Potatoes and Apples and Flowers and Ice Cream and Kids

I'm having one of those months.

I am just not dealing as well as I'd like, emotionally, with the loss of 2/3 of our income. Bob is looking for other work to make some of it up (anyone need a middle-aged, white male, award-winning columnist and radio show host for anything, let me know...) but finding a second job in a time frame that leaves at least 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. open is a challenge. So, if anyone has loss-of-income tips that don't include saving for a rainy day (a debt-reduction plan half completed, slashed tires, new tires, a few other emergencies, a necessary vacation took care of that...), I'm open to coping techniques. I find that I'm not as up for the challenge as I thought I'd be. The feeling of not being in a position to really help is discouraging. The idea of giving up being home with my children is mentally debilitating (plus, I haven't been able to find a job that would allow me to afford to put Robbie and Ellie in daycare. Sheeze...) All in all, losing a job when you have a family -- I suppose in any situation -- simply sucks.

But in the midst of that, I had today. Today, we went to our country land (which I hope we can afford to keep) and we had a picnic and we shot a BB gun at a cardboard target. The kids love to shoot and run up to mark the spot where they hit. We hiked up into the woods and played and enjoyed ourselves. And for some reason, Robbie thought it was the funniest thing in the world to yell, "Hi, Bob!" to his dad over and over. We tried to grow a garden out there this year, but the ground was way to clay-ish. Almost NOTHING grew -- except potatoes. I wish we had just planted potatoes out there. Digging into the ground and watching the bounty come to the top of the earth, watching little hands pluck red and yellow potatoes out and squeal happily as if they'd found gold was priceless -- and convenient as I was out of potatoes and we eat them a lot. And oh my! The ground stinks, but the worms and nightcrawlers love it and my kids love to play with worms, worms, worms!!

When we came home, Ellie came outside with me to "help" me rake up loose apples, talking my ears off. We gingerly tested the new apples from our loaded Red Delicious tree to see if they are ready to pick. I'd say one more week and we'll be saucing! I ran out of homemade applesauce about a month ago (50 quarts was not enough...) and I'm chomping at the bit to make some more. Since we switched to homemade last year, my children refuse to eat the stuff from the store. I suppose that should make me feel good. Well, one more week or so and we are back in action.

I love flowers. My grandmother, Mary Lou, the one who essentially raised me, had a green thumb for flowers. You see many of her favorites in the things I plant. In fact, she gave me the irises that bloom in April and May. I've been splitting and packing them from house to house for more than 10 years. So, today, Ellie was chattering about all our pretty "roses," so I sat her down to tell her the proper names. I couldn't help flash back to being a little girl myself, pestering my grandmother to learn the name of this pretty thing and that pretty thing. Couldn't help but think of her patience as I would pick her pretties to bring in the house even though she preferred them outside. I remember twisting the world "dahlia" over and over in my mouth, thinking it sounded very exotic for our little town. Even in picking apples, I thought of my grandmother. She had an apricot tree that was something of a miracle in the high Great Basin desert. Naturally, the best apricots were at the top. Naturally, being tall, young and agile, I was sent up the tree to get the very best before the blasted birds -- whom she loved in every situation except when they ate her fruit. And then I can hear her in my mind giggling at me, then laughing and saying, "I wish you could see yourself." And I growled at her because I was picking them for her! How could she laugh at me? Apricots haven't tasted the same since. Ellie munched her apple happily. And at least she figured out that the roses are on the side, the dahlias and petunias and mums and marigolds are up front with some shallow-rooted sunflowers leaning a little too far to the right. Good-bye lilies and gladiolas and day lilies. See you next year tulips and pansies and irises. Keep spreading out little hens and chicks. I like your cheerful ground cover. I need to get a few more late summer things to keep the bloom up. And if I could just have a wild yellow rose bush, my grandmother would all but be there in the yard with Ellie. Except they get as big as a house in a desert. I can't imagine how one would grow here. I miss her lots. Flowers are a way to remember. And they won't yell at me to pull myself together. She would have. I certainly could call her now, sob my worries into her ears if she hadn't been gone from this fair earth for eight long years. And she would probably say something like, "Whining isn't going to do you any good." Practical. Loving. Sigh. I've got flowers, but I miss her.

And then we wasted a precious $11 to go to Bob's Dugout for one last hurrah to summer, a little more soft serve swirl and uber large grasshopper pie/black raspberry mix for Bob. Because even though it's all going downhill, ice cream -- even expensive ice cream -- makes the world feel better. And Jack starts kindergarten and we need to get serious about going to bed early. I swore that would happen last week, and yeah, right. There is always one more chance to jump on the trampoline, one more run up the sidewalk with Ben. One more pick-up soccer game in the neighbor's back-yard with ten children of various ages -- pre-teen girls bossing the universe and a couple two-year old's obliviously running wild with a whole pile of kids in the middle. Sometimes, it's too hard to stop the fun for sleep. Sometimes I watch them and am loathe to stop the play that helps build their brains. But sleep eventually calls. And I need to get serious about it. Tomorrow. The day before school starts. Sigh.

So, it's rough. And life's like that, I suppose. And in the midst of it, you have potatoes and apples and flowers and ice cream. And kids. And I guess that will have to be enough.

Unless you know of anyone needing a top-notch conservative radio talk show host. Why, then I'm all ears...