Thursday, May 30, 2013

I'll PAY you

To go try this workout at Ridge Ferry Park. During daylight hours.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

There are few words...

There are a lot of things that you might have thought were a good idea when you were 20 that you would no longer think were a good idea by the time you got to be 30.  Apparently Tyler here (shown below in his underwear) still thought this interpretive dance was a good idea after a decade.  I am doubtful.  FYI: He does keep the underwear ON at least. 



Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Get on the couch

So yesterday I was sitting with the World's Best Therapist and pretty much everything we had to talk about was good.  It makes you wonder if a girl even needs to sit on the couch if there's nothing but good stuff going on.  The thing I've discovered though is, it's always good to pay someone to let you know earlier rather than later if you're going off the rails and as Ginger says, "The thing about suffering is, there's more coming," so maybe keeping the counselor on speed dial is a good practice.

I don't know if you have a counselor or therapist, but I hope you do.  Humans are creatures of habit, so much so that even our awful parts kinda feel like a kid's blankie once you've carried them around your whole life.  But if you find yourself hitting the same walls year after year or in the same toxic relationships time after time (or if you find yourself calling ME to report the same problems over and over) you have to wonder if you're part of the problem, right?  We laughed yesterday about how it would be nice to have a sign in her office that said "Maybe It's YOU" because so often we misidentify our problems.  Phrases like "My marriage would be fine if he didn't..."  or "It's like toxic people just FIND me..." have probably been repeated countless times to patient counselors who just smile and jot something down and think, "Oh honey, we have some work to do."

And what I don't understand is why so many people don't really ever ask for help for the things we repeatedly complain about.  It's a simple hour long opportunity to unburden ourselves, to let the grief or anxiety that we keep buttoned down under the surface release itself and that consistent 50-60 minute commitment (with a CREDENTIALED, QUALIFIED person) can save a person's life.  Or at least their sanity.  Because if we're totally honest, there's a whole lot we keep buttoned up that's probably allowing self-doubt, resentment, anxiety to fester and infect way longer than it should be allowed to do.  The better part of an hour is a small price to pay for a safe place to say all the things that you need to say to someone. Or to just weep if you've lost your friend or your mom or your marriage. Or even to spew some venom from that pent up fury. Oh, and your friends don't count as good counsel because they will lie to you since they love you and tell you that you are not at all crazy, but you and I know that we most certainly are. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to define crazy as permanently or periodically being any of the following: stuck, miserable, blue, disastrous in relationships, dependent, codependent, addicted, angry, anxious, or just human.

When I met her, I was considering this question in my life and in my relationships: "What if I didn't do here what I always do?" Now I'm not calling it a genius move (didn't George try that on Seinfeld?). It's just that I at least knew that the things I always did always led me to places I always ended up feeling miserable over. Always. So finding the right counselor (I'd call her wise, but that word would probably make her feel old) helped me identify what I always do and, in a careful way, move more towards the life I want to have.  Knowing that someone is waiting to hear the rest of the story every week encourages me to make progress also. You'd hate to actually PAY for someone to help you figure out what you need to do and then not do it.  Don't get me wrong, no counselor can pull you out of the toilet without your participation and a lot of honesty, but a good one introduced in your moment of willingness can change your life.

Sometimes I feel bad for putting all my crazy on this woman (and her dog!) every week, but she says it's not like that so I trust her.  She's a nice Christian lady so she's probably at least gotten a wider vocabulary from our relationship. Sorry, but there are no substitute terms for "bat shit crazy" and sometimes "freaking" feels juvenile so she just has to suffer through my colorful hour. I should probably offer to pay her a higher rate because this peaceful, patience-of-Job person must have had to take a lot of walks to vent her frustration over my contrariness and short-sighted nature. I wouldn't be surprised if she even had to hire her own back up therapist to make sense of me, but she took me on anyway and we trudged through a path to a life I like very much together while I stomped my feet like a brat and cried over my own losses. I'm certain I could exhaust the most well-meaning professional but she hasn't changed the locks. Yet. She's right there every time with a fresh, thoughtful insight and I am grateful. I don't know if she and her dog have any more energy to take on your problems after dealing with me, but I hope you'll find someone - some capable, referred person - who will make some room on the couch for you and listen long enough to let you get it all out when you hurt and then rejoice in your growth because you and I both know, you're crazy.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Just out for a ride...

Tell me why no one seems panicked here.


Weekend

There's just not much better in my book than when all 4 of us Barfields are in the same house at one time.  Christopher came in town for Olivia's baptism and that gave us a chance to celebrate his new JOB in Nashville.  We are all feeling quite proud of ourselves here and I think we would all admit that we are so much funnier when we are together.  There is nothing better than Christopher's quick, open hearted laugh at some Kenny story and Olivia's delight and admiration of both of the men in her life.  This makes me the luckiest of girls.


Friday, May 17, 2013

One good thing about Google Maps!


Google Maps helps Chinese man find home 23 years after abduction

Google Maps has helped a Chinese man to locate his family, 23 years after he was abducted while walking to school.

Google Maps helps Chinese man find home 23 years after abduction
Google Maps has helped a Chinese man to locate his family, 23 years after he was abducted while walking to school.  
Luo Gang was five when he was snatched near his school in the southwestern province of Sichuan and taken hundreds of miles east to Fujian province.
There, in the city of Sanming, Mr Luo was raised by adoptive parents. But, according to a report in Fujian's Strait News, he longed to find his biological parents.
"Everyday before I went to bed, I forced myself to relive the life spent in my old home," he told the newspaper.
In a country with over 1.3 billion inhabitants, the man's chances of ever tracking down his family appeared slim. All he could remember of his hometown was that it had two bridges.
But that started to change when Mr Luo posted details of his story on aChinese website that helps reunite families with missing children. One of the website's contributors replied with information about a Sichuan family who had lost their son 23 years ago.
Using Google Maps, Mr Luo managed to pinpoint the two bridges he had remembered from his childhood which were located in a village in Sichuan's Linshui county.
"That is my home," he reportedly shouted. A photographer captured the highly emotional reunion between Mr Luo and his parents, Huang Qingyong and Dai Jianfang who had subsequently adopted a daughter.
The man's original name, it emerged, had been Huang Jun. "I felt heartbroken. I couldn't eat or sleep and I cried every day thinking my son was missing and didn't have enough food or clothes out there," his mother, Mrs Dai, recalled of the boy's disappearance.
Cases of child abduction and trafficking are shockingly common in China, with tens of thousands of children going missing each year according to reports in the domestic media.
In March, the China Daily reported that there were around one million families who had lost children in China. Some 76,000 families lost a child each year, the newspaper claimed.
Many of the victims are young boys who are then sold to families who are in search of a son.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Shhh...

So an American Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing because this woman just could not stop herself from repeatedly singing "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston (originally by Dolly Parton).  I'll admit there are times when I can't help but burst into song, but it's usually not on a cross country flight.  I love how she's still belting it out as she's handcuffed and escorted off the plane.  She's a horrible singer.


Sunday, May 12, 2013

Happy Mothers

Well it's Mother's Day again. I've been working on a post for a few weeks now about moms but then I started reading all kinds of blogs and articles on the same thing and it all just seems a little overwhelming and even a little ridiculous how much instruction we crave on how to do this correctly. At least once a day I see another mom post an instructional article on how we can do this better than we already do.

I am a person who panics over being a good parent. I've got all kinds of bad feelings about the path I could send poor Olivia down over forgetting some simple and obvious moral or practical lesson.  And if you doubt that I could bungle this, you must be a new reader.  The responsibility is huge for a person who trips regularly over her own two feet and can hardly be trusted to remember something as important as DEFROSTING when it comes to poultry.  I'm sure there was more than one person who prayed for Olivia's general safety when they learned of my pregnancy.

So anyway, for a few years I read all the articles on how to raise a responsible, lovable, happy person and swam around in a pool of practically useless information.  I'd stay awake thinking, "What if I do forget some vital lesson and Olivia's found in a crack den in a few years? What if I talk so much about something that she becomes exactly what I feared? What if what if what if?" Most of the what if scenarios end with her dancing in some seedy night club with glitter all over her.  I'm not sure why they all end there in the strip club, as if that's the worst of things that can happen to a young woman, but it's certainly not a pleasant thing that can happen to a young woman.

All those What If's kept me up enough that I did my own cultural research and noticed how almost everyone I know was either JUST LIKE their own parents or very deliberately living IN SPITE OF their parents' example. I'm not sure I believe in past or future lives, but what if your next life was the part where you watch your kids play out all the things you didn't resolve?  That led me to this theory:  The best way to raise children is to be the sort of person you'd want them to become.  Terrifying task, I know, and it's going to require the sort of self-inventory that most of us hide from.

Let's start with the basics. All women have a hope (or fear depending on your situation) that their daughters will pick a man like their husband or that their sons will pick someone like themselves. And usually we do.  You may not realize it until after your nuptials, but I assure you that most of us discover our spouses have a lot in common with our parents.  And so you will drag whatever unhealthy or unfinished business along with you from childhood to adulthood.  The question is would you hand your marriage down to your child? Because that is what will most assuredly happen.  If you are wound up in articles over how not to raise bratty kids while you prepare their organic food during their Mandarin or Cantonese lessons, but neglect the very important legacy of your marriage I can imagine which part you will regret. It's an easy thing to neglect really, what with the rest of the world telling you it's your job to make your kids' dreams come true.  I mean, seriously, what kind of mother are you if you don't coupon so that your child can go to every $5,000 astronomy camp because when he was 7 he really meant that he wanted to be an astronaut?  Mothers are supposed to be selfless and miserable, kind of frumpy and worn out because they are so busy giving and giving and dragging their kids towards their dreams, right?

But let's finish my favorite game, the What If game.  What if a woman gives everything she has to drag her children towards the dreams they professed as adolescents because she believes in their capabilities and wants them to have what they want?  What if she swoops in and clears the way over every obstacle so that they never have to bother with something like failing? What if she neglects her own relationships and her own interests because parenting is the most important and blessed responsibility? Don't be mad, but I think if a person does those things she makes a terrible error in thinking.  First, (and I have been accused of this) she undermines her children's independence and and I can assure you doing that doesn't raise a person who can be happy and capable and independent.  She gives them a legacy that they will repeat in a similarly neglected and unattended marriage. She encourages them to think that it's someone else's role to make their dreams come true and ultimately she finds herself used up and resentful because her job as martyr was supposed to be temporary but most certainly can't be.

See, this constant pressure to be selfless in parenting all comes from a place of sincere love (I'm not including the people who are absorbed with their children so they can avoid looking at their own problems), but isn't exactly effective. I dug up the data on this.  And it turns out that the biggest, most weighted influence on your child's future happiness and health was never tied to your willingness to give or your instruction or even all those lessons and classes.  In fact, and you may find this as horrifying as I do, the biggest influence on your children's future is your EXAMPLE.  So in a sense, you are liberated. You don't have to read the articles on how to raise a person who is generous and capable and ambitious.  You just have to BE generous and capable and ambitious.  Perhaps even more terrifying is that children receive the most influence on the very topics we'd call important from their tired, neglected, used up MOM instead of dad.  I didn't drag out the research on marriages because that's pretty commonly accepted that they will inherit whatever we've shown them in that regard. Wanna see the research on the other big topics?

Here's the NIH's study on how Mothers influence their children's understanding of God. So taking time for actively pursuing your spirituality will be their blessing from you.  http://dspace.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/handle/1871/33816/170220.pdf?sequence=1

And here's the one on how Mothers are responsible for shaping their progeny's understanding of food, health and body image:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18167323, so you are shaping their healthy future when you take the time to take care of your body.

Guess who most heavily influences their children's perception of alcohol? And this is unfortunate, but they believe you drink more than you do.  Here's the 30 year study on that:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9591703/Mothers-ruin-mums-determine-their-childrens-drinking-habits.html.  So modeling careful consumption of alcohol rather than complaining about how you need a drink at the end of a day with them might be wise.

Moms have a heavy, heavy influence on career ambition. Here's that study: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-ambitious-mothers-breed-successful.html

And you can bet that sex is all about you too. A mom's relationship with her daughter is the strongest predictor of her sexual experience. Here's the research on that: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12310348

In case you are completely exhausted after all that data, let's just wrap this up. Mom, you are released not FROM the responsibilities of raising your children, but TO go about the business of making yourself into the sort of person you'd like to see your children become.  Your example will be your legacy for them. You are free to take care of yourself physically through exercise and nutrition and mentally through the creation of friendships and exploration of your spirituality. Your children need your rested example of nurturing and they really need to see you kiss your husband sometimes. They need a picture of how to set about exploring the world with curiosity and confidence and even if you are afraid, the time has come for you to do your own exploring. You are free to enjoy an imperfectly manicured home full of safety and laughter (even if it is at the expense of a missed Mandarin lesson). It is no longer your job to drag their dreams home for them. You are free to pursue your own dreams so that when it is their turn, they will know just how to set about it.  No more articles! No more martyrdom! No more What Ifs! Onward girls!


Friday, May 10, 2013

Mamaaaa

So the best thing ever happened yesterday. My friend Candy and I were walking out at Berry. If you are not a local reader, Berry College is heralded as the world's largest campus because of it's almost 30,000 acres.  It is also known as a sort of Mecca for deer and we stumbled upon a little deer mama which apparently had just given birth to this little bundle of yummy:



Now I am not having any more children, but OH MY GOODNESS this little one made me and Candy both really want to take it home and put a sweater on it and bottle feed it forever and ever.

Our appearance startled the Mama enough that she took off (SORRY!!) and since we were the only ones around the little one started following us. Now we are pretty sure this is bad so we are going "no honey don't come this way,  follow your mama, nononononono" while we envision a lifetime of shunning from the others in the deer community.  If you have ever had a little deer JUST BORN look at you and go MAAAA, you will find yourself thinking, "Well maybe if we fence in the yard it would be okay."  But it's really not okay - or at least that's what the experts say.

We couldn't just LEAVE it there so we nervously tried to get it to follow us to where the other deer appeared to have gone, but IT IS THE WORLD'S LARGEST CAMPUS.  His/her little spindly legs were having trouble keeping up so we finally just sat and hoped his mama would hear his little "meeps" and come back.  Of course, she's not coming back with us there so after a phone call to Ms. Joan at the Berry Elementary school (she is practically an expert on all things wildlife because she takes in any little critter [GOATS! POSSUM!!] that comes her way and even had a young chicken that she kept tied to her desk at one point).  Her advice was in two parts:  First, you can't take it home (ugh).  And second, you have to run away from it.

Now is there anything more contradictory than telling me to run away from some little helpless baby who now thinks Candy is it's new mama?  It's like when you have to drive your infant to get her shots.  You know it will prevent them from contracting Polio but it's still pretty confusing and painful for the baby. So even though I hate running, we did go ahead and sprint away from our little Bambi.

The deer expert called me back from Berry yesterday (I had left him a frantic message first before calling Ms. Joan).  First question, "Did you take it home?" Just kidding. He says this happens all the time. He's even had the infants try to suck on his shirt. He assured me that our little one was just fine and that mama always comes back.

So there you go - more proof that any old ordinary activity can turn into an extraordinary event.


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

More reasons to adore Elizabeth Smart


I continue to be so impressed with how articulate and compassionate Elizabeth Smart has become.  It breaks my heart to think that this wonderful young woman had to think as a 14 year old, even for a second, that her family and church would not want her back after she'd been raped. That for a second she thought, "Who would want me now?"  But she did. Elizabeth Smart credits her family's religious emphasis on virginity as a significant reason that she did not try to escape her captors for the 13 months that she was held and raped every day.  I can only begin to imagine the guilt her parents have absorbed over that.  

She has every reason to be miserable and housebound, but here she is in this interview and article making some incredibly sound points in regard to our response to people affected by sexual assault. Since 1 in 6 of your friends has been sexually assaulted, it's a good thing to consider how our culture shapes the experiences of our sons and daughters and how we contribute to further damaging the exploited.  There's so much more to this subject, but below is a link to the article about Elizabeth's experience with the Purity movement. 

I hope that you'll take the time to read the whole thing and maybe consider some ways we could change the way we talk about how our culture evaluates a young woman's worth.  


Elizabeth Smart Discusses Abstinence Teaching | KUTV.com

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Boing!


Just play this on a loop. I've seen it like 100 times and I still snort laugh. 



Thursday, May 2, 2013

Well shiver me timbers



So the Devon Women's Institute gals figured it'd be a nice girls night out to go hear this guy speak about his book on piracy. And to make it even better, someone suggested, "Let's go dressed up like pirates!! Grab your eye patches and fake peg legs girls!"  Only Sea Captain Darch was actually there to discuss the time he was held hostage by Somali pirates in 2008. Oh. THAT kind of pirate. Arghhhh.