Organized Packing: Ignorance is Bliss

I started packing yesterday. I’ve been dreading those first boxes for a while now, knowing that as soon as I opened the first one and began filling it with the bits and pieces of our lives that have collected in the corners of this little rental house over the past two and a half years, chaos would become the permanent guest until someday in the far future. ‘Chaos’ and ‘far future’ may not be quite right, but that’s a little what it feels like. ‘Unrest’ might be better and ‘near future’ is hopefully more accurate.

I will not start earning a paycheck in my new job until I start teaching this fall. And because Mark does not yet have a job lined up in Minnesota, we don’t really know how soon we’ll have a source of income once we sever ties with our current jobs. Two and a half years ago, when we were in a similar situation, the stress nearly sent me through the roof. Mark nearly sent me off to the loony bin. (Or if he didn’t consider that option, he probably should have.) I am pleased and pleasantly surprised that this time around, though I am mildly concerned about our source of income for the next few months, an overwhelming sense that God will provide pervades my heart and mind.

We’ll see how I feel in a month when income really does stop. I may be eating my words.

Mark’s sister and brother-in-law and their two adorable kiddos are coming to visit us this weekend. They graciously offered to bring a trailer down to cart a load of stuff back up to Mark’s parents’ house, where the majority of our stuff will be stored for the time being. I’m so thankful for Mark’s parents, who are allowing us to take over their basement with our accumulation of earthly junk. And I’m so thankful for my parents, who are allowing us to take over their basement with our…selves.

But…. (I heave a huge sigh here.) I’m not super excited about being homeless and out of control of my stuff and home for some undefined period of time. For one thing, I will not be excited about the excessive amounts of hamburger meat that I’ll find at my parents’ house and I’m sure they won’t be excited about sugarless baked oatmeal for breakfast. For another thing, it’s simply disorienting and confusing to not have a home for a lengthy period of time. Mark and I managed to do it once before: we packed up all our earthly possessions except for the few we’d need and put everything into storage for three months. (Mark’s parents were gracious enough to give their basement over to our stuff then too, I might add.)

Even as organized as I thought I was last time we had to pack up, we still managed to permanently displace half of our hand towels and washcloths (which, since we only had four sets, left us critically short of towels to offer guests). And I still shudder to remember needing that one item and trying to rummage through the mounds of boxes in search. And all that despite my numbered and color-coded system.

Ugh.

So, this time, I’m prepared. We are not only going to be numbered and color-coded again, but I’ve made a spreadsheet. A colored, numbered spreadsheet. Disorder and chaos will quake in their boots when they see this spreadsheet.

Control is a funny, tantalizing thing. All this ‘organizing’ of our packing and this spreadsheet might just be a way for me to feel like I’m in control in this stage of upheaval in our lives.

But I’m not going to analyze it too far. Organizing and color-coding my boxes makes me feel like I’m in control. Ignorance is bliss!

Trying to Make Sugar-Free Sustainable without Caving and Eating all the Monster Cookies in Sight

Mark and I are starting month number four of no sugar – or at least very little sugar. I’ve begun to ease up a little bit. From what I’ve read, the important thing about giving up sugar for a period of time is to reset, in a way, your body’s insulin sensitivity. If your insulin isn’t freaking out multiple times a day, that gives your hormones some breathing space and they can begin to focus on some other more important bodily functions than trying to keep track of the insulin that’s acting like a teenage girl with PMS. 

I don’t know if that’s entirely true. To be honest, I don’t really understand the relationship between insulin and my hormones and PCOS. But that’s kind of what I imagine happens.

So, I’ve let up on myself a little bit in one area: I’ll allow myself to have a serving of a dessert if it’s a very special occasion, like someone’s birthday. I figure this will amount to about one or two servings of desserts per month. I think my body can probably handle that.

I would like to reinstate some fruit into my diet. I did, in a moment of weakness at the grocery store last week, buy a grapefruit. I ate it in two servings, at two different meals, and it seemed like the sweetest grapefruit I’ve ever tasted. It was delicious. Since then, I’ve had at least one dream about fruit. Apples, mainly. I love apples. I miss them.

I’ve wanted to write a post for a while on how I’m planning to make a low-sugar diet sustainable but I’ve been putting it off. Frankly, I’m afraid to bring fruit back into my diet. I’m afraid to bring much of any sugar back into my diet. So far I’ve only seen good things happen to my menstrual cycles since I gave up sugar. (Not so many good things happening to the PCOS-induced acne, but that’s a post for another time.) I kind of don’t want to shake things up.

But at the same time I kind of do want to eat a banana again, or some blueberries, and definitely an apple with peanut butter. And at some point I want to eat a monster cookie again. When is the right time to bring those things back into my diet? Ever?

And the more realistic and probably more important question, how can I make a mostly no-sugar diet sustainable for a family? (‘Family’ at this point just means me and Mark, but I’m thinking optimistically about the future here.) Right now for breakfast we generally eat sugar-free baked oatmeal, which incidentally I have come to love. I don’t miss the sugar in it at all. Or we eat sourdough English muffins, or better yet, sourdough English muffins with fried eggs and cheese in them. Mmmmm.

But is that enough variety in our breakfast diet? What about coffee cakes and scones? And are we never to have pancakes or waffles again? (We tried sugar-free pancakes without syrup. It was about as fun as eating slices of dry bread.)

I know I’m probably whining too much. I mean, realistically, if I try to keep my diet in perspective, I still eat a much wider variety of food than most of the world. And when I’m at home, I’m satisfied with my sugarless hot chocolate and my snack of raw almonds. It’s just when we’re with friends and someone squirts a big dollop of whipped cream onto their sugar-full hot chocolate or when a co-worker brings monster cookies to share at work that I begin to feel discontent.

Really, I can handle saying no to the monster cookies. It’s not easy, but I’m sure it builds character or something. And I am perfectly content to eat baked oatmeal for breakfast, most of the time. What this whole post boils down to, I guess, is my musings on when to let fruit back into my diet and how much. Monster cookies I know I can live without. But I don’t know about fruit. Fruit has a lot of health benefits giving weight to its argument to be back in my diet.

So, I don’t know. I don’t have a plan yet, and I’m not really sure what to do. It’s not life or death and it doesn’t keep me up at night, but I’m just not sure.

Any ideas?

Showing Off the Husband

Mark had to disappear overnight last week. I hate it when he has to do that. He knows that. So he made a surprise for me that I found when I got home from work. Here's his note:

It reads (in case you can't read his ultra-neat handwriting): "Dearest Hillary, In case you get bored while I'm gone, I made you a 63-piece puzzle. If you want to do it, you might try doing it on a piece of cardboard or something, black/red side down, and then flip it over when you've finished. I lvoe you and hope you enjoy some Downton Abbey! Love, Mark"

Here's the puzzle laid out on the table:

And the puzzle completed (make sure you read through what he's written on the pieces if you can):

And the back of the puzzle:

I personally am terribly impressed and was smiling ear to ear while putting this together. Actually, it makes me feel a little guilty because I don't know if I could (or would) find the inclination to make something this detailed for Mark. I have a wonderful husband!

Wishing for a Snow Day, I Mean, a Sabbath

Our church is going through a church-wide study based on a book called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. I was really skeptical when we started it. Partly because the title sounded funny and was hard to remember but also because it sounded like another me-centered study, which I’m always suspicious of.

I have, pleasantly, mostly been wrong in my suspicion. Both Mark and I have learned a lot from this study and have had some conversations that probably wouldn’t have been unearthed for a long time if this book hadn’t brought them to the surface.

Last week we read the chapter titled ‘Discovering the Rhythms of the Daily Office and Sabbath.’ The subtitle is ‘Stopping to Breathe the Air of Eternity.’ In my week of test-taking during which I did little other than read textbooks, this chapter was definitely needed.

True, I didn’t read it throughout the week, letting the ideas soak in. I read the whole chapter quickly in the 20 minutes before leaving for church Sunday morning. But even in those 20 minutes of skimming I was convicted.

The chapter has two main premises. One is that we as Christians should be stopping to be with God throughout the day. The ‘devotions’ that most of us U.S. Christians have for about 15 minutes once a day doesn’t cut it. For one, most of us are focused on getting ‘filled up’ for the day, not on who God is. For another, once we snap the Bible closed after those 15 minutes, most of us don’t give God a second thought for the rest of the day except for a quick prayer over our lunch at work. Scazzero calls Christians to task and says that’s wrong. We can’t expect to grow into healthy ‘little Christs’ without an intent focus on being with God, on loving God for who He is and focusing on Him before focusing on our daily lives. That’s what the ‘daily office’ Scazzero describes is all about: stopping periodically, if for no more than a few minutes, to focus on God and be with God.

The second premise of this chapter is that Christians do not treat the Sabbath like God intends us to treat the Sabbath. So many of us long for snow days. (I’ve actually had conversations with coworkers in the past week, wishing for a mammoth snowfall so we would all be required to stay home for a day, so this really hit home.) Scazzero argues that the Sabbath should be like a snow day for us. We should feel obligated to stay home and relax, or go out and relax, whatever makes us relaxed. But, our Sabbath snow days should also have the element of stopping to be with God. Otherwise, the Sabbath is just a secular day off.

Anyway, this chapter was convicting to me for a couple reasons. Number one, I leaned waaaaaaay too far in the direction of studying and found myself drifting into Type-A Study-Til-You-Drop Land during the past month or so. Maybe it was needed; I won’t know my scores beyond pass/fail until early April. But still. Definitely no Sabbaths for me during that time, and definitely no Daily Office. I was too focused on remembering the different theories of ESL education and Kohlberg’s theory on moral development.

Looking ahead to the next two years of teaching, I’m concerned. If that’s how I was for test-taking, what will I be like when I feel like I have the responsibility of educating a class of kids? How can I find balance? How can I take time out for God throughout the day? How can I keep a Sabbath for resting? How can I take care of my marriage and other relationships, for that matter?

I don’t really have an answer to these questions right now. I just wanted to put them out there. And I’m much more likely to mull them over a little bit if I put them up on a blog because I have the accountability (if only in my head) of knowing that other people will be reading my questions too and then watching to see how the answers play out.

I hope I can find a balance. I’ve thought about starting a Sabbath habit this week already. And both Mark and I have committed to taking time out to spend with God at least two times a day. That’s all great, and I’m glad we’re doing it, but the true test, I’m sure, will begin the first day I step into my classroom.

After Test-Taking

I could tell that I was starting to crack under the self-imposed pressures of MTLE testing this week. As I wandered around the library reshelving books, I found myself lingering by J.K. Rowling’s shelf and Roald Dahl, imagining which books I would pick up if I actually had a few hours to devote to reading. I began to feel jealous of coworkers who were authentically sick and had to be sent home. I want a sick day, I thought. I want to lay on the couch all day and watch movies!

Last Monday when I drove over an hour to get to the city where I could take my first test, I only brought my driver’s license as a form of ID to get into the testing room. That was fine; I was able to take my test. But on Saturday morning, as I was getting ready to leave, I begged Mark to take down our fireproof box and pull out my passport. I knew it was crazy, I told him, but I wanted to bring it “just in case” they didn’t accept my driver’s license. Bless his heart, all he did was raise an incredulous eyebrow at me before reaching up into our closet and pulling down the fireproof box.

Needless to say, my driver’s license had not become more skeptical as a form of ID in the five days from Monday to Saturday.

I passed all my tests. (Jubilant, cork-popping, confetti-throwing happy dance!) I just about killed myself with worry and fretting, but I passed all my tests. Well, all except for the basic skills writing test. I won’t get the results of that one back until early April because it was more than just multiple choice. But, frankly, I’m not terribly worried about it. If I could pass the math section of the test, I can probably feel pretty confident that I passed the writing section as well.

When I arrived home yesterday afternoon, I hardly knew what to do with myself. I seem to have ingrained a sense of urgency into my attitude toward daily life since beginning to study for the tests. (How horrible is that, really? I’m fairly horrified and disgusted with the lack of control I seem to have over my tendency to worry.)

I settled down after a while, though, and made supper. I wrote some letters and thank-you notes for birthday cards and gifts I received at the end of January that had been left in an After-Testing pile. I looked gleefully over the mound of textbooks taking over a corner of our house and thought about how good it would feel to return them all to the libraries and friends from whence they came.

Today I’ve further settled down from an ongoing sense of urgency. I made pizza with the sourdough crust Mark and I prepped last night. I started another batch of yogurt incubating on the counter. I read for a while (Harry Potter). And then I spent some time listening to some music and playing with my hair. Yes, I’m shocked too. I didn’t accomplish much, other than reaffirming the fact that I can’t seem to wrap my fingers or my brain around any new ways to fix my hair.

Then I decided it was time to take a celebratory walk over to the local college and return the stack of textbooks I had borrowed from them for studying. I bundled up, scooped the books up, and whistled my way over to the college. I knew that this particular school closed its library on Sundays. What I did not realize, however, was that they also lock the book return on Sundays. I stood in front of it for a while, stubbornly yanking on the slot door. I contemplated leaving the books propped up against the front door of the library, thought better of it, and started my walk home, no longer whistling.

Ah, well, I guess I’ll get to take two celebratory walks over to the college to return my books.

So, what’s next in the continually-transitory lives of Mark and Hillary and on this blog?

1. Downton Abbey, Season 3, as soon as whoever has it out at the library returns it. This will be a Hillary-only activity, as Mark has made sure to remind me.

2. Continuing to read Teach For America books, articles, and other materials, as they send them.

3. Job searching, for Mark. (Please pray for that!)

4. Recording and sharing what I’m reading (because that’s still my favorite activity).

5. Deciding how to make a sugarless diet mostly sugarless and sustainable in the long-term.

6. Preparing to move. Be warned: you will probably be reading about this, as mundane as it is, in the coming months. I’ve already begun to make a mental list of things to do: change of address, move our banking accounts, plan an organized, color-coded system for packing, and so forth.

7. Daydreaming about getting a dog. (More on that definitely coming soon because I would much rather build upon my delusions about being a soon-to-be pet owner than about changing our mailing address.)

Have an excellent rest of your day, ladies and gentlemen. I think I hear another hour of Harry Potter and a cup of tea calling to me…

One Test Down!

First test -- done and passed! 

I won't even tell  you about my crazy nervous neuroticisms during the hour leading up to testing and during testing. I'm too embarrassed. BUT I did pass this first test. So, I'm starting to compile a list of events and ideas I will blog about when I can focus on something other than textbooks again, and a whole day vegging in front of Downton Abbey is already being planned.

Happy Monday!

Patient Trust

Patient Trust

Above all, trust int he slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability --
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually -- let them grow,
let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time 
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing 
that his hand is leading you.
And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

--Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

What does it mean for you to trust int he slow work of God today?