Saturday, February 28, 2009
away
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ash Wednesday
I like what Barbara Crafton writes about Lent today:
Another Lent begins in austere weariness, ready for a season of spareness,
a little more quiet. Forty plainer days are just what we need. It is seven on
the morning here; our first liturgy is at eight. Remember that you are dust, we
will say repeatedly today. Remember that you are tired, that you need to slow
down, that you need to think. Remember that what you say and do has eternal
significance, so you'd best consider it closely before you say or do it.
Remember what you long ago forgot. Remember that it is never too late to begin
again to make it right, and that we don't have to make it right all by
ourselves.
I got a very dark mark for Ash Wednesday at the 7 am service today, unlike last year when no one noticed. The first person to comment on it was a used textbook buyer who said "That's right, it's Ash Wednesday."
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
feeling a little better
Monday, February 23, 2009
I give up
Saturday, February 21, 2009
weekend away
I said that I believed that for older people a good death is possible. Our daughter thought Florence would be a good example, I think because she has had a full life. I said I wasn't sure Florence was going to feel ready. We talked about my father's death, which was sudden, the way he would have wanted it. We didn't mention John, but it still felt valuable to me to talk about death as something that can be natural and peaceful.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
making sense
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I hope it works out
I'm going with them to her orthopedist tomorrow because I don't think either of them will push the doctor for the information she needs.
Monday, February 16, 2009
progress
I got letters about our situation mailed to the college financial aid offices and got my first round of grading done. Talked to our daughter, who is upset about the death of a student at her school. I'm tired. We are doing the best we can.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
darkness
The news from my daughter's school is that a student wandered away from an off-campus sleepaway party off last night and was found drowned in a pond this morning. The girl was a junior day student.
I ordered a wheelchair today (a lightweight folding transport chair). The immediate need is for my husband's aunt, but we went ahead and bought it because my husband will eventually need it.
Too much pain in the world.
making progress
Saturday, February 14, 2009
life is uncertain
Friday, February 13, 2009
a race schedule
I'm talking with a coach and I need to come up with a race schedule.
- Apr. 25 Langley Pond International
- May 16 Clemson Sprint
- June 13 Clemson Open Water Swim meet--2k?
- June 27 Go Tri Sports Greenville?
- Aug. 16 Greenville Sprint
- Oct. 4 South Carolina Half
- Nov. 7 Beach to Battleship full
I just looked up bike events and the local ones I usually do in the spring conflict with triathlons.
how to prioritize
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
getting things done
I started the process of letting out my frustrations by doing an art work:
It is my character to get stuck on "it's not fair;" I may need to keep letting out those feeling now and then rather than thinking I can get over them. At least I get a kick out of creativity even when I am letting out negative feelings--the figure above is sculpted from paper pulp (like making homemade paper only not flat).
Monday, February 09, 2009
too many different directions
I don't have the time--even this weekend I'm committed to a local conference all day Saturday. I did call about her scooter, but the person I needed to talk to didn't even call me back.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
negative perceptions
done right?
When she first was injured I wondered whether to skip a meeting that I had promised to be at, and I told myself that if I wasn't there everything wouldn't get done right, but that was ok. I'm having trouble holding on to that philosophy. John just left the clothes Florence had been injured in in a plastic bag from the hospital until I started gathering her laundry to do. When I put the laundry in our washing machine I discovered that her bra with breast forms was in the bag from the hospital. Realizing that now she is getting dressed she probably wants that very much, I told John that the plastic bag that was over one of the hangers was particularly important, to make sure to give it to Florence when he took her her clean clothes. I think I even told him why.
That was Tuesday. Friday he called me because Florence had asked where her underwear was from the hospital. I told him it was in the plastic bag over one of the hangers. I said I had told him it was important, to give it to her right away. He said "You know I forget things." I feel badly for Florence. But telling myself it was important so I should have done it myself isn't really realistic.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
computers
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
finding meaning
- I could be miserable and just endure and take antidepressants (I really don't want to do it that way)
- I could feel a calling to this new life, to the challenges I face (that is what I want but so far it isn't happening)
- I could be patient and wait for the meaning to gradually develop after I have been doing it for a while (people seem to think that is the most likely, but I'm not patient with it, it feels like just being miserable)
- I could see this as a new stage in life where instead of measuring myself by concrete accomplishments I need to be aware of the more subtle ways in which I make some contribution, some difference in the world.
I see potential in that last one because I've been struggling not to fall into feeling that somehow I'm being punished or taught a lesson by losing so many of my hopes for the future at once (John's illness and the almost-definite dismantling of the program I've spent the last five years building at work).
I'm pretty good at looking for opportunties when things don't go the way I expect; this would be a similar mindset of seeing the more subtle good that comes from what I'm doing. My program may end but the professors who taught in it will take those ideas into other courses. John and I can't do as much as I had hoped but what we do is still a role model to our children.