My Climactic Utopia

I believe that I live in a climactic utopia. Many would disagree with me (the heat lovers in particular!), but I stand by it. Two things I really do not like 1)humidity/heat 2) snow. I was so excited about moving to my climactic utopia. Before we moved we heard the great myths of the area (though we were unaware they were "typically's" rather than "facts"). We were told that it NEVER rains in the summer after July 4. Also, it usually doesn't snow but if it does it's ALWAYS gone in a day or two.

Of course the first fall I was here, we had the rainiest Nov ever recorded. Lovely. I was expecting lots of rain (except in the summer) so it didn't really bother me much. The temps were mild and heck, at least it wasn't snow, right??!! What I wasn't warned about were all the other weird weather phenomena here I hadn't heard about before. Terms like thunder snow and freezing fog or the fact that "winter storm" here doesn't always mean snow - sometimes it means fiercely high winds. In my transition house that first fall the furnace was like a rocket taking off and that fierce wind blowing through the cracks in the house was like a train running through the kitchen. Still, whats a little rain and wind??

And then, it happened. We had the dreaded SNOWFALL. If I didn't like snow living in the east, I absolutely despise snow now. In the east, snow is such a pain. It delays plans and after living in Pittsburgh with a forever long driveway, I'm done shoveling for the rest of my life! Then, back east, life goes on. Maybe a snow day but eventually even after a blizzard, the roads are cleared and life moves forward. After moving here, I learned the true meaning of the word "snow bound", and let me tell you, it is not fun! Another fun new term I learned about: "chain-up". Bizarre. These are not things I even thought about, (or in the case of chains had even HEARD about) back East. See, in the East, we don't care about the environment - or we care MORE about getting around than the environment, so we go ahead and use this effective tool called salt. We also have plows. When I say plows, note that it is plural, not a plow, but many plows. These plows can salt, sand, shovel - they do amazing things and every town, county, state whatever has a LOT of them. They are quite handy in the battle against snow. I have lived through a couple of blizzards back east and still after 2 or 3 days max (and this is for storm of the century type blizzards) the roads are clear and life goes back to normal. Let me define clear - they are CLEAR folks, like I see blacktop in all the parking lots and roads. Clear like there is NOTHING on them - they are dry and normal even though there is foot upon foot of snow on the grass. I feel I have to define this for my local readers because "clear" roads here means at best that a plow has come and compacted a nice snow base so that your chains have something to grip. And notice I said "a" plow on purpose -- no plurals here!

Now I get it, because in defense of my climactic utopia, it is true that we don't *typically* get a ton of snow, and when we do it is frequently like it was this week - one snow day and then it is gone and melted, so it is hard to justify the expense of plows etc that are rarely needed (although if we had proper snow battling tools the snow this week wouldn't have been enough to even cause a snow day...) However, every couple of years we get slammed and some supposedly freakish weather phenomena strikes and we stay below freezing for a couple of weeks. When that happens, you learn all about "snow bound" unless of course you have "chains" to make it out of your own cul-de-sac...

As for the humidity, it pretty much is non-existent, which is my driving force in saying that it STILL is pretty much my climactic utopia. I really love that we start talking about how "hot" it is whenever the temp rises above 75. My first summer there was a record day that hit the upper 90's and I did think I was dying and I did say if anything like this happens again I'm looking at getting central air conditioning, but thankfully it hasn't gotten near that hot since. Despite the mild temps, some folks here think that because they live near the ocean, it means its tropical. It is even difficult to find a normal heavy sweatshirt (that isn't a hoodie jacket type) or sweater in stores. That's because at best, the heat everywhere, is high enough that at most all that is needed is jeans and a long sleeve shirt, at worst its not uncommon to see shorts and flip-flops anytime throughout the year.

The only other somewhat weather related complaint I have is the vast changes in daylight. We're really far north. In the northeast - like that whole Midwest(OH, PA, IN, IL) & the Boston/DC corridor you sometimes think you live in the north because you are north of the Mason Dixon line and people refer to that part of the country as the north, but that isn't north. I NOW understand the north. This is really the only part of my climactic utopia that I can't get used to. In the winter, it is great sleeping weather - its dark from 4:30pm to 8am. In the summer, the opposite. I don't sleep in the summer since its now bright from 4am-10pm. My body just never "feels" the time anymore (or is that because I'm getting old?). I realize this is something folks that have always lived here don't get (like the fact that walls do exist without texture and look just fine) but while there are longer and shorter days further south, the difference is not so drastic.

Still, the temps are generally mild, the snow is less, the humidity pretty much doesn't exist and it rarely gets hot. The views are unbelievable even when the weather doesn't cooperate and who cares about a little rain? This is pretty much as close to climactic utopia as I'm gonna get in this world and pretty much, I love it.

Labels

Yeah, not a fan of them. I think my bullheadedness on this comes from claustrophobia - who wants to be boxed into a label? There's a lot of pressure there in that label, don't you think?? It can get interesting at my house - one of my majors was psychology and my husbands was sociology. I like psychology because it looks at the individual whereas sociology is more about looking at people in groups of population.

One label I have is pastor's wife. UGH. When I first met my husband he was an architecture major. I could work with that -- what thoughts do you have about how "architect's wives" should behave? I didn't have a lot so there was room to create my own definition to that label! Freedom!! I knew all about pastor's wife and pastor's kids - a lot of my friends were PK's and I heard the whispers (Can you BELIEVE that boy just rode his skateboard through the fellowship hall??? In those RIPPED up jeans??? And he's the PASTOR'S SON!!! tsk tsk tsk...). I saw that the families had to stop to care for the knock at the door and the phone call and that the pastor's wife was often expected to always be gracious and sympathetic as well as fill in and do any jobs around the church that weren't filled. I'm a lot of great things, but I'm not sure how high up people would put gracious and sympathetic when describing me. So when my husband decided to go into ministry instead of architecture my reaction - thanks, but no thanks!

Luckily for him (and I suppose for me as well...) I was too far in love with him by that point to actually dump him for his career path change (though I did consider it!). I must admit that the congregations we've been a part of have been more forgiving with the label than I had worried about. I've blessedly never had to be the senior pastor's wife and also really enjoy the anonymity of that as well as being part of a large congregation brings... great places to hide.

I did that (hide) literally this weekend. My husband does preach every so often, last weekend being one of those times. I love to hear him - he does an amazing job (of course I'm not biased at all!). One of the reasons I think he's so great because he's very engaging by using lots of examples from his own life. The PROBLEM with that is that I'm a big part of his life, and I don't like to be in the spotlight - at all. This weekend in particular there were lots of references because it was a sermon on loving completely. I was extremely thankful for the 4 services, of which I attended one, and did not SIT with my husband and did not stop to chat with him afterward - this way see - most people don't know that I AM the Pastor's wife! I get to hide from the label and from the "oh, you guys are so cute!" stuff that comes after my most embarrassing moments are used for humor and example (usually of what NOT to do!). And the real humor comes from those few that really know us, and know that I'm sitting there trying my best to "blend" (right Kristin?!).

This is partly why its wonderful that we humans are all a conglomeration of a lot of labels, making us unique individuals. The fact is that our labels DO help define who we are - but if we feed any one of them more than the others it can become THE label that defines us - but by doing so, we lose the potential of becoming the complete person that God has created us to be. I AM a 'pastor's wife' (and found it isn't as bad as I'd thought), but I'm also a mother, a wallflower, a resident of WA state, a daughter, a socially challenged person, a friend, a procrastinator, a hypochondriac, a reader, a seeker of justice, a stumbler, a disciplinarian, a talker, a college graduate, a lover of Africa, a blog-writer, a gum addict, etc etc etc.

The ways of the Princess

I've been a mother to 1-3 boys for 7 years now, and while I certainly don't always get them, raising boys does at least have some familiarity to it. Then, a little under a year ago, I became the mother of a daughter and what a ride its been since!

Kenzie is princess extraordinaire. I like to believe a lot of it comes from the fact that she's the only girl and the age gap - she's 4 years younger and at least 3 grades younger than her next sibling, Easton. While that really isn't that large of a gap between children it does FEEL large in this family since the spread between the oldest to youngest boy is only 17 months (Trevor is 10 months older than BJ & BJ is 7 months older than Easton). However, I suppose we also contribute to the princess syndrome in ways we don't pay attention to. She definitely has her father wrapped around her finger already and he's started to compose an apology letter to her future husband for creating such a high maintenance wife! She's the baby and really even her brothers let her have her way most of the time, I guess they figure giving in is easier than listening to that shrieking.

And here in begins the differences. Wow, can she shriek and squeal - the volume is absolutely staggering at times. Boys, they are NOISY but Kenzie is ear drum shatteringly loud. I think even the happy squeal may just break some glass, though the shriek of defiance is a close second.

The other thing I've noticed, and maybe its just me, but she likes to "help". The boys could always care less about what I was doing unless it involved TV, food or leaving. They were not interested in dishes and laundry, but Kenzie is with me and into all I'm doing, no matter what I'm doing every moment she is awake. At first, I fought this. Let's face it, the "help" of a toddler is really a form of slow torture. As if I don't spend enough time doing laundry with four children, I get to fold it all multiple times because of all the "help". Now, I'm learning to enjoy the company and just simply getting used to placing all the dishes in the dishwasher multiple times and endlessly folding and refolding laundry. I have to say its pretty darn cute and I'll take the "helping" over the shrieking squeals any day.

The most shocking difference I've noticed is this seemingly innate sense of girliness. I do not get it at all since I myself am not girly. The boys, they could care less at this point at what they wear. Sure, they may have the occasional opinion but really if its clothes, they are happy. They know as well as I do by now that shortly the shirts will be stained and the pants will all have holes in the knees. Kenzie's latest deal is socks. Sock is one of her first words and she is obsessed with her socks. A friend recently gave me a ton of her daughter's old socks to Kenzie's sock drawer is abounding with choices to accessorize her latest hand-me-down outfit. And opinionated she is. I don't even bother getting her socks anymore. After I help her get dressed she starts "sock, sock" and walks across the floor on tip-toes and up the stairs to her room. She opens the bottom sock drawer and starts rummaging around for the perfect addition. I've tried to make suggestions but she is not having it. After much contemplation she finally arrives at the perfect selection and the amazing part is that while I might not choose it myself, it always MATCHES!! If I gave my boys free reign over their clothes everyday, I can guarantee 3 outcomes: 1) Their wardrobes would be a shambles (more clothes folding!) 2) They would be missing at least one piece of essential clothing (what is the point of underwear anyway, right?) 3) They certainly would never match...

A Household of Budding Thespians

Apparently, I'm raising a household of thespians....


There is Trevor. He can memorize a line, a scene, a book, a show - a whole movie upon first look. There's a skill that would come in handy for an actor! He does everything in full animation - he's always a little over the top - perhaps he's best suited more for children's programming or musicals.

There is BJ. This kid should get an academy award. He's turned life into a drama and he's downright convincing at times. His latest performance was telling us his brother so damaged his arm he couldn't move it -- he stuck to the story (about 17 hours!) complete with wincing and additional drama "Mom, help, I can't... buckle my seat belt, put on my shirt, go to school etc etc." I fell for it. Mind you, I was skeptical, but what's a mom to do when her baby hurts? That is, I fell for it until I snuck up on him in the next room watching him play perfectly fine - holding his whole body weight with said arm, no less. Nice... just call me sucker!

Easton, he's got some diversity as an actor. He can do comedy as he can't help but laugh and be silly, especially when its inappropriate. His red faced anger can match no one out there - put that in your next drama! He's certainly all about the action flick, since the boy is non-stop energy. His scream can rival his sister's, and that's saying something...perfect for your next horror movie. This kid can do it all!

Kenzie, she is the ultimate drama queen... nuf said.

And I... I get to direct all this drama, action, comedy, over the top musical theatre every day...

*disclaimer* no, I am not sending resumes out...