End of a Productive Day

There are FIVE, count them FIVE, packed boxes in my living room!! I’m counting those packed by two of my kids because I know they were inspired by me. They did a pretty darned good job, too. Maddie filled a box with her “special” stuff and Kaman filled a box with stuffed animals and toys. I decided to tackle the giant file cabinet and a cabinet that was once a well-organized storage space for many of our crafty-papery-glittery-gluey type projects. I ended with one full bag of trash and two somewhat-organized boxes.

This is what I like about moving – the chance to get everything in order once again… if only for a brief bit of time.

While cleaning out the cabinet, I found some rather misplaced items. Most notably my journals from approximately 1999-2002, including printed copies of my very first online journal. Wow! What a trip back that was. (Yes, I could have packed more boxes if I had not let myself become so distracted by reliving my life as a young mother with a nearly three-year old and a baby.)

“It’s funny that even as we continually witness our children getting bigger, we seldom realize that we are getting bigger along with them. I once heard someone say that women move forward by going deeper. That seems to me the way it is. As we grow up with our children, we do so by going deeper.”

-Peggy O’Mara
Editor, Mothering Magazine
A Quiet Place – Issue #94
May/June 1999

That was the quote on the heading of my first public journal. I still love the visual I get from those words - a picture of a mother as a great tree, branching out and growing her roots deeper at the same time.

Anyway, I came across an entry from another time when I had been sorting and cleaning and reliving my past and I had copied a bunch of excerpts from past journals. I thought it might be kind of fun to do again.

So this is a glimpse of a few Mays that have passed. Here's to the present, the future, and the past.


1 year ago… May 6, 2005“Today I ran 4.5 miles hitting a 13:33 race pace. I was on top of the world! Now my body aches ALL over and I am feeling pretty blah about everything.”

Note from today: Was that really just a year ago? My, how quickly we fall. (And I know – any real runners are laughing at my 13:33 race pace, but that was HUGE for me… HUGE!)

4 years ago… May 31, 2002
“Today is my 32nd birthday. I’m feeling a little down. I don’t know why. I got exactly what I wanted for my birthday – a quiet day with my family. They took me to lunch at Casa Alvarez. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it would have been like if my mom had been around. She used to have a kind of summer party for my birthday each year. Family would come and we’d play volleyball. She’d make homemade ice cream and I always had a stack of cards on my birthday.”

6 years ago… May 1, 2000“Evie Jo, Maddie and I heard the baby’s heartbeat today – 156 beasts per minute. I don’t know if Maddie had any clue what was going on, but Evie Jo was really excited. Her eyes got all big and she said, “I remember hearing that with Maddie!” That’s cool that she actually remembers it. It seems like forever ago that Maddie was just a bubble in my belly. Now she’s this walking, talking kid that is forever stretching those wings of independence. And I have this new little bubble growing inside of me, a new little person to meet and make a part of our lives.”

7 years ago… May 22, 1999
“I am surprised by the beauty of the lima beans. They are my favorite plants to look at in the garden and I can’t wait until they begin climbing the fence I have rigged. The potato plants also have a particular beauty -- they are so lush and green (though only 5 or 6 of them have actually grown). I have tomato plants flowering, which make me feel particularly clever, and the sparse strawberry plants have a few blooms and a few tiny green berries. The onions are a bit beaten by a recent hail storm, but I can see that the bulbs are healthy.

Comparing my garden to Dad’s, it looks pretty spindly. But it’s my first and I’m learning lots about what it takes to grow things. I’ve taken pride, after all, in NOT having a green thumb all these years. Now is my time to pull the paint out.

Pat [my dad’s wife] told me a story about planting a garden with her father when her kids were young. She said she complained to him that hers didn’t look nearly as good as his even with his help. He replied, “I have nothing to do but mess in my garden. You keep busy with so many things.” So for now I’ll take pride in my less-than-perfect garden since it is only one of the many projects I take pride in.”

Note from today: My “gardening” is now no more than two tomato plants in containers in the yard. It was fun while it lasted, however.

15 years ago… May 26, 1991 (This would have been my junior year at KU.)

“I was so glad to get my finals over with and I’m already going crazy with all this free time on my hands. I was able to work all last week at the library, but since they are closed over the weekend and Memorial Day, I have been searching for things to do. Yesterday, I spent about six hours in front of the computer trying to figure out all its secrets. Today I’ve managed to clean the apartment and I even started packing some things for moving even though it’s more than a month away.”

Note from today: Hmmm… six hours on the computer… so maybe not so much has changed.

Anyway, I’m picturing my children some day hauling out all these notebooks and reams of paper, talking about their recently deceased mother as if she were a lunatic.

“Think of all the dead trees our mother is responsible for.”

But I swear, it keeps me sane. Without the words as proof to myself, I’m not sure that my memory would serve well enough to remind me that I am, indeed, branching out and… growing deeper.