j a c k o' c a r v i n g

Six j a c k s light our doorstep. Bwa ha ha!

go nuts!

We made donuts at Mom and Dad Boring's yesterday. It was made a tradition by Grandma Bernice Boring who always had a donut-making, family gathering at the farm on Halloween.

Our kids went nuts.

Say "SUGAAAARRRR!"

They were so jacked up. They were pumelling eachother in wrestling and laughing and yelling hysterically. On the way home they were screaming in the back seat and they would not stop, so in the mile and a half drive home, I sat between them with my hand over Stewart's mouth.

It was super frustrating to try to calm them down. I almost didn't recognize them, they were so altered.

Finally, they calmed down, after several rounds of incidents and time-outs.

We're already preparing mentally for the craziness on Halloween night, when sugar abounds and is not limited (this only happens 3x a year, so I'm ok with it... in theory).

apple cider in the air

The leaves are falling.

There is apple cider in the air.

Pumkins all around.

Watch this...(sideways)

"New Year Baby"

This afternoon, Mike and I watched, "New Year Baby" on The Heartland Film Festival's last day. It's the story of a Cambodian refugee family living in the United States who journeys back to Cambodia to explore their past. Socheata Poeuv is the director/producer who is investigating her family's history as it relates to being refugees because of the Khmer Rouge.
A brief history... the Khmer Rouge was the ruling political party of Cambodia in the mid to late 70's. They are remembered for the deaths of around 1.5 MILLION people (by execution, starvation and forced labor). I read that it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century (according to Wikepedia). They followed a man named, Pol Pot (who died in 1998 and was never tried for his crimes). What the Khmer Rouge did was force all the urban dwellers out to collective farms and labor camps. Beyond the deaths that these actions caused, they forced marriages, separatations of entire families, and all property was seized. The idea was to create a classless society, who's members would farm rice, which they could export for "collective" gain.
I remember watching an after school special one year when we were in the States (maybe I was in 5th grade). It was about a Cambodian refugee family and their transition to this country. The most vivid picture from that was the kids hiding their food under their beds because they were worried that they would run out or that everything would be taken away again. So, I was aware of the fact that there were people who had to flee Cambodia and who were starving, but beyond that I didn't know much else about this situation. I remember crying.

I cried today too.

Hearing stories like this one help to take me out of my world and into the larger one. They help me open my mind to seeing another's life situation. Stories like this one make me sad, and feeling that sadness is good for me. Why?

My emotional response has propelled me into learning about the conflict(s) in Cambodia and those surrounding it (basically all the way to before World War II).

It has also made me get pissed off about the crap that rulers do. And it's made me pissed off that people go along with it.

In one scene, the daughter (director of the movie), her father and their interpreter meet the director of the hospital where hundreds were mistreated and died (including their interpreter's own mother). The daughter asks if this woman feels guilt for what happened and if she would like to apologize to him (the interpreter). The woman says that she doesn't feel guilt, that she was only doing what she was told so that she could continue living and that it wasn't her doing. She finally apologizes (rather non-emotionally).

So isn't that it? Isn't it exactly why people go along with things like this? They simply want to survive it. How many stories are out there like this one? And where would I stand? What would I do for the sake of keeping my family and myself alive?

I would like to think that if I was being forced to act in such a manner, that I would revolt. That I would rather die.

In the beginning of the documentary, the daughter is asking her parents why they survived (or something similar). The "ma" says that the "pa" survives because he always chose the "middle-of-the-road". She says she survived because she was sneaky, that she could talk her way in and out of situations.

The other questions that I am considering are these... Where would I draw the line? What battles would I pick? Would I even be brave enough to be a "Rosa Parks"- making a stand for something that seems relatively minor like a bus seat? Would I, like the parents in "New Year Baby" marry someone because it was being demanded of me by the rulers? What issues are so important to me (beyond my family and God) that I would fight for them?

In the end of the movie, we learn about the fathers' heroic journeys (totalling 5 or 6) across the Vietnameese border to bring his adopted children, his new wife and baby, and a sewing maching (I'm guessing it was a pretty swell machine) to safety. That surely isn't "middle-of-the -road" thinking. He made a stand that I would want to make... one for his familys' survival.

i got a long nap!

Amy came over today so that I could do something I wanted to do... anything, she said.
I chose to take a long nap. It was great. And on top of that, the coffee I had when I woke was the perfect cup.
What a gift, and even though I had about 20 other things that I would have loved to do or that I needed to do, the nap is what suited me. And to have that time resting and alone, well, it was time for it.
Thank you, Amy!
(She's my brother's girlfriend.)

catwalk

Have you ever walked on a catwalk, two or three stories above a loud, manufacturing floor? We did it yesterday at the Forest Discovery Center in Starlight, IN(forestcenter.com). Stewart rode in the stoller, because of the noise and vibrating feelings of the walkway. Nigel nursed to sleep through the tour (his nap on-the-go).
It was super interesting to watch the entire process, feeling like a little bird, curious at the goings-on, and spying down at all the factory workers doing their different jobs. We went at our own pace and without a guide, which I think added to the feeling of intrigue about the work and workers. Marshall and I were really into it.
It would take some practice for me to get used to people watching me work. I surely wouldn't want everyone to be able to see my mothering work all the time. I've caught myself looking around sometimes when I've been really bitchy and impatient towards my kids, just to make sure that I wasn't completely offending someone (besides my kids) or embarassing myself.
Even in my corporate work life, I didn't like people hanging out over my shoulder (unless I was certain that I could impress them with my "skills"). And as for art, I like solitude. If I am working on something tedious on one of my peices like hand-stitching then I don't care but when I'm putting something together, thinking something out or playing with an idea, I sometimes talk to myself, dance, get side-tracked, doodle, you know... things I'm kinda self-conscious about how I appear while doing them. Of course I want to "save face" even though I'm the first to admit I'm weird and messed-up. I wish I was more uninhibited more of the time and that I didn't give this crap any importance.

nigel in bed today

He was so precious during his Sunday afternoon nap with his stripped baby legs. He nurses to sleep, getting all sweaty while he's cuddled up. When I finally know that he's asleep, I rise and he's all alone in our bed. (A bed that is so enormous for him, but the perfect size when all the kids are with us.) And when he wakes, he stretches and looks about as if he's getting his bearings and laughs when he sees me, reaching for the camera.