Mother/Daughter Support Squad to Las Vegas

See Spot Run and I have arrived in Las Vegas.  Nellis Air Force Base, to be exact, where my husband is starting a job managing airlift operations for a huge military exercise called Red Flag. 

We will be here through Thursday, and going home to Montana on Friday.  Would you like to come along and see some of what we’ve seen? 

First item the list of things I like:  The sunshine.  There is snow on the ground at home in Montana.  But here, we’ve had constant sun and days warm enough to wear sandals with my jeans.   

I also like that the air base where my husband is now stationed happens to have the largest solar power plant in North America.  It’s easy to find things not to like about the military establishment, but I’m proud of this fact.     

Here’s a picture of President Obama visiting the solar array at Nellis in June 2009. 

Moving away from the base, we have started looking around Las Vegas.  While I generally didn’t like the Las Vegas Strip at all, especially the people handing out pornography to my husband on the street, in front of my twelve-year-old daughter—which caused me eventually to walk in front of both of them and loudly tell the hawkers to leave us alone—I did like the ceiling at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace.  Here’s a view of the inside of the shops taken outside Spago, which was not open yet when we arrived there.   

We did have delicious salads for lunch at a surprisingly elegant place at the other end of the mall.  Oddly, it’s called The Cheesecake Factory.  I liked our lunch, too.   

Today we visited Hoover Dam, about an hour to the east on the border of Nevada and Arizona.  I was especially taken by the bronze sculptures called Winged Figures of the Republic.  Whatever you think about the U.S. government damming the Colorado River within an inch of its life for the sake of “making the desert bloom as a rose,” it’s hard not to admire the engineering prowess inherent in this dam, and the artistic vision of the Norwegian sculptor Oskar J.W. Hansen, who designed these figures in the 1930s. 

Without the dam on the river, there would be no water for Las Vegas.  Would that be a bad thing?  I’m not sure.  Certainly I wouldn’t want anyone to question the worth of my hometown.  I’m doing my best to appreciate this one. 

Tomorrow we look at thrift shops and neighborhoods where my husband might find accommodations.  I have some work to do and SSR has homework.  The next day, we’ll visit Death Valley, California.  I’m looking forward to that, as well as Thanksgiving Dinner at Todd’s Unique Dining, a local restaurant that comes with high marks for its innovative young chef. 

After that, SSR and I will be on an airplane back to Montana, and my hubby will stay here until Christmas. 

As with all situations, there are things to like and not to like about this one.  Mostly we’re glad we’re together. 

With best wishes to all my American friends celebrating Thanksgiving this week, and international readers who have visited in the past weeks.  I’m thankful for you. 

sallymandy

Wardrobe Refashion Update

It’s been almost six months since I took the Wardrobe Refashion challenge not to buy any new clothes for two months. 

With one exception—two pairs of Gap pants in July—I’ve done it.  It was pretty easy, and it made me really look with new eyes at old clothes.   

I’ve posted a few photos of my adventures refashioning my own clothes.  That was fun, but after a while I started feeling limited by not liking how my clothes looked on me.  And that’s another issue altogether.  

Still obsessed with Making Good New Stuff out of Old Icky Stuff, in August I found a book that set me on an entirely new creative path.  I posted about it:  The Sweater Chop Shop, by Crispina ffrench. 

It’s largely Crispina’s fault that my blog has languished this fall, because I’ve found her approach to recycled sewing completely inspiring and fantastic.  I needed this diversion.  At the same time that I found her book, as most of my readers know, my husband was preparing to move to another state for a job—without, for the time being, me and our daughter.*

Since I can get pretty compulsive facing the Fear of the Unknown, I’ve chosen to throw myself headlong into Crispina-inspired sewing during this time, rather than eating or shopping myself out into trouble.  Yes, it pretty much replaced blogging, because…well, mes bonnes amis, I wanted to be really, completely selfish and mess around with fabric and colors and thread and shapes and textures and not show it to anyone, not feel a single bit of pressure, not feel like a Bad Girl for not visiting my blog friends…blah, blah, blah. 

Anyone relate to this?  I know the answer is Yes. 

My other favorite book (besides Sweater Chop Shop) is The Twelve Secrets of Highly Creative Women, by Gail McMeekin.  This amazing book has a whole section about how we women who want to create must do this:  shut the door, turn off the phone, Be Selfish!  So..it was hard, but I did that.  For the cost of a couple of therapy sessions, I set up own Chop Shop and gave myself time to try it.

Here are some of things I’ve made.  Truthfully, I can’t believe how much time I’ve spent.  Like anything one loves, it can be all-consuming.  I’m thrilled with how much I’ve learned, and how excited I am to get out of bed and do this instead of write grant proposals for the non-profit group that employs me. 

If these items look like they’re being photographed for sale, it’s because I’m opening a shop on Etsy at the end of November.  This exercise in creative abandon is making me seriously question my current career path.  At the very least, to justify playing with wool as much as I want to, I’d like to get some monetary return for my time. 

 

I’ve noticed that other blogger friends have also stepped back from the social obligations of blogging to devote time to other creative pursuits.  If any of you are reading, I’d like to hear how that’s going for you—if you want to say.   

*he left this morning, and here I sit, at three in the afternoon, in my pajamas, house torn up with my projects, sad/glad the waiting is over, and knowing good things will come of it all. 

Love,

sallymandy

World Kindness Day

Did you know that Friday the 13th is World Kindness Day? 

Neither did I, until my friend Ingrid at Fashion is My Muse told me about it, along with an offer to send me her copy of a book I’ve been coveting.  Isn’t that kind?  Yes, it is.  Thank you, Ingrid.

Here are some other kindnesses I’m thinking of today.  

There’s a family in my town whose mother got a brain tumor and died a few years ago.  She was forty, and left behind four children under ten.   Utterly devoted to them, she was a gentle, creative, and smart mother.  I knew her because our daughters went to preschool together.

The family’s father has a substance abuse problem and has been left the sole guardian of the four kids. He has a part-time job and few family resources. 

This woman had many friends.  Today a group of them have taken on responsibilities of caring for the children.  They call themselves the Aunties.  Through an email network and daily check-ins, they figure out what the kids need every week and do all they can to make it happen.  They take care of nitty gritty needs like dental appointments and clothing, as well as simple kind actions like  hosting birthday parties, paying for dance lessons, and taking the little ones to the movies.

The Aunties all have families, jobs, and struggles of their own.  Yet they’ve embraced these children, all the while respecting that the dad, whatever his problems, is still the dad.

Soon, the father will be going to court-ordered treatment for his addiction problems, and the children are being taken in by the Aunties and some extended family. 

This month, I decided to join the Aunties.  I’ve always been a little nervous about getting involved with other people’s lives like this, and I don’t know yet what exactly I’ll contribute.  But geez, with kindness like this looking you in the face, it’s hard to sit on the sidelines and watch.

Yesterday a lady at the fabric store let me go in front of her at the check out because I was late for my daughter’s parent-teacher conference.  I told her about World Kindness Day, and how much I appreciated her small gesture.   

Kindness can be large, like what the Aunties do, or small, like the favor the lady in the store gave me. 

Either way, we all need it.  Don’t we? 

love,

sallymandy

 

Flowers de la Semaine and Doggies in Winter White

Clover and Riley/Vanna White Dog are here to say hello and we have not forgotten about you!   

The flowers in this photo cost me practically nothing at the florist down the street.  They have a fantastic deal in which you get six free roses if you go in wearing your bike helmet.  I love that they promote and reward sustainable transportation this way.  Aren’t those peachy-pink roses great? 

(Clover and Riley think so, too.)

The rest of our family are busy getting Hubby/Dad ready for his impending move to Nevada, which is happening in two weeks.  Much scurrying about and travel plans being made.  SeeSpotRun and I will spend a week there at the end of November. 

Do you think they have good thrift stores in Las Vegas? 

In the meantime, I’ve been indulging in a purely selfish creative pursuit that involves lots of second hand wool sweaters, hand sewing, and wardrobe refashioning.  It’s keeping me sane to have something in my hands to stab and poke with a needle, something I can control, something colorful and natural and recycled to throw energy into when everyone else is asleep. 

More about that in the future, but for now, thanks again to all of you dear friends in blogland who left kind comments to my last post. I’m slowly getting around to visiting all of you and enjoying all your news and thoughts.

XO,

sallymandy

 

Posting Plan for Next Six Weeks

Dear Friends,

I’m taking a break from regular posting for the next several weeks. 

As some of you know, my husband has taken a three-year job in another state and is going to move there in mid-November. 

My daughter and I are not moving with him at this time, as we’re uncertain about many parameters of the job.  He may be sent overseas.  

We want to spend as much time together as possible before my husband leaves.  Then, SeeSpotRun and I will be traveling to where he’s moving to help him get settled.  After we return, we’ll be working on ways to stay connected to him and figuring out our own routine here. 

I have slacked off my blog quite a bit in the last couple of weeks as we get closer to this change.  Instead of trying to keep it going in a half-baked way, I’m going to let it go of regular posting for now and see how I feel about it when my husband has gone. 

I expect that either I will want more than ever to connect with my blog friends and have the distraction of writing, or…I will need to rest and focus on things closer to home for a time.  Or maybe some of both will happen. 

In any case, I may post from time to time, and then I hope to reconnect with you all in some fashion by December.  In the meantime, know how much I appreciate you all.  I continue to send my encouragement and support for you in your blogging!

Love,

sallymandy

photo by R.W. Behan

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be (a Pole Dancer?) Like Mommy

Looking for a photo to go with yesterday’s post, I found this funny story and picture on Photobucket (here). 

“When asked to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up, second-grader ‘Sarah’ turned in the lovely drawing shown above. 

Needless to say, the teacher was a bit surprised – Sarah’s mother had always seemed like such a conservative woman. So she sent a note home to the girl's mother asking for clarification as to the picture's meaning.

Here's the reply the teacher received the following day. 

‘Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.

I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.

From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.’

Sincerely, Mrs. Smith”

Thank you, Miss Sarah, for the comic relief. 

sallymandy

Mothers Being True to Themselves

Deborah at The Temptation of Words asked on a recent post: Can Mothers Be True to Themselves?

What a thought-provoking question.  I’ve pondered it all week. 

Mothering is an awesome and humbling responsibility. We know from our own mothers and Nancy Friday that how we understand ourselves is deeply attached to our mothers’ definitions of themselves.

When you get right down to it, what else do we have to offer our children but ourselves?  Whether or not I feel adequate, my daughter has her roots planted in who I am, and how I live my life.  She will learn her first and most lasting lessons about how to be a woman by watching me do it.  This is basic psychology. 

If I want SSR to value her own life and take it seriously, hadn’t I better take a stab at that myself?  If I abandon the sacred ground of the life I’ve been given (my own)—tell myself it’s “selfish” to attend to it—I’ve essentially abandoned the soil that contains her roots.

There’s also this.  It’s tempting to think that only I can give my daughter all she needs to be an adult; that I must forgo my own growth to tend to hers.  But that’s giving myself too much credit.  Many, many people will influence and teach and love her.   

It’s also, maybe, a way to avoid taking responsibility for my own life.  It can seem so much more noble to assign myself the keeper of hers.  To hold on to that feeling of being needed as long as I can.

Being needed is a powerful experience and painful to release.  Motherhood is the most profound thing that’s ever happened to me.  I adore being a mother.  I don’t want the active part to be over.  I crave and yearn for more children. 

Yet, life is what it is.  I have one precious daughter.  For SSR to grow into an adult, she needs me to get a life.  If I cling to being her everything forever, she’s going to need serious therapy.

“Being true to ourselves” can tend to carry a connotation of turning our backs on loved ones—charging off into the sunset alone to follow our bliss. And you know, I’ve done a fair amount of that.  I’ve been racked with guilt and self-doubt.  But it it’s meant to be, those resistant feelings will diminish. And if it’s revealed that I’ve made a mistake, I can make amends. Few decisions are irreversible.

Today, as SSR approaches teenager-hood, I don’t feel the need so much to get away.  I want to be with her more than ever.  I know I have something she desperately needs:  a loving guide in how to be a woman.  In other words, a mother.  No one else can give her that.   

sallymandy

 

A Quick Hello from SeeSpotRun

Hello.

Hi, this is SeeSpotRun. As Sallymandy may has told you on Wednesday I was informed that I have H1N1 (swine flu), and I’ve been out of school for four days, and I’ve been the sickest I have for a long time.  I just wanted to say a quick hello and I hope you stay healthy this fall, and here are some quick ways to keep healthy!

• Wash your hands often.
• If there’s a person near you who has the flu, don’t get too close to that person.

• Drink lots of water.
• Eat healthy meals.
• Get enough sleep.

I hope none of you are sick, and have a great weekend!

♥♥♥

SeeSpotRun