Category: blessings

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Brought To You By

Traveling is expensive. I want to do more of it but the costs mount up and it restricts the amount of interviews I get done. It’s public transportation or rental cars and parking and gas, food and incidentals. But it hasn’t been lodging, thanks to super kind and generous people.

My sponsors so far have been:

Joseph Crawford
Isabel Kallman
Rhoda and Dave Anderson
Mickele Hughes
Grace Davis and her husband George

Each of them has been instrumental to me being able to get the Interview Project going. They are the people that support people like me: someone with an unproven idea but with lots of passion. They believe in me and there is no way for me to express how much that means. I can’t wait to launch the site on January 15th. I believe that what I’m creating will serve not only as entertainment but also as a library of the people that have helped to create and shape the internet and the blogosphere, which is important as things keep changing and morphing (as they should!) so we don’t lose where we came from or how we got here. The way our world has changed, the way we interact, the way we get things done, the way we stay connected and informed, the way our neighborhoods and friends have moved from our cities into our computers and the people that take advantage of all these new tools – it’s all worth a deeper look.

Soon, there will be a sponsor/donate page where you can help out if you want. In the meantime, feel free to PayPal leah [at] leahpeah [.] com. And for the person that wanted to donate and stay anonymous, you can always send cash or cashiers check made to Leah Peterson to my PO box. That would be awesome.

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Stolen Moment

There are fires burning in Moorpark. We spent the day worried for the families near the flames and smoke. Even their home with their dad is only about two miles away from one hill-o-flames next to the power plant.

Last night, we should have been packing up the car with the kids’ homework and finished projects for school in the morning. But instead, we looked at the internet and found out that school had been cancelled for Monday. And suddenly, time was created. There was no rushing to get things sorted out, clothes found, the football and basketball rounded up. There was no yelling to mom to find a lost paper or pair of socks. We fell into a pocket of Time that had not existed a mere 5 minutes previous. No one had to be anywhere in the morning, except for Joe. Poor Joe. He asked me why, if I was going to orchestrate a fire to get me more time with the kids, why I didn’t place it closer to the freeway where it would affect his ability to get to work.

The tree that had been sitting slightly at an angle and neglected since we’d brought it home suddenly perked up. There hadn’t been any time to attend to it what with the football play off game and other commitments. But now we could. We popped popcorn and made hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and stayed up watching My Cousin Vinny and the Oregon State at Hawaii game that started at 11:30pm. Just because we could. We went to bed at 2am. The kitchen is a complete disaster area. All the kid paraphernalia is piled around the front door.

I think we’ll go out for breakfast. We continue to pray for those being affected by the fires.

leah_tree_1
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Leftovers

The Andersons use the leftover turkey to make stuffing, gravy and turkey sandwiches the next day. They look like this:

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They taste really swell. I think I’ll incorporate it into our Thanksgiving traditions.

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Today is Thanksgiving

And I have thanks to give:

Thank you, Universe, for continuing to teach me about myself. You are a tough but loving teacher.

Thank you, my beautiful children, for all the love you bestow me. And thanks for second chances.

Thank you, my parents and siblings, for the support and prayers. We are an odd yet perfectly matched set of 10.

And thank you, my dear Joe, for simply being yourself. Every step we take towards being ourselves together gets tougher, better and more vital to Us. I eagerly anticipate whatever comes next. Also, I miss you today. Happy Thanksgiving.

Much love,
lpc

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Passion of the Fig

Have I mentioned my love for figs? I probably should have because my adoration for them might make you a little uncomfortable but since you already love me, it will be too late to stop reading. Face it, you’re stuck.

I SO look forward to fall because figs are really a seasonal fruit, which is different than a-kind-of-seasonal fruit which you can get all year round because everyone everywhere wants to have them in their kitchen even if it’s December and the hankering is for strawberries. It will only cost you $16.99 for a handful, but you can get them. Not so for figs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them in the produce section except for fall. But that is probably just fine, because when I do get them, they are sweet and wonderfully full of flavor instead of pretty looking but tasting like cardboard.

My passion for figs started quite early. My grandparents would sit around our long dinner table (They were at my house, you see, because it was fall. In the summer we went to their house.) and talk grown-up talk and at age six or seven, there just wasn’t anything much better than getting to sit with them and crack nuts, eat cheeses and partake of the delicious flesh of figs. I would over hear about how so-and-so was doing, people I couldn’t remember hearing about before, but as long as you were quiet and polite, they didn’t even notice. And they’d crack open an almond or pecan and leave the shelly mess in front of you to pick the meat out. Sometimes it was challenging. But sometimes it was easy and I’d use that little silver pick to get the flesh out. And the large crates of citrus from their groves in Arizona would be piled over in the corner, the oranges and grapefruit smells permeating the entire house and almost disguising the regular smell of House. It was perfect.

Sometimes, My aunt, the funny one that teased a little (but only in a good way) would come over, too, and it would be those times that I would freeze, hand mid-way to my mouth with a nice, plump piece of nut meat, and stare at the person my mother had become. Laughing and radiant. She was even more beautiful than usual. It was amazing to look at her with her head slightly back, laughing so hard that sometimes you could see tears at the corner of her eyes.

One time, my grandpa showed me how the figs were different tasting when they were only days apart in age. He sliced a whole series open with his pocketknife and showed me the colors in the itty, bitty seeds and had me taste little slices of them. His favorites were the ones right in the middle. I liked the least ripe ones that were firmer. And we both agreed that the very, very ripe ones were just too sweet for eating and should be used in baking. If he were here to ask me now, I’d tell him that I agree, the mid-point ripened figs are the best tasting. And also, my palette has matured and I now enjoy dates as well. He would be so proud.

I wish I had photos of the figs in my refrigerator for you, but the pictures wouldn’t be the same without his strong and weathered hands holding them, anyway. Or without my mother’s laugh.

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Sassy Girl

My daughter takes voice lessons. She has a great voice and one of my favorite things is to listen to her sing At Last or Ava Maria. One of my not-so-favorite songs is the latest called I Enjoy Being a Girl.

Some of the tasty lyrics include:

When men say I’m cute and funny
And my teeth aren’t teeth, but pearl,
I just lap it up like honey
I enjoy being a girl!

I flip when a fellow sends me flowers,
I drool over dresses made of lace,
I talk on the telephone for hours
With a pound and a half of cream upon my face!

and finally:

When men say I’m sweet as candy
As around in a dance we whirl,
It goes to my head like brandy,
I enjoy being a girl!

When I hear the compliment’ry whistle
That greets my bikini by the sea,
I turn and I glower and I bristle,
But I’m happy to know the whistle’s meant for me!

Now, what mom wouldn’t want her daughter to sing that song? You know, though, that I try to be as supportive as I can. I know she has to sing it week after week and that she didn’t pick it and that she really has no control over the situation, but I guess she could tell it was driving me crazy because this afternoon on the way home she started singing it like this:

The men say I’m very smart
I dance around them in a whirl,
They know I have a great, big heart,
I enjoy being a girl!

I don’t care if I’m short or tall,
I like me the way I is,
My whole life I’m going to have a ball
My size is not your biz!

I had started tuning her out as soon as I realized what song she was practicing. I made a left turn and then a right turn. I went over the grocery list in my head. And then right about the time I started merging onto the freeway and thinking ‘soy milk and plain yogurt with no artificial sweeteners’ she sang ‘I like me the way I is’ and I started laughing. And laughing. That girl. That twinkle in her eye. Her giggles and laughter. Kills me. I am slayed.

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Rhoda

My sister and her daughter came for the weekend. My niece and my daughter have the same birthday two years apart. We try to get together every year. I’m wondering what year it will be when their 2-year age difference won’t be noticed by them. Over 20? Although this year was much easier than last year. 14 and 16 are closer than 12 and 14.

This is the best visit Rhoda and I have ever had in many ways. Almost the entire time was spent catering to the girls because that is the point of the get-together, but the little amount of time we did find to catch up, we spent disagreeing on almost everything. We don’t agree on religion or politics and when you are raised a Mormon in a small Utah town, religion and politics are pretty much what you have. And country music.

The thing that was so wonderful was that it didn’t matter. Rhoda and I have been through the wringer together. She was all I had when I was growing up. She tried to protect me from everything bad and failed, since that is an impossible task. That made her feel guilty and try harder to keep me safe. Her entire life became co-dependant on mine. I was a mess. She fixed me up. We kept each other busy for years.

When I finally got well in 2002, our relationship kind of crumbled. She needed me to be sick and I wasn’t. And moreover, I refused to go back to that place where she felt comfortable. And even though she was happy for me to be well, she felt angry and alone after spending her entire life around my needs and then having me move out of that space and leave her there.

We went through some major growing pains together over the past few years. There were quite a few months that went by when we didn’t make any attempt to contact each other. I was learning how to stand on my own two feet and she was trying to figure out how to be happy I was well and also figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life now that I didn’t need her in the same way. We figured out how to be sisters in a healthy relationship and it only took us about 4 years.

So even though she supports Bush (which is so wrong) and believes that jumping through hoops will please God and give you special entry into heaven (don’t even get me started), it’s ok that we don’t agree. And she has figured out how to have a life that doesn’t include fixing mine. And I overlook the fact that she loves Toby Keith. And even though I drink alcohol and coffee, shop on Sundays and believe that people who love people that happen to be the same sex as them should have the same rights as I do, she’s glad to be my sister.

Pretty great.

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Alex Is Sweet 16

She is Sweet 16.
She got her license yesterday.
Today, she almost crashed her car.
I made her dress the night before her Surprise Casino Partaaay in 7 hours. It cost $48, 3 pinpricks of blood, a teaspoon worth of odorless, glistening sweat and 127 stress and fatigue tears.

party17

Almost all the decorations were homemade. We used an iPod full of booty-busting R&B instead of hiring a DJ, which had me begging for a Frank Zappa song after 2 hours. Her brothers were the dealers and the bartender. Her cake was actually cupcakes all frosted together to look like a poker chip. My camera is broken so I only have the photos that my phone took. There is more to this story but it will have to wait for another day.

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Every Day

I keep waking up in the morning and I keep having a day. And then I keep going to sleep at night. And then? The next morning I do it again. In this way I hope to eventually get to the morning when I want to wake up and I actually enjoy the day I’m having. But, by going the through motions, I know I’ll get there.

Friends, acquaintances, internet pals and complete strangers have written me lovely and kind notes. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your kindness. I keep thinking I’ll go back in my email and start replying to all of you but then I get stuck because I have no idea what to say except thanks for your caring nature. Please accept this virtual thanks from me to you.

For the past month, while on bed rest, I have been working on my book. I’m just about ready to hand it over to my agent. I’m thankful to have had the time to work on it because I don’t think I could have done it without being forced to. After I finished getting it up on Lulu last year, I swore I would never edit it again. For one thing, it is terribly hard to edit your own work. It’s hard to have perspective because to you, the writer, everything you’ve written is important. Add to that the fact that this book is actually my life. It has been so bizarre to have editors and my agent send me editing notes in emails about ‘the characters’ and ‘the story line.’ The format of the book being what it is has the potential to be confusing to some readers, so there has been careful attention spent on making sure that the transitions are smoother and easier to understand.

But the hardest part for me has been that my strengths in writing do not fall in the creating fictional dialog and characters categories. I’m strongest in retelling events that I have been a part of. And my book is basically just a retelling of my life. 9/10th of it was written by the personalities themselves and now that I’m integrated, those individual voices are gone. To have an editor tell me that ‘this scene isn’t working and needs more dialog between character A and character C’ or ‘let’s have a scene where you learn this information earlier through this particular therapist’ just makes no sense to me. I can’t go back and create dialog that didn’t happen. I can’t make up a therapist and then have events happen that didn’t happen. Maybe if this was a purely fictional book, I could. But I doubt it. I’ve never been that good at fictional writing. Even when I was publishing columns, they were slices of my life that actually happened.

This editing journey, if nothing else, has helped me understand my strengths in writing, which I’m thankful for. Also, I’ve learned how to be strong and assert myself when I’m not comfortable with changes being asked for and made. The end result is a final version of the book that I’m happy with and will have no problem speaking to people about.

And now that the bulk of that is done and I’m no longer required to be on bed rest, it’s time for two things: The gym and a new job. My first time going back to the gym was yesterday. All I did was walk the treadmill for 30 minutes at 4.5 MPH but from the way my body is screaming, you’d think I’d ran a marathon. It’s amazing how fast your body deteriorates.

It feels good to be active again. Another thing to be thankful for.

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Two Things

1. Joe Schmidt is holding a charity blogathon for the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation on September 30th. Osteogenesis Imperfecta, more commonly known as OI, is a genetic disorder which affects approximately 20,000-50,000 Americans. OI is a disease that instructs the body to either make little collagen or poor quality collagen resulting in brittle bones. I love it when people actually do something to try and help make the world a better place. Good luck, Joe.

2. A quote from Marianne Williamson that can apparently make me weep for hours:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

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An Untitled Post. (Yet, That is a Title)

Football has started. The third game was on Saturday. They lost the first game, due mostly to confusion as the league fired their defensive coach the previous night, not leaving time for a replacement, and angering the head coach who happens to be my ex-husband.

By the second game, they had a new strategy and a replacement defensive coach. They won by just over a 100% lead. The third game, last Saturday, they won by a 300% lead. The boys had a slight swagger after the game and straighter, although exhausted, shoulders. (I have no photos to show you since my camera broke again. But, there are other things of a sadder nature that have taken center stage and although I do miss having a camera, the energy I have is going towards those other things at the moment.) We were all quite pleased. I was satisfied as well that the opposing team did get their one touchdown. We are not at a college or national level and I hate for any of the kids to go home feeling like failures. I sometimes even cheer when the opposing team does something really great. Don’t tell.

Tyler is running for student body president at his middle school. His slogan, ‘Stay Fly, Vote Ty!’ is catchy. We spent the better part of Sunday attaching small ribbons of paper to Smarties and Dum Dum lollipops with which to ply his fellow students into voting him into office. Actually, I did the cutting and Tony helped Ty do most of the attaching. I didn’t even ask them to work it out. I didn’t even ask Tony to help his brother. I just sat back and basked in the wonderfulness that is your children cooperating completely undirected.

Devon made a paper airplane. It flew quite nicely off the top balcony. So nice, in fact, that he did it quite a few times. I was wishing for my marshmallow gun to give it a few pops on the way down. Just for fun. Dev is learning about responsibility. It’s a hard and very long lesson. I wonder when I’ll get to the end of it so I can let him know how it turns out? But, between now and that place, his dad and I are both encouraging him to stop working so hard and to possibly be more social. Go to a dance. Date someone. For him, work IS fun and even more important than school since he will use his computer and entrepreneurial skills for the rest of his life and history will last only till the end of the semester. So it makes no sense to him yet. And I can see why.

I’m thinking of taking a dance class with him. I told him so and after he stared at me in uncomfortable silence, he asked if we could possibly take ceramics instead. I suspect it is the lesser amount of time holding hands and waists with your mother that makes that more attractive. If the point was to satisfy my craving for dance lessons, I could press it. But since it’s not, ceramics class it is.

Tony has started a new painting. He did a large yellow moon with a slice of dark around the right side. Then he made some drips, which he rather likes and does not want to cover up, and wonders how he can get the background on without doing just that. He appears stuck but I have faith that he is merely paused. He is smart. He may even decide it is finished as is.

Tony never quite gets enough of me. Not Quite Enough. He frequently asks to take things back to his dad’s with him. Reminders of me. And sometimes of Joe. I always oblige him, not even caring what the thing is he’s asking for. I hope he sees the tokens at his other home and is a little less confused by his life. And I wished I enjoyed playing fighting video games with him more, since that is always what he asks to do first. Perhaps there is a class for that.

Alex turns 16 in mere minutes. A tiny breath away. She saves her money and does much thinking before spending it. A $70 homecoming dress? Possibly. She buys it and brings it home. But, no. It goes back because not only is it too frivolous but also the boy she liked when she bought it has since gone the way of the wind and it would only serve as a reminder. A 90$ hair extravaganza? With long layers and long bangs and multi colors of blond throughout, so many blond facets that it positively sparkles in the sunlight? Yes. That is absolutely necessary every once in a while. And right now is that while. I tell her she looks lovely. Joe tells her she looks lovely. The boys say something along the lines of, ‘Oh. Cool.’ I hope that is satisfactory for the moment until she goes to school and gets the oohs and aaahs of her friends to seal the deal.

My kid’s dad has the idea that an old Volkswagen will last a lifetime. As each child comes of age, he purchases them a diamond in the rough, to love and care for. To get to know at a deep level so they can bond with it and know every cable. Every wire. Every switch as they lovingly bring it to prime health. This, to him, is meaningful and right. To the children, it is horror at the beginning. Pure horror. The car does not run right. It stalls. It’s not what I had in mind. My friends all have cars that just go, you know, mom? You know what I mean? I don’t want to freak out every time I have to drive that car. Can you just ask dad to get me something else? This is the story I’ve heard twice and know I will hear once more. Not twice more, because Tyler alone will love it just the way his dad will hand it over. Tyler will agree that it is meaningful and right. And it will be.

Alex’s car is the yellow convertible Volkswagen Bug. It has a modified transmission and although it is not completely manual, it is not automatic. In my opinion, it has muddied the waters and makes it harder to drive. I prefer the purer breeds.

I’ve driven cars with non-working clutches where we had to pop it into gear by pushing it down the hill. I’ve also driven cars which are automatics and they, you know, just drive. I would be lying if I said I preferred the first since it’s the latter I have vowed to own the remainder of my life. But, since I don’t have spare thousands of dollars around which I could use to replace the car for her, I feel the need to be supportive, if not overly cheerful, in helping her learn to drive the yellow car that scares her. Devon is now a pro at his Thing. She is as capable as he. She can be fierce and fearless. With time, I’m sure she can learn to win it over, but in the meantime I’ll have to be strong to bite my lip and only say nice things about the convertible beast with the darling flowers on the steering wheel cover and the shiny silver running boards along each side. And pray that she does not ever drive it on a road with an incline until she learns to use the parking break like a third foot pedal and with as much ease as she answers her cell phone without looking at it. It’s instinct. After all, once she conquers this, learns to change the oil and the tire, I won’t worry so much when she’s out driving and 15 minutes late.

Joe has started his new job. He likes it. It’s closer to home by half. He can make it home in a hurry if need be, and I have needed him be once already and possibly once more this week, but it is a luxury I am trying not to overuse since the occasions we have had to use it for are, so far, not fun. It would be different if he was playing hooky and we went to the pier and fed the seagulls. That might be a good use of this new treasure.