The Unknown Unknowns

"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know." - Donald Rumsfeld, Former US Secretary of Defense      This quote, or some version of it, has been running through my head the last few days.  Owen started fifth grade a few weeks ago which means he's moved to the Upper School.  We've been told that things are different up there - less parent involvement, more student responsibility and an emphasis on being organized. It seems that organization is the key to survival in this brave new middle school world.  If you look to the photo on the right, you will see that "we" faced some challenges in the organization department during the first few days of school.   My ten year old was handed a large box of school supplies and sent to his locker and told to put them away - and this is exactly how a ten year old puts a box of stuff in his locker.  Very age appropriate but a little on the messy side. After a trip to Staples, Owen conceded to let me come upstairs with him after school so that I could help him get his locker in order. I had been forbidden from going upstairs with him before school started because he wanted to handle everything all on his own.  Whether my son believes it or not, I am quite adept at organizing things and I was more than happy to offer him some help.  Of course, I also gleaned information from some trusted sixth grade parents who were more than happy to get us started off on the right foot.  His locker (the last time I saw it) looked like this.  Greatly improved.  He was happy with it too, which is a complete bonus as far as I'm concerned.     As far as Owen's adjustment to Middle School life (and mine, lest we kid ourselves that he is the only one making adjustements), I would have to say it's a work in progress.  After being spoiled with having little to no homework in 3rd and 4th grades, he's coming home with mounds of homework.  It's going to take some getting used to for all of us.  He's also having to learn the personalities and quirks of seven different teachers (yes, he has a different teacher for each subject he takes).  It's like high school in some ways.  The positive side of all of this is that he's going to perfect his organizational skills and learn to move from class to class with ease long before he leaves SBA for high school.  The negative, he's ten and the lack of structure is making it difficult at times to stay on top of things.  I think fifth grade is going to be an adjustment for all of us. I have the distinct feeling that we've got a lot of "Unknown Unknowns" out there just waiting to trip us up - which is intimidating to say the least.  It may be a bumpy year but we've got our fingers crossed that things will go well enough for him.      On a side note, some of the fifth grade parents have been having some hilarious therapy sessions on facebook at night.  There's something about feeling like you're all in the trenches of math homework together that lowers the stress level of these later than usual homework nights.  And yes, I do realize that this is just fifth grade and that I need to get a grip and take a step or two back from the process and just let things happen - but that's hard to do sometimes.  Yet another thing that is a work in progress.     Lastly, there is Sarah, our second grade child who is oh so helpful with all of this fifth grade stress (ha!).  She bounces around the house announcing how easy her homework is and how much fun she's having in second grade.  Love that in-house sibling support.

A New School Year

First Day of Fifth & Second Grades
August 11th, 2011

Paulette Elementary
First Day of school ever on August 8th, 2011

My children returned to school last week. They were excited to be going back to familiar surroundings - friends, teachers, classrooms.  Several hundred miles away, Paulette Elementary held it's first day of classes in Union County, Tennesse. Paulette Elementary was built on the piece of property where my grandparents house and store once stood.  It's also the first elementary school to be built in Union County since 1970, fourty-one years ago.  I tried to find a picture of the completed school building, but so far I've been unsuccessful.  I did find a photo of the almost finished building though.  

     At the risk of throwing too many important milestone dates in at once, I feel the need to mention that last week (August 10th) was also the third anniversary of my grandmother's death.  My grandmother, Cleo Hurst, died peacefully in her sleep in the house she had called home for over 60 years in the same room where my grandfather, LJ Hurst, died peacefully in his sleep in the summer of 1982.  I haven't driven out to see the new school.  I could blame it on logistics - it's a long drive from Nashville to Union County - but the truth is that I just haven't had the strength to do it.  I know that all of the places that I love are gone - the house and barn and the store building where I spent so much of my childhood with my mother and grandparents.  I can't imagine driving around the bend in the highway and not seeing the roof of my grandparent's house and the circle drive and the walnut trees and the green stretches of open fields.  It's good that the county has a new school - they desperately needed one - and I hope nothing but the best for all the new Paulette Panthers who are excitedly walking the halls of their brand new school building this week. I am sad for what I have lost in the process though. 

The Hurst Place
May 2008

 

Loaves and Fishes

I've spent most of today packing and cleaning and fretting and fussing because we're getting ready to take a trip.  We'd planned all week to go to church with my parents this evening but as two o'clock turned into three o'clock and then four o'clock I started plotting ways to stay home and not go to Mass because I just had too much to do.  But, with Joel's encouragement we loaded ourselves into the minivan and met my parents at St. Henry's where during tonight's Gospel reading I heard once again the story of the loaves and the fishes.  You know the story, Jesus spends the afternoon teaching a multitude of people on a hillside and as afternoon turns into evening the disciples begin to worry that maybe Jesus should send all those people into the surrounding villages so that they can get something to eat.  Instead, Jesus has the crowd of people sit down and asks his disciples to bring him whatever food they can find. They bring Jesus five loaves of bread and two fishes - not even enough to feed themselves much less 5000 men and their wives and children.  Somehow, Jesus takes what they have brought him and feeds all of those people and no one goes away hungry and when everyone has eaten, the leftovers fill twelve wicker baskets. 

Orange Beach 2010

     Again, I have heard this story all my life and I have always thought about it in terms of the multiplication of the food - that was the miracle.  Jesus fed a whole bunch of people with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread which in and of itself is pretty amazing. But tonight, as the priest was reading this Gospel story I began to think about it from a more personal perspective.  What if I substituted "loaves and fishes" with "patience and understanding" or "energy and effort" or "love and attention."  Without stretching things too much, by the time we'd driven the short distance from St. Henry's to Pizza Perfect I'd had what I guess could be considered an epiphany. Namely, at the end of this day and week and summer where I've believed that I'm not enough - don't have enough - for my children, my husband, my parents, and everything else, I need to trust that my own set of metaphorical loaves and fishes is going to be sufficient.   I've also been reminded of something that I've lost sight of lately - sometimes the most important thing I can do is show up and listen and have faith in a power greater than myself.   

Still Stripping

Earlier this year I started stripping the wallpaper in my kitchen.  It's a big job because I have acres of wallpaper to remove, but fortunately it's not difficult because the paper was put up correctly which means it's just peeling right off the wall - mostly.  Yesterday and today I tackled the wall pictured below. 

The above photo was taken the day before Thanksgiving in 2006.  I had just put the hutch together and was photographing it to show my mother-in-law because she gifted us with the hutch. I still love this hutch.  Also, look at my teeny tiny Sarah sitting at the table. Love her too!  The photo below was taken about 9am this morning.  As I was painting the yellow primer over the black walls - walls that were painted black before the decorator hung the black fruit wallpaper in what I'm sure is some fancy decorator way of hanging wallpaper - I kept thinking it looked like a crime scene. 

And now, I have this (the photo down below).  The hutch is on the other side of the kitchen now and it may eventually find it's way back onto this wall or it may not. Furniture is kind of mobile in my house.  I'm actually considering moving it into the living room but that get's me a little off topic and OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THIS WALL!

This is just the primer coat.  Still undecided which direction to take the kitchen. I'm in the market for a reliable reasonable handyman to hang some crown molding and change out my light fixtures.  But for today, I am happy that this wall is done.  I'm also happy that I've finally found a use for some of the yards and yards of material that Luz purchased the summer before she died.  I believe she had plans to use this in either the Orange Beach condo or in the addition she had built onto the Tullahoma house.  I think this rosy print dresses up my little IKEA chairs quite nicely.



Putting some of Luz's material to good use.

This makes me happy.

Sarah's Songs

A few weeks ago I wrote about Sarah's songwriting.  Her first song is called "Rainbows." 

http://adayinthelife-julie.blogspot.com/2011/06/like-scrapbooking-only-less-satisfying.html

Since then she's written a few more.  These are my favorites. 

I like her way with words.

Also, she spells like her momma.

(Not sure how I made it through 12 years of

Catholic schools without learning to spell well.)

SUNRISE

 Owen My Brother

Deferred Maintenance

It's been a long week.  A really long week.  A really really really really long week.  It turns out that when you continue to live with a high level of stress day in and day out and don't really do anything to either address the source of the stress or work on doing things to reduce your stress level you might (just might) find yourself in the middle of an extended anxiety attack.  That's where I found myself on Tuesday morning. Based on Joel's insistance, I called my doctor to make an appointment - but not before going to work first and checking in to make sure the project I'm working on was going to be alright.  Seriously, I don't prioritize well.  Based on the symptoms I described on the phone the doctor's office asked me to come in immediately.  The second time they took my blood pressure it was 160/90.  I don't know what the first reading was but the nurse said that at 160/90 she was glad to see it dropping.  I had an EKG and some other tests and I've been given a couple of prescriptions . . . one for blood pressure and another for the crazy.  Joel has been absolutely wonderful throughout all of this and told me (in what I know he means as a compliment) that he can't believe I've held it together as long as I have.  I don't think any of this is going to get better overnight but I'm hoping that a weekend away with friends - friends who are like sisters and have known me since I was eighteen - is the first step I need to start doing things differently.  Below is the post I wrote last summer before heading off to see my girls and what was true then is even more true today - friends really are the chocolate chips in the great cookie of life. 

Same time - Last Year

Vanessa, Julie, Kelli and Lahoma

Centre College

Longer ago than I would like to believe

     It's a "Girls' Weekend" weekend - and just in time too.  Earlier this week I didn't think I was going to be able to make the trip to Lexington, but my sweet husband sensed that I was about to wade into the deep end of the crazy pool and kindly suggested that I pack my bag and get in the car tomorrow morning and drive north so that he could enjoy a day or two of peace and quiet I could get away from life for awhile and have a relaxing afternoon and evening with my girls.  Friends are definitely the chocolate chips in the great cookie of life. 

Like Scrapbooking (only less satisfying)

     I used to scrapbook.  Both of my children have beautiful baby books that I spent hours (and weekends) putting together.  When Luz passed away (October 2008) I stopped scrapbooking.  The first year was overwhelming and scrapbooking all those birthdays and holidays without her . . . well, there was no joy in that. 

     We're in the process of cleaning out our house this summer.  We're pulling things out of closets and drawers that haven't seen the light of day in a long time.  I guess this process could best be described as purging.  After two years of not being able to let go of anything that belonged to my mother-in-law or my grandmother (who died in August 2008) I'm ready to let some stuff go - including (maybe) my traditional approach to scrapbooking.  Because here's the thing about scrapbooking - it's labor intensive and messy and it encourages hoarding.  I don't need anything that encourages hoarding right now. 
So, I'm going to blog about some of those things that I don't want to forget and maybe someday in the future I'll print them out and add them to the childrens scrapbooks because their scrapbooks are important to me.  The kids like them too.  Every now and then one of them will pull out one of their scrapbooks and ask me to sit on the couch and go through it. That alone makes all the hours of work worthwhile.  Now, on to the thing I don't want to forget.

      Sarah is starting a band.  She hasn't settled on a name for her band but she has written their first song - "Rainbows."  She sang it to me and asked me what I thought.  It was pretty good, although the tune sounds a lot like that "Airplanes" song. She also said, and I am quoting her here, "It's going to be the first cut off my new album."  She's writing  her second song, "Sunset", sometime this weekend.