Nothing broken

What flavor frustrated are you? Are you the frazzled type of frustrated, all unkempt slop-haired, buttonholes fastening the wrong buttons? Or are you the emotional frustrated, when the customer service line won't let you talk to a real human bean, you just cry. You sob. You wail. I'm the angry frustrated. It's a most unbecoming situation when I am angrustrated. I know that my husband really loves me because he has seen the horns of my frustration rear and he doesn't try to sneak out the back door and run to Louisiana. Though he was measuring me the other day and he said something about how wasn't it cool that I was just small enough to fit in a XL Flat Rate box. I wonder if that had anything to do with the one he had addressed to Republic of Philippines?

The last couple of days, urrrrrgoooosh, I've felt so frustrated that Things Were Not Happening on My Time Table. I was hopping mad today and my sweet daughter asked me why I was frustrated and I told her it was because things were broken and she asked which things were broken and later she asked me if things were still broken OH, CHILD, AREN'T METAPHORS TRICKEHH and all I could think was that I was a massive idiot. Nothing was broken here: the roof over our heads, the cereal bowls in our cabinets, the hearts that thump the bass beat of this sweet cacophonous song we're writing together as the tightest band in town.

Nothing broken here.

*** Why are you cast down, Oh my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. - Psalm 42:11

***

Nothing.

Nothing broken.

Nothing broken here.

*** Hey! Love your comment love below. But also! I'm trying to raise $310 for ASH (ten moneys for every year of life as I turn 31 flavors next month). Won't you buy some band-aids for Kenya?

The Difference

A few months ago, I was an adjunct professor. I adored my job and I enjoyed the material I taught. Most of all, I loved my students. I was extremely lucky to get the spot as an adjunct since my teaching experience prior to that was limited. Since Boston's population is especially top-heavy with advanced degrees, I was even more fortunate, given our geography, to get that hot little ticket.

So I'm not complaining.

It was challenging, though. For all the reasons that you hear adjunct work can stink. Paychecks just barely exceeding the cost of daycare. No health bennies. In my case, my students' lives were constantly interrupted by the weighty issues of life, translating to constant interruptions in the semester and during our class meetings.

The other downside of adjunct work is the pervasive feeling of disconnectedness. The lack of typical departmental responsibilities can be liberating, but when you want to meet with a student and your only options are a busy student lounge where people are trying to get their tutoring/flirtation ON, you can feel a little frustrated/demeaned.

With all these remembrances of my life as an adjunct, I begin my full-time assistant professorship with joy, hope, and encouragement. I am so head-shakingly blessed.

***

This was my adjunct mailbox. My name was typed and printed on a magnetic strip so that at the end of the semester, it could be easily removed.

Oh hai! Just doing big important things in my office!

Morning Lessons

I was very intimidated by the idea of this interlude, this space we're in right now. I knew that we'd be moving away from friends and Baby Boot Camp and cable whereby one can wake up and at least have DVR'd Ellen DeGeneres with whom to dance. I knew that there would be a definite day by which jobs and school schedules and other scheduled activities would begin. But even an unscheduled day in the land of tending to wee kidlets is several eternities long, broken up by too infrequent naps (too frequently interrupted). But the past week of our new life in our new home has taught me that there is opportunity in the clean slate. One major shortfall in my role as a mother has been to cultivate my children's spirituality. I have planted seeds (reading books, saying prayers, pointing out object lessons when they appear to me), but the actual business and rhythm of spirituality in our homelife was just not something into which I invested a lot of any time. I felt a burden for doing a better job of this, especially since the lack of worship in my home was clearly a reflection of my own spiritual condition.

So, we started this week. Baby Girl and I. On Monday, I told her we were going to do "morning lessons." She cried. Not softly. We got through the requisite Bible verse. That was about it. I didn't really have a lesson plan or anything. I was just trying to carve out time between the Super Why computer games and the ballerina tea party soccer picnic. You know, the usual morning regimen.

Day Two went more promisingly. She actually became quite animated when I grabbed the Beginner's Bible. By Wednesday, she was asking me when morning lesson was going to be, and telling me that she was ready for morning lesson, and, "Mom, I'm weddy for morning wessonnnnnn!"

Yesterday, during Morning Lesson, which may or may not be my favorite time of day, I asked Baby Girl to name 3 ways to show that you love someone.

"Um. Playing games."

"Yup, playing games with someone is loving."

"And, hugging."

"Yep, that's two."

"And puppies."

*** Happy sabbath, everyone. Love and puppies to you.