Regularity

No not that... but doing the same things over and over.  Some of it drives me nuts, like wiping the kitchen counter and laundry, other stuff I can't seem to handle very well.  Like right now.  My halo is showing; the gray hair around my temples and forehead.  I feel a nice glow, yet how often do I take care of it?  Let me pause while I go do it right now.  Alright, I'm processing and I've just swapped laundry loads.  I've given into vanity, because my goal was to get out of the house by noon, but I'm going to see someone who certainly takes the time and money to do regular hair maintenance.  I have this innate need to buck the system.  Always pushing the limits, never wanting to be tied down. I have boasted many times that there is nothing I do every day aside from go the the bathroom.  Not eat, not sleep, not run.  Hey man, don't fence me in.  But the really weird thing is I like rules.  I majored in math - they gave you the rules.  Follow them and every problem could be conquered.  Easy A.  But real life?  I don't know.  If I followed the life rules, could I conquer every problem?  I suppose we'd have to define what the problems really are.  Hair color - what's the real problem.  If I dye my roots every three weeks, what do I solve?  I loose the halo, but do I really gain anything?  I used to tell my hair dresser (yes, I have one, I can't give myself a good cut, and a good cut is the secret to not having to do your hair every day.) that no one will ever die (no not dye but come to the end of life) and wish they had spent more time doing their hair.  So now that my processing time is nearing completion, I guess the only real thing I've solved is the crown of gray around my face, but the kicker is as soon as that is gone, I've got plenty more vanity problems to look at instead.  I guess I'll see you in three, no make that five... well maybe six weeks.

Training

I'm sure we are in training at our house, but I'm not always sure who's training whom.  Am I training my kids?  Or are they training me?  The youngest has been training me for years.  She cries enough, I react.  She's the loudest by far, so she gets more just because I'm tired of listening to it.  I've definitely been trained well.  But, and there's always that but, aren't I supposed to be training her?  To deal with that anger, to let go of that frustration.  Why should she get so frustrated?  I've written it off for years now, she came out yelling, literally out of the womb and with her first breath - screaming.  One nurse came in and said she heard we had a screamer in the room.  She continued to scream - nightly as I put the others to bed, in the store, if I delivered her applesauce in a green bowl instead of a pink one.  Some days I've just put my head down and wondered why she hates life so much.  I've been in tears thinking that she'll always find this world a terrible place.  Overly dramatic, maybe, but I've spent much of the past few years being yelled at.  So, how do I train her?  She's got a lot of lessons to learn.  But they are not bad lessons.  They are the lessons of life - that things aren't so bad, that her actions hurt other people, that a little bit of work brings joy.  I guess some of the lessons I still have to learn myself.  Like the joy of housework.  I often see how my hatred of being "just a housewife" has colored my rearing of my children.  I get in a bad mood because I've just spent an hour scrubbing the shower, and that bad mood spills over to everything else.  Then I often let them off the hook, thinking that because I hate it, how can I expect anything else from them.  I guess I must train myself better before I can do a positive job of training them.

Writing Seriously

I started lecturing at Bible study.  (Public speaking ceased to scare the death out of me years ago, but that's another story.)  One of the pastors, a man I respect greatly and admire for his missionary and theological work, came to me and said I might want to consider "writing seriously."  So after I wrote the word "seriously" on a scrap piece of paper and handed it to him, we talked a while.  We've since talked many times, and sometimes I wonder if he stops in the office just to spend a few minutes telling me his stories, but I enjoy it.  His comment from that day continues to taunt me.  Do I really have anything worthwhile to say?  Does anyone care to hear it?  I have not the answer to either of those questions.  But another comment, from years ago continues to haunt me.  Is my destiny to be just a housewife?  And can I find satisfaction in that?  Again, no answer to either.  So here is my exploration of the two later questions.  Let's see where it will take me.