a six-day layover in Austin, TX, in order to attend my brother's wedding, so this flight might have cost something slightly different if I hadn't done that, but I purposely consolidated these trips in an effort to save money overall on travel costs.

Grand total: $2588.02 

Yowzers. Cross-country moves aren't cheap. This doesn't even include some of the indirect costs, like double rent and many meals eaten out because we didn't have a kitchen. If we had more time to plan this move, we might have made some decisions differently and possibly could have saved more money in the process. But for those who have done comparable moves, how do we stack up?

thoughts on parenting styles

Today I find myself thinking about my parenting style. I am tending a 7-month-old baby in addition to my kids. This baby normally goes to day care while her parents work outside the home, but her mom needed a back-up today.

It's interesting to think about the difference in experience and environment for different children. Does it really matter that much? After 3.5 years into this parenting game, I find myself on the rather extreme end of the attachment spectrum. It was a little bit on accident that I got here. I would have said when Shep was a baby that I didn't feel like I had a choice. His temperament seemed to demand constant, exhausting attention in mostly one form: nursing. I avoided going in the car and leaving the house by myself with him because he screamed in his car seat every time, unless I was in the back seat with him, playing with him, leaning over his seat to nurse, etc. When I tried sleep training, it seemed to backfire. After a few days of trying to do cry it out, he started screaming bloody murder every time we even walked into the room that his crib was in. So I abandoned that attempt, despite being desperately sleep deprived. (I might have been doing sleep training wrong. It definitely didn't feel intuitive, so I adopted a method that seemed effective for others and probably didn't even follow the program correctly.)

Maya is a bit more adaptable. I think she would sleep by herself and sleep through the night if I taught her to. She would probably also be a bit more independent if I didn't hold and carry her all the time.

Being a parent always changes your lifestyle, but my life revolves around my kids in obvious ways. I don't do this because I have passionately strong beliefs that this is the right way to parent, and I don't pity every child who doesn't get the same parenting. I respect many parents who make different choices. I nurse my kids and I'm glad that there is some evidence out there that this is a good choice because it feels like a validating balm on my self-doubt, but at the same time, is the difference between formula and breastmilk enough to support the controversy that surrounds the issue? There are healthy, thriving children who develop into mature, responsible adults upon an infant diet of formula. Go figure. We humans are kind of resilient and adaptable, I guess.

So why do I parent the way I do? Am I just making things harder than they need to be? Am I exhausting and wearing myself more than necessary and thereby compromising my ability to contribute in more meaningful and impactful ways? I worry that I'm missing something, but I do this intuitively. It feels comfortable and natural. I do admit that it's a sacrifice. And maybe the sacrifices I make at times are not to the benefit of my family, even though I hope they are. It's a lot more work in certain ways and it comes at the cost of some things that might be good for both my children, my husband, and me. I'm sure some nights we really wish we didn't share the same bed and that everybody slept through the night because some degree of sleep deprivation seems to be a constant around here. I actually worry sometimes that I'm doing my kids a disservice. Maybe they would benefit from learning some independence skills. It might be a good thing overall if they could do some self-soothing, fall asleep without nursing, and spend time with someone other than me without their world falling apart. And while I'm fairly good at holding and nursing, I'm not very good at other things like making sure they get dressed or have stimulating activities that are engaging and developmentally appropriate. I see gaping holes in my disciplinary methods and find it difficult to enforce behavior standards with my toddler. I think it probably says something about me, not Maya, that I've never left her with anyone else besides Tim and even then, only for a few hours in the 10 months she's been alive. I like feeling needed and important, and my parenting style is a bit self-serving because it makes me feel good to be needed. I value being self-sacrificing in order to make a "contribution," so it behooves me personally to at least pretend that's what I'm doing. I don't really prioritize time to enjoy life and have fun, and I think that comes at a certain cost?

I don't know if I am doing this right, but I do know this: there is no one single right way. There are multiple ways to get this right, and every parent makes mistakes. I just hope that I can learn from mine and not cause my kids more issues to work through as a byproduct of being raised by me. Life brings enough problems on its own.

Last week, we went to a warehouse for schoolteachers in the county to get school supplies. Shep had to go pee, but I couldn't see a potty anywhere. I took him outside (every time I do this, he's encouraged to pee outside rather than in a toilet, so I like to find the potty if there's one nearby), and we walked around to the other side of the building. I found a place on a wall that I thought he wouldn't be seen. Afterward, he was playing around outside and a woman approached me. "Do you need help with anything?" she asked. I said, "Oh, no, we're just playing a little bit."

"We saw your son going potty," she began a bit reluctantly. Then she proceeded to explain that her organization had employees, including their president, in a conference room in full view of my toddler, and that they serve lower-income individuals and ex-prisoners, some of whom are sex offenders. She said she wanted to ensure that they weren't violating their terms of behavior, or something like that.

That conversation both baffled and mortified me. I feel like a lot of my interactions with strangers out here kind of has this baffling tone. I sometimes feel embarrassed that I'm out and about at all with two young children. I feel very self-conscious, partially just because I feel uncomfortable in general, and partially because I get a sense we are violating social codes that I'm unaware of. We get a lot of positive attention, too--mostly from benevolent old people who love babies--but sometimes I feel like being a mom of young kids is like running a traveling circus. Maybe I should start charging people to see our freak show.

breaking up with Utah

I've been thinking about my relationship with Utah in terms of a romantic relationship over the last month or so.

During the summer especially, our relationship status would have been "it's complicated" on Facebook. The relationship was long-term: Tim and I lived in Salt Lake for 5 years, I lived in Provo for 4 years before that, and then I lived in Layton for 8 years before that. The only time I left was for 6 months when I was in Russia, which doesn't even seem like it counts.

And then we broke up.

When I first got out here, I was feeling a little angry and betrayed by Utah. Now I've gotten over that and there are definitely things I miss about it.

It's a little hard for me to pinpoint exactly what was dissatisfying to me about my experience in Salt Lake, but I think it is connected to this idea of community and feeling like it was a struggle to be a part of a community that had any consistency. I am not sure why this is. Maybe it's less to do with the place itself and more to do with me, so it's dumb to look for things to blame Utah for.

I did always feel a little silly about my desire to experience living somewhere else for a little while. There are a lot of people who live in Utah whom I love and who love Utah and have no desire to leave, so why did I? And I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe we'll move back later, but right now I look forward to the prospect of getting to know a new place. I haven't found my place here yet. I mostly feel lost and confused right now.

I do miss shopping at NPS where you could find slightly questionable grocery merchandise at a discount, and I miss shopping at thrift stores where you could add to your book collection for a dollar here and there and buy your children's wardrobe, also a dollar at a time. Apparently I really like at least feeling like I'm saving money. I'm not sure where the weird discount outlets are around here, but I hope there are some. I almost asked someone at a regular grocery store what they do with their less-desirable produce: "I will buy brown bananas for half price!"

stuffed

Two weeks ago tomorrow, my brother rolled in with a big ol' 16-foot Penske truck and car trailer, upon which sat our minivan.

We had planned to get a small trailer and use the van to haul our stuff, but after a lot of worry, stress, and naysaying. we decided to find another way to transport our belongings.

We narrowed it down to a pod through U-Pack or a Penske truck, and ended up going with Penske and towing our other car (which grand totaled around $1700 if you're interested in that kind of thing), partially because we wanted to ensure we'd have a car Tim could drive to work. (Unfortunately we took the car into a mechanic shortly after we got it and found out about another costly repair because of a leak in the rack and pinion.) And we didn't even drive it here! Oh, cars.

There was a lot of room in the moving truck left over. I had already gotten rid of several items that I now wish we had. But I'm glad now I was unsuccessful getting rid of some other things, such as our couch. Now we have somewhere to sit besides on the mattress on the floor or the kitchen table. Getting everything loaded up from the storage unit and the things from my parents' house was a huge stressor. It wasn't ideal at all the way it worked out (e.g. Tim's mom unloaded the storage unit practically by herself and our attempts to find help for her were ill-fated), but it got done and now we have our stuff. If we could do it all over again, I think we would have had Tim fly back and take care of it rather than waiting to do it during the weekend of my brother's open house, which was when my brother offered to drive the truck out. Or maybe we would've hired somebody to do it? There was too much stuff going on that weekend for my brother to handle it, and it turns out mobilizing other resources when you're across the country is nigh unto impossible. I guess regrets are inevitable when you're moving across the country without a lot of notice, though. We do appreciate the help we got, and now we're settling in slowly but surely. 

transportation issues

In a couple of weeks, my brother Jon will be traveling from DC to SLC for an open house celebrating his recent marriage (which we happily attended in Texas!). He graciously offered to transport our stuff for us to North Carolina from Salt Lake. Now the question is: how?

A couple years back, we acquired a 2005 Dodge Caravan from Tim's sister as a second car. Once Tim accepted his new teaching position in NC, we formulated a plan in our limited time frame: Tim would drive out our Civic with a few items that would fit inside the car. I would change my return flight from Texas to North Carolina, packing as much luggage on the plane as possible. The rest of our stuff would go in a storage locker in Salt Lake, get sold, or get donated or thrown away. Then, Jon would retrieve the van, load a trailer from the storage unit, and drive . . . and drive . . . and drive (sung to the tune of "Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked").

The van has a hitch installed on it from when Tim's sister and brother-in-law used it to haul a loaded 4x8 trailer from Seattle to Boise area. We want to use the same size trailer, but haul it 2000 miles instead of 500. I have spent a lot of time worrying that this plan wouldn't work. It's been mostly unproductive worry and stress. A lot of people who've heard of our plan are super skeptical. And we have taken the naysaying seriously. We've explored renting a truck, selling our van, towing our van with a rental truck, shipping our books separately, keeping the storage locker, etc.. It's terribly tempting to rent a trailer for approximately 300 dollars as opposed to a moving truck for over 1000, especially when it includes regaining access to a second car.

Our only car out here is our Civic, which Tim drove out over three weeks before I came, and it's sadly having issues at the moment,  which may or may not be related to its recent cross-country trip. On our way home from the airport, the front bumper was falling off, so we had to drive 35 mph the entire way (it took a long time) to avoid losing our undercarriage. Separate from that, it was making a funky noise. So we took it into the shop and they said it needed a new A/C kit, A/C compressor, and some other A/C system components/ repairs. We don't really know the area or have a way of getting to another mechanic for a second opinion, so I hope the 1400 dollar repair required is necessary. We need a car out here, so we went ahead and ordered the work. It's crappy-expensive though. As if moving wasn't expensive enough! I need a job!

the new digs

I'm sitting on a hard floor (it's supposed to look like wood, but it's some kind of rubbery material). I'm leaning against a mattress on the floor, and slouching as I do because really the mattress is not high enough to comfortably support my back. Actually, there are two mattresses bunched together with a ratchet tie-down that form a faux-king-size-bed. Upon these mattresses, we have placed a mattress pad. There is no bedding. There's also a fan for the white noise and to drown out Shep's snores. That kid is a loud sleeper.

In the suitcases, I brought most of our clothing and also cloth diapers. I haven't been using them lately. I wish I could say it's because our 3.5-year-old child is potty trained, because I feel like I'm failing as a parent the longer that he's not. But although I feel a certain urgency about him wearing undies successfully, I think there are more pressing issues relative to a certain recent cross-country move.

I also brought the cloth diaper sprayer toilet attachment, which we also use for a bidet. It's not currently installed. It is normally not a big deal to attach to the toilet, but the other night, we had a bad time attempting to install it. This is because the valve that turns off the toilet water supply is completely busted. Tim removed the piping that connects the toilet  to the wall without knowing that the water had not, in fact, been turned off (there was no way of telling), and then it was like a fire hydrant and water was shooting everywhere. I mean everywhere. And we couldn't stop it, so the apartment flooded. (The denouement of the story finally happened when we called the emergency maintenance number provided by the apartment's property management company and a plumber came and shut off the main water supply.)

So I guess it's a good thing there's no carpet in here; otherwise it might be damaged. Literally, no carpet. That's a first for me. We need our rug, but it's still in Utah. I always thought I didn't really like carpet because I assumed that carpet never gets fully clean, but now I'm not so sure because I have an 8-month-old, and I'm pretty sure her crawling skills are actually regressing.

I don't know much about the area around me. It was humid and hot when we arrived, but today is cooler. I have this theory that my body actually responds to humid heat better than dry heat, because I don't normally sweat adequately in dry heat. I suppose I still have some experimentation to do to prove my hypothesis, but not today. When we were in Texas, I think I sweat more than I probably ever have in my life. It's quite green here and there are lots of trees. It seems pretty--more so to me than the desert landscape I'm used to. I'm constantly confused about my spatial orientation, though, as I don't have the mountains to direct me. Also, I had this sense when we visited Washington as well of feeling a little isolated because you can mostly only see trees in every direction. There may be things on the other side of the trees, but you have to be in on the secret.

I wish for a more complete kitchen, but there's a certain way in which the sparseness of our surroundings. including the fridge, is pleasing. We have a cast iron skillet, a pan, a wooden spoon, a knife, and some plastic cutlery and disposable dishes that we are reusing. It will take time to restock.

It will be necessary to restock furniture as well. I got some chairs from a Goodwill in Greensboro. It was fun fitting them all in the car with two car seats, but I got some help from a friendly bystander and made it home safely. Then we got a table to go with the chairs from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. So our dining table is outfitted. We also bought a washer off Craigslist, and now I can resume cloth diapering even though I'm somewhat reluctant to do so because disposables are easier. I guess my reluctance to spend any money will win out though. In general, I will do a lot to avoid spending money.

by the numbers

• 32 days since Tim got a call in response to an application he submitted, interviewed, and received a job offer
• 32 days since Tim tentatively accepted the job
• 31 days since we gave 30-day notice at our SLC apartment
• 28 days since Tim loaded up our Honda Civic and started his 30-hour drive
• 26 days since my 28th birthday
• 24 days since Tim found a new apartment
• 20 days since the first day of school
• 16 days since Tim's 31st birthday
• 12 days since I cleared out of the apartment
• 11 days since I got on a plane from SLC to Austin, Texas
• 9 days since we reunited with Tim in Austin (after 19 days apart)
• 5 days since we arrived together in North Carolina