Chopped

This is my rosebush.  My husband got it for me for Valentine's Day a couple of weeks after I had our daughter five years ago.  He expected --hoped-- that it would die after I had enjoyed its finery for a couple weeks, maybe a month. Alas, I found that miniature rose bushes can be kept and enjoyed in the house for all eternity. I was thrilled. My husband was not.

Since then, my rosebush has gone through phase after phase. It gets devoured by spider mites until I remember to treat it and it recovers, leggy, almost leafless but with one beautiful bloom on a scraggly branch. I then diligently spray the mites and it recovers, only to be left for a week or two while we are farming, and it gets starved for water.

I've come to empathize with my precious rosebush. Often it is in the seasons that I'm the most haggard and busy that I simply neglect it, and its appearance mirrors my own feelings. 

That was especially the case this winter. I've always been the kind of person with way too many hobbies and interests and not enough time. I've been chided with remarks about being a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none, and how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (though I haven't found this to be the case with my music, except maybe for my listeners).

I've always felt that I *could* be doing more. Compared myself to others who are seemingly, seamlessly doing it all. Felt as though, if I spent one moment at home, the elusive "everyone" would surely be building priceless memories without me.

This winter it became unmanageable. As long as all my plates spun exactly as they were supposed to, I could rush through the week "successfully." Two hundred inches of rain (a hyperbole) during harvest was the first monkey wrench flung into my plate spinning act. Then a winter of passing around sicknesses, amidst trying to organize two Christmas programs. 

The final straw was needing to address some health issues with our daughter, which added one more thing to the mix.  Enter full on meltdown mode for me. I was just like that scraggly rose bush my husband detests: half wilted, leaves falling off, with one gorgeous bloom every so often that sucked the life out of the rest of the plant. Why keep it? he insists.

I decided to hack the plant down to nothing. Only the barest glimmer of a stalk can be seen. Coincidentally, this Covid-19 stuff started rearing its head in our area about the same time. Everything was canceled. Not to trivialize the massive economic impact or the terrible time that people are having with it, but my first reaction to the cancellations was a sigh of relief (along with those feelings of uncertainty, but we all know about those). My calendar was suddenly empty. Everything, cut off.

I decided to use this time (as probably many others are) to reflect on exactly what I can prune out of life. 

Two weeks later, my plant is still looking pretty crappy. The shoot that appeared almost as soon as I cut off the whole shebang, still tiny. I had expected to see something great coming out of it. I know this is poor writing and totally predictable, but it’s the truth that yet again, Rosebush reflects real life.

I honestly thought that having no commitments, no worries that everyone else was hanging out without me (Why yes, I am 13. Why do you ask?), would be a mental reset. It was, at first. I rode my horse, got in a good prayer routine, practiced music, spent tons of time outside. Yaaayyy. Then it was cold for one day, and I read an article (do not, Best Beloved, read articles). I yelled at my kids, decided I wasn't doing enough in any area of my life, and the golden calf of Unbusy was melted. Having fewer commitments just made me find different ones. My last “If I just slow down life will get easier” was shattered. 

Like that rose bush, there is nothing I can do to make my life magically easier/more magical. We live in a world with coronavirus and cancer, after all. Like the rosebush, I can’t water myself, or keep the spider mites at bay. Thankfully, unlike my care of my rosebush, the Lord cares for me perfectly. Sure, self care and slowing down is important. We all need to have the dead stuff pruned off from time to time. But ultimately all I can pray for is to cling to my Savior who has provided for me perfectly by His death on the cross, to know that He will continue to "water" me with His Word and Sacrament.

"How are you?" "Oh, busy!" "Yeah, us, too!"

I'm always whining about how busy we are. Sometimes it feels like all we do is run, run, run. I think this is a very common theme in modern life, almost to the point of becoming cliche. We complain and complain but do nothing about it.

This winter has been tough. Not weather-wise, but running and sickness-wise. I've felt like the kids and I have been trading germs all winter. With our youngest not sleeping well at night for the past several months, I'm pretty sure that the constant running plus the toll of not having a normal sleep schedule is catching up with my body. Such is modern life, I'm told.

As a homeschooling family I feel a strong pressure to have my kids "in" things. I don't feel like it's a lot, until I start listing it: gymnastics, 4H, Sunday school, Wednesday school, violin lessons, my weekly music teaching that they get dragged along to, home school group activities, and if we're lucky, a play date here and there! Plus commuting two hours to farm in certain seasons.

I know, I know, we're not "that" busy. We aren't driving across the state for wrestling meets, dance competitions, music camps or hockey games. Suck it up, Buttercup. Right?

No (Here you can picture me as Grumpy Cat, the famous contrarian). I'm getting to the point that I realize something has to give, and it has to give in a big way. I was told the other day that "it will only get worse," "it will just get busier as your kids get involved in more activities." But why?

Back up several years, to my later college years. I'm double majoring in Norwegian and Elementary Ed. Trying to squeeze as much value out of my nearly-free state education as I can. My academic advisors approach me, wondering what my plans are come graduation. Students like me are needed in growing cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix once we graduate as teachers. They'll pay for housing. It's a great professional move. Or I could get my master's degree for nearly free, working in the Grand Forks school district under a veteran teacher while gaining experience in the field. It's not an opportunity to turn down. Or, I could get my master's in history or some other field and delve into Scandinavian studies. I could go somewhere. Or I could pursue music further.

"No, I'm going to try to get a job in a one-room school in western North Dakota." I got quite used to being looked at like I had three heads. "But there's no growth potential there! All those little schools are shutting down!", this being before the oil boom. "Don't you want a challenge? A chance for success in your field?" Nah. Instead I found my dream job at age 22.

I left that job for my *real* dream job of being a stay-at-home-mom at 27, this time getting comments of "so....you're gonna stay home for a couple years until your kids go to preschool, right?" and "Wow, you barely got to use your degree. What a waste." Eight years later I gleefully continue to answer "no" to those questions, as well.

Some of my kids' and my most cherished moments (okay, maybe just for me) are our hikes, our times outside just meandering. Today Josie and I made snowballs, just to throw them into the air, or eat them, since the dogs weren't with us! Then we looked at the sky and caught snowflakes on our tongues. "It feels like I'm floating up into the sky," she said. I agreed.

When we get too caught up in our busy-ness, we end up losing these chances at meandering. I'm not okay with that. And I'm finally becoming okay with not being okay with that, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure what we are going to cut out at this point. It won't be church activities, because that's a priority for us that comes above even meandering (gasp!). I also relish times for my kids to be around their friends; not only in a classroom setting or taking turns in an activity, but actively developing friendships and learning the ins and outs of those friendships. Since we don't go to school I do have to be more intentional about this, which is hard to do when we have so many danged activities getting in the way!

But in being intentional, getting down to the nitty-gritty of what is important in our lives, and throwing the rest out to make space to just "be," I feel like we have a good start.

40 (or so) days later

Now that we are in the home stretch of Lent, the Facebook fast has taught me a few things. One, that I'm a poor, miserable sinner who, despite being disappointed in what I find, can't help but check in every Sunday since those are technically not counted among the 40 days. By His grace, I also know it's okay ;). I've also found that the less I interact with the platform, the less it interacts with me. Hmm. I see the same things over and over, lose interest, and put it down. I check my groups, same thing.

To plan a re-entry to (or complete dismissal of) Facebook, I've considered several options:

-disable my account altogether and do any buy/sell/trading the old fashioned way (but who really has luck with classified ads anymore)

-create a new account, ditching my old one and only befriending a very, very small number of people

-make it a rule to unfollow/unfriend anyone who raises my blood pressure, which seems silly, but part of my addiction to Facebook involves getting riled up about people who say stuff like "we did Black people a favor when we brought them over to 'Murica." Serious face palms like that are hurting my head. And I can't engage in every such argument that comes up, or, as shown by previous experience, my real life family and friends suffer.

-check in once a day for a short amount of time. This seems like the most doable option, but it will involve self-control on my part, which I struggle with in the areas of Facebook and desserts.

-ditch the smart phone altogether and get a flip phone. This would be probably the best option, but our only option for quality Internet is through our smart phones, so that would be an unwelcome impediment upon several areas of life.

I think that the short daily check-in, coupled with the following, is going to be the best bet.

-only check groups that are relevant to my real, in-person life. Those would be home school and theology groups (though the latter can be maddening at times).

-NEVER read the comments on any ad that shows up in my news feed.

Facebook-Free Lent Day 3: Analysis Paralysis and other fun

I really missed Facebook today, most likely because I was darned stressed out! Know what stresses me out? Making decisions. The first decision of the morning was what to have for breakfast. Oh, the agony.

Then, there was the mule situation. My mule has had something in his eye since I went down to the barn Saturday and found the left side of his face coated in ice that was a mixture of tears, blood and pus (As for that visual...you're welcome.). It being -30 with a strong wind, getting the ice out of the way was a challenge, and long story short, yesterday evening I found what appeared to be an ulcer in his eyeball, which he could finally open enough for me to see. I had thus far avoided Google, but going to it after my aunt urged me to get him to the vet STAT, I found that there was a high likelihood of him losing his sight in that eye, with the possibility of losing the eye itself.

Somehow I managed to sleep last night, but this morning was a whirlwind of me crabbing at the kids, calling the vet, arranging an appointment (I abhor phone calls and arranging appointments), followed by trying to get some school done (trying to decide what we could get done) as we have missed two days this week. Then it was to hitch up the trailer and try to get it pulled out of the snow, load said mule who, for being a mule, loads really easily but is pretty horrible if his Friend, Sister-from-another-Mister, and General Life Partner isn't with him, which she wasn't going to be. I debated sending feelers out to see if anyone wanted to hang out with my kids. But, Facebook. So the kids came along.

Upon arrival at the vet I found that Eeyore will most likely retain at least some sight in his eye. Good news. To make that happen, I will be catching him 3 to 6 times a day for the next 2 weeks to put drops and rub ointment in his eye. The more the better, the vet said. So, 6 times a day. Did I mention he's a mule, and while he is a pony mule, he still outweighs me by at least a few hundred pounds.

Plus there is the fact that we're going on a much-anticipated vacation in Nine Days. I'm going to be wrestling with the mule still at that point. But we have rented a house, and Jon has taken vacation days. Maybe we could hire someone to wrestle Eeyore for four days while we're gone? Or do we reschedule and hope there's still snow on the ski mountain in early April, and that the house will be available? Decisions, decisions.

We got home, and the kid who was a wild monkey at the vet's office, climbing everything and being generally hyper, is suddenly inexplicably cold. Her cheeks are flushed, her glands are sore, she has a fever. Influenza? Do I take her to the walk in tomorrow? Do Jon and I continue our megadoses of Vitamin C, in the hopes that we will stave off illness, or do we let the illness waft over us and succumb to it willingly in hopes that we are all healthy in nine days?

Through all this, there was an undertone of "update a facebook status about my kid being sick/getting the mule to the vet/post something funny about mule's mule noise/make joke about vet's office being cleaner than the Burger King playland," with the realization that I actually had to face these issues in the present rather than commiserate with others on Facebook about them. Along with the really weird and somewhat frightening subconscious thought of, "If I don't post about it on Facebook, will people believe me, will it be real, and will it be remembered?" That, I feel, warrants some more unpacking on a different day.

Facebook-free Lent Day 2

Day One was empowering. I made a list of books I'd like to read and actually found one and spent a good little chunk of time reading it! A couple things, though....

1. Having deleted the Facebook app from my phone, I replaced it with a different app. I probably counted five times that I absently, completely automatically, clicked on that app--Amazon Video, for what it's worth--and no, I had no plans of actually using the app. That little fact was pretty disquieting to me.

2. I felt somewhat isolated as I thought of several witty quips in my mind that I would have otherwise rushed to share to Facebook. True, I didn't get to share those witty quips. I also didn't waste time checking Facebook to see whether anyone had read and responded to my witty quips, or whether said witty quips were not indeed witty.

3. I spent most of the day with my two dearest friends from high school, so I can't say that it was a fair "day two," since I wouldn't have been on Facebook a whole lot anyway. However, I did realize I couldn't post pictures of our children and the group shot of all of us. That fact didn't diminish the joy at having spent the day as I had.

4. I'm greatly looking forward to reading both the books I've selected and having time to enjoy them before bed tonight. Normally I absently scroll through Facebook until I realize I've reached what my husband deems "The End of the Internet' before realizing I have only 15 minutes to read before my targeted bedtime, which usually turns into an hour, a late bedtime, and a crabby me in the morning.

5. Bring on Day 3.

Facebook-free Lent Day 1

I've been talking about giving up Facebook for months, possibly years. Having been in college in the early 2000s, I was "there" when it first began. I heard about it from a couple of friends, got a couple invites, and remember thinking, "Why on earth would I want my "face" on the Internet?" It all seemed very absurd to me. Then my roommate got it, and we could suddenly find out all kinds of information, like whether or not that cute guy in History was single, and what our "friends" would be up to this weekend.

Facebook evolved with us, or possibly rather we with it. I remember being able to post "statuses," which were often the cryptic, emotive type (being a college student and all). A few years later, people could respond to such statuses. Still later, Facebook opened its market to everyone, from high schoolers to boomers and beyond. I remember feeling really conflicted at that development, since Facebook was still a relatively intimate way to connect with people I found to be true friends.

I don't need to expound upon what Facebook has become. We all know it. I feel fortunate that my 6 year old boy still says, "What's Facebook?", rather than being interested in how many likes the picture of his drawing got. I aim to keep it that way as long as possible, but knew that something would need to change in order to make that happen.

In my younger years, I flirted with alcohol consumption. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy a drink or two here and there and have discovered a casual love of craft brews. What I found around age 21 and 22, though, was that just a drink or two of alcohol took away my social anxiety, improved my fiddle playing, and generally made me more of an interesting person. Or so I thought, until the next day, when I would again worry about the possibility of having said something to someone that maybe wasn't worded exactly how I had "really" meant it.

By the grace of God I didn't ever fully find myself going down that road. I had children now, and it didn't take any experiential discovery to know that parenting with a buzz could only be harder than parenting stone-cold sober.

However, I've always had that realization at the back of my mind that I have an addictive personality (another reason I'm careful about alcohol). Addiction doesn't always take the form of a drug or beverage. It doesn't even have to have the appearance of something sinful. When I started buying baby supplies (cloth diapers, then baby wraps), it was just me, being a mom who loved my child and wanted to find the product that worked best for us. And talking to other moms who wanted the same for their children. And then analyzing and reviewing how each specific product performed in any given situation, realizing this might not be the "best" product after all, and going on the hunt for a new product, which entailed a whole lot more analyzing with my fellow online addicts.

My children having outgrown the cloth diaper stage and mostly outgrown being wrapped, those areas of addiction are being removed out of necessity, much like the potential addiction to alcohol I faced many years ago. But wait....I'm homeschooling! And I see the rabbit hole of curriculum possibilities looming ahead of me. I used to joke that if I became as addicted to baby carriers as I did to cloth diapers that my husband would divorce me. I won't lie, I became even more addicted, and it did cause some serious strain on our marriage. I'm not about to go down that road again with homeschooling curriculum, or my husband might make me send our kids to school!

Anyway, this post was going to be about my Facebook addiction, before I realized in free writing that Facebook wasn't my only problem. I will say that it's the root. I have been a Facebook user since 2004. Wow. I was 20 years old when I started using it, and I'm not 34. I'm not sure about this, but I do know that my struggles with depression and anxiety got worse around this time. It could have been life circumstances, but I do also know that I got "better" around the time I moved away from college (which had been a goal), got my dream job and....(drumroll) didn't have any local Facebook friends. Everyone I knew and interacted with on a daily basis didn't have Facebook at that point (remember, it was still basically just a college thing).  I had to actually connect with people in person.

Since then, Facebook has become so much more. I have a smart phone. I'm not sure how I would even go without it, since so much of my life is on it. But Facebook is going to be the devil here, or at least his tool. I see myself depending on it, despite my discomfort with how much I do depend on it. The crazy thing is, is that the people developing it and evolving it know this. Our brains are conditioned by the "ting" of a notification that will either tell us that someone "approved" an aspect of our humanness, or maybe that someone is ready to fight about it. When we hear that "ting" our brains prepare for either of those, or perhaps some other possibility. Maybe someone wants to buy my guitar. Maybe someone thinks my kids are adorable. Maybe someone is going to call me a feminist, anti-woman, anti-American, or a car seat Nazi (all of the above are categories that some people would see me fit into). Maybe someone is having a party and I'm not invited. Why? Did I say something that offended that person? Was it that pro-life article I posted two weeks ago, or the joke bashing Joel Osteen?

All this time, my kids are living their lives, away from the crap that's involved in that aspect of modern life. If there's anything I haven't failed at as a parent, it's letting my kids play creatively and not get sucked in by screens. But if I am addicted to that technology, will that bliss last? I'm already seeing that it won't.  If I want my kids to find joy in music, God, animals, the outdoors (not in that order!), shouldn't I model that enjoyment instead of staring at my phone for myriad 5 minute chunks of the day, then complaining that I don't have time to practice my instruments/sew/whatever?

I woke up last night knowing that I wouldn't be checking Facebook for the next 40 days and had a moment of panic. I almost checked it, because it wasn't Ash Wednesday yet at that point, so I could "technically" use it. Luckily that thought offered my mind a moment of clarity and conviction about how important it was that I actually do this!

In closing, my kids are outside playing for the first time in at least a week, since it is a balmy 9 degrees above Fahrenheit. I haven't written anything forever, so this is rambling and poorly written, and I'm aware of that. I'm off to enjoy life and conquer the withdrawals of this Facebook addiction.

Somehow I've gotten out of the habit of writing, and I think it was a really good habit to be in. Looking back I am pretty sure that most of my best writing was during some of my lowest points in life, so my lack of need for cathartic rambling is probably a good thing. I also don't have a direction for this post, so it probably won't be published.

Life has been...up and down. I'm really starting to realize what the farming thing means in terms of our lifestyle, trying to stretch ourselves between two places and for Jon, two jobs. Trying to coordinate his days off with when the crops might be ready, and then they're not because it rains, or something breaks down, or whatever. Packing my kids, pets and horses up to spend a week or more at the farm, then getting up there and realizing I forgot the dog food or Josie's "buppy" (blanket). Our dog's spay appointment got rescheduled three times because our projected schedule kept changing.

The rhythm of farming is all I've known my whole life. Plant in the spring, hope for rain (unless you're still planting), hope the weed emergence and wind cooperate enough to be able to spray at the right time (another tricky thing when we live two hours away!), wondering which disease will be prevalent in which crop this year, driving down prices. The smells of flowering wheat, freshly cut hay and ripening grain mixed with diesel fumes.

I relish the time spent up at the farm, getting to see my children experience some of the same joys I did as a child (albeit sans livestock). Seeing my dad, my husband and I and our children interacting together around a shared job is the realization of a lifelong dream.

But then there are the drawbacks. Scheduling, as mentioned above. Deciding whether or not to drag the menagerie of animals up to the farm because who knows how long we'll be there. This fall the greatest challenge for me has been the feeling that I'm straddling two communities. I rarely do anything social up at the farm because I'm farming. A quick trip to the elevator or a rainy day supper at the pizza joint is about it. My social community lies at my home address, not my hometown anymore.

At the same time I find myself time and time again unavailable to develop friendships in my new community. The kids were invited to five birthday parties this fall, all of which had to be declined because we were farming. We haven't been to church since I don't know when (July, I think), because we're either at the farm or the kids have happened to wake up with fevers the Sunday mornings we are home.

I keep hearing about how busy kids are these days, what with full days of school and full evenings of activities afterwards. I adore the fact that we "aren't that busy;" my kids get up on their own schedules, we eat every meal together, every day, be it at the farm or at home. Meals in the car are virtually unheard of. But ours is a different kind of busy. I predict it will become busier as my dad retires and more of the day-to-day management is up to us. It may become easier as the kids get older and can help out more, but then what of any activities they'd like to be in? It remains to be seen.

I do know that the ability to farm is a privilege that not many people get to experience these days. To know the work, the gamble and the long process involved in growing our food is something that's incomparable. For me it's a connection that goes back not only to my great-grandfather who homesteaded our farm, but to my ancestors in Norway who were also farmers but knew something needed to change for them to be able to survive (13 kids couldn't all take over the family farm, right?). To continue that tradition has been on my mind since I was a young child.

So I (we...my husband isn't a passive bystander) will continue to weigh the costs and benefits of our lifestyle, not only for me but for the whole family. It's a tricky business. And that's kind of an anticlimactic/blah ending, but I haven't written for a while. So that's about all I've got to say about that. ;)