There are No Do-Overs

The day started off well enough, if a little early. Ten or so teenaged girls had slept in tents in the backyard, a noisy gaggle that kept me wondering all night long if our neighbors were fuming. But with the coming dawn, it didn’t seem to matter so much. They were quiet at last. My husband got up for an early flight, and I laced running shoes and went out into the still-dark morning to get in 5 miles as the sun rose. Since I was ahead of schedule, five miles stretched to eight, and I arrived home just as the girls were stirring in the backyard. I was peaceful and ready to seize the summer day. 

But that's not how the day played out. 

His dark eyes met mine over his laptop. Storm clouds were brewing in those eyes; I was all too familiar with the storms.

“What’s wrong?” I chirped cheerfully, trying desperately to hold on to the morning calm.

“It’s stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. No one is listening at either school. These credits won’t transfer, and I am going to be in college forever.”

They say mothers are only as happy as their unhappiest child.

“Don’t mope. We’ll figure it out. Just don’t mope.” I cannot stand one more tense conversation about academic advising and college transferring, I thought. I’ve devoted more than a lifetime’s share of time to this transfer and this pair of schools. Enough. Just stop talking about it. And quit moping.

“Please can we cut the watermelon? Puhleeze?”

Blue eyes this time, begging cheerfully but begging just the same, my little girl interrupting my internal rant to the academic advisors of two institutions of higher learning.

“No!” I snapped, trying not to notice the shock in her eyes or the tears pooling there. “No, watermelon. For the tenth time this morning, no watermelon and no moping.”

I gathered keys and my youngest son and headed to the gym. My cellphone tucked into a locker, Nick and I went about our gym routine. I didn’t need to be there; I’d already exceeded my workout goals for the day, but I’d promised Nick we’d go, and I was trying to be kind, despite my cranky beginning. After a couple hours, I retrieved my phone and saw that I’d missed 12 text messages.

The first one I read was from my friend and neighbor, “Really bad accident out in front near your house. Silver car and a minivan. Tell me you are all OK.”

I have both a silver car and a minivan. And those kids I left at home after my snappish outburst? My heart raced. They had plans to go to the pool in the silver car by way of that intersection.

I thought about the sharp words.

Please don’t let those words hang heavy forever …

Thankfully, the next few texts were from my daughter. She told me about the accident, said they’d been delayed leaving the house because she’d sent Katie back inside to empty the dishwasher, and they arrived immediately after the crash. She was worried that the little girls had seen way too much. And then she texted again to let me know the road was still closed and to go home the back way because a helicopter had landed across the street.

A do-over, I thought. I get a do-over. I can go home and be kind and gentle. I can erase the ugliness of the morning and begin again. Better this time.

And then I can write a column about how sometimes we see how precious life is and we are lucky enough to get a do-over. That was how I thought this essay would end. But that’s not how it happened.

I returned home to find a very somber group gathered in my kitchen. Lots of kids trying to make sense of the senseless. Names had been assigned to once nameless accident victims. Four teenaged boys. People they all knew. Somebody’s son. News came quickly, the way it is wont to do in a small town. Some rumors, some facts. Some tales ahead of their time. Four boys in very serious condition. Life in the balance.

There is no do-over. Not really. Not ever. That morning was set in stone. Some lives forever changed.

My 7-year-old talked for what seemed like hours that day and the next about the sounds. “There was a crash. A really loud crash and then a boom and another boom. I think that was the van flipping over onto its roof. And then there were sirens; for probably hours there were sirens. And then the helicopter. So many noises. So many scary noises.” You can’t un-hear the noises. And you can’t un-live the moments, any moments.

The sounds. The sights. The sorrow of the people involved and the people who love them. There’s no do-over.

We get one chance to live any given moment. One chance to bless. One chance to choose the better. One chance to love. And then that moment is gone.

There is redemption. There is grace. There is a God in heaven offering hope.

But there are no do-overs. Not really. There is only a choice to make in each moment.

Will we wish we had the moment back?

Settling In & Making It Home

The last time we moved our household, I had six children and a dog. The baby was a little less than a year old. We were only moving a mile away from our old house. We were young and strong and we did all the packing and moving ourselves—with a lot of help from friends, who were also young and strong. We all quickly recognized that we were neither as young nor as strong as initially estimated; we’d never attempt that feat again.

On the first trip over to the new house, I stepped out of our van and into a hole in the construction site that was our neighborhood. My ankle swelled into a balloon before I got to the front steps. The next day, I had pneumonia, though it wouldn’t be officially diagnosed for about a week because I staunchly refused to take time to go to the doctor. Did I mention that this was 10 days before Christmas? With six kids?  I was very well organized and pretty much unable to do anything I’d planned. I just hobbled and wheezed.

I remember my friends Bonnie and Wendy, taking turns standing on the counters and unpacking my kitchen into cabinets and pantry. I remember that the first morning of our first day in the new house, my friend Karen appeared with muffins and orange juice for breakfast. Then, despite a million other boxes, she found the Christmas tree and all the decorations and she quickly and efficiently organized all those children into a team of little elves and made “Christmas at home” come to life in that new house that still smelled of stiff carpet and fresh paint. It was all her idea. I thought perhaps we should unpack the china cabinet. Or the office. But she chose homemaking. Christmas was first priority. More than anything else we did that day, those three women made our house into our home.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard bloggers who are mothers say that one of the things they appreciate most about blogging is that a blog is a creative outlet that stays ”done.” With words and pictures and design features, women can create beautiful havens online and no one will mess them up. Unlike the laundry that, once folded, gets worn and dirtied, or the meal, lovingly crafted, that is quickly reduced to a pile of dirty dishes, blog posts just build one upon another, each adding more depth and creative expression, not one messing up another, nothing coming undone.

Until it does.

My friends, it is impossible to move house online when one’s house has been well-established at Typepad. No matter how strong and smart one’s friends are, it cannot be done neatly. I know this to be a fact because I have invested three months in the process and a lot of very smart people have helped me. And here I am in this new space.

We’ve moved. Oh, yes, by golly and the grace of God, we have moved. I’m especially grateful to Lauren Gulde, who carefully packed away all our priceless family heirlooms and ensured that they weren’t damaged in the move. And God bless Joy Messimer, who is always willing to climb on virtual counters and jump over stacks of packing material and to see the vision of the house that is to become the home and suggest a better way.  And then there is my Mary Beth, who was tiny when we moved in real life. She’s a young woman now, and she knows her way around this new virtual house much better than I do. Expect to see her here in this new home quite frequently.

But there is a great deal of unpacking and picture hanging to do in the “new house.” I need your help.

First, if you usually click over here from Facebook, go like this page. My personal Facebook page is going to become more personal, more private, and quieter. As we move in here, there will be more frequent blog updates and I don’t want you to miss them, but they won’t all appear on my personal Facebook page. The blog page is going to get hopping. So, go like and follow the blog page!

You might need to update your subscription. If you saw this post in your reader this morning, you're just fine. If you've been a reader for a long time and subscribed to ebeth.typepad.com you'll need to re-subscribe. We put a handy link in the top bar if you'd like to have posts appear in your mailbox every day. Or you can subscribe on Feedly or Bloglovin’ or another feed reader. Go check yours! You might be subscribed under the old RSS and you won’t get updates.

You can still access learning ideas and lesson plans at Serendipity. We are working on a plan to move all of those over here very soon. 

Now, to unpack the boxes. It's likely that there are plenty of broken links here. And there are more broken links “out there.”  If you’ve pinned something or linked to me, chances are good the link is broken. I’m happy to help you fix it. First, look at the URL of the link that is broken. If it is ebeth.typepad.com, try replacing with elizabethfoss.com. The correct post should come right up; simply re-pin or re-bookmark with the correct one. It may not even be the link that is broken, but the picture- use the same process. If that still doesn't work, email us!

If it’s a link within my blog, please let me know. Mary Beth and I are going to work as hard as we can to fix those links. If it’s a favorite post you can’t find, send me an email and tell me about it. I’m good at finding things here.

I can’t unpack the boxes without my friends. And I can’t make it feel like home without your help. If you have linked or pinned before, please link again with the new URL . If you haven’t, please consider helping folks find me again. Re-establising an online presence is daunting. Believe me, the broken links and their effect have kept me awake at night.

Above all, if you're here today, I'm so grateful for your friendship.  Thanks so much for hanging with me. I promise; I’m never moving again.

Pounding the Pavement to Feed my Soul

This is part of a series. Read yesterday's post here.

July seemed like a good month to do an experiment. My regular schedule was a little more relaxed, still lots of mom things to do but slightly  more wiggle in the routine, and this year, the weather has been truly glorious. How was I going to tweak this schedule in order to find time for the three things I knew I wanted in my mornings: exercise, prayer, and uninterrupted writing?

I have a house full of kids. Uninterrupted anything is a rare thing. I've always written in the margins. One day we'll talk about How She Does It. It's a great book and Anne Bogel outlines how most everyone I know "does it." It's not how I do it, because "share care" isn't practical here. What's practical is getting up at 5 AM. Ninety minutes in front of the computer and then out the door for ninety minutes in the fresh air. 

I actually wish I could reverse the order and start with the walk, but I don't feel comfortable walking in the dark. So, writing from 5:00-6:30 and then a walk from 6:30-8:00. Then, snuggle time in the Bible chair with my littlest and the day has truly begun.

It helps to be a morning person; I'll agree with that observation. I do love the morning. But I'll also pose this question: Would you give up an hour of sleep to walk for an hour if you knew that you'd fall asleep more easily and that you'd sleep more soundly? It just doesn't really seem like much of a sacrifice. The fresh air and exercise absolutely enhance the quality of my sleep.

I go out into the quiet morning and I fill my tank. It's interesting; before my walking experiment began, I identified one of the emotions I was wrestling with as loneliness. I felt disconnected. In the last four years, I've withdrawn significantly from the internet community, reducing my time online to only what is absolutely necessary. Almost all of my local homeschool friends no longer homeschool, their children grown or in school now. And my husband has been working 'round the clock and traveling. But my days are filled with lots of people. Heck, my house is filled with lots people. And I do have dear, close local friends with whom I have plenty of contact. So, the pervasive sense of loneliness was strange. Within the first week or so of walking, the loneliness dissipated. Maybe loneliness isn't the right word for it at all. I was lonely for myself. Those ninety minutes in the morning were absolutely necessary for the care and tending of this introvert. At last, I was getting sufficient time to refuel. Time to talk to myself. And to listen to myself.

I break the time into three chunks, not always three even chunks, but always three chunks. First, I listen to an audiobook or podcast. My brain is so happy! I've been able to fill up on good writing and it has been very beneficial. Lots of good ideas, plenty to ponder. I think that I had fallen into an all-too-common trap of clicking around cyberspace for information. I'd follow interesting links on Facebook or scroll Google's newspage while standing in line. But those brief 300-500 word excursions were leaving me feeling weary and not much smarter. Anne Bogel explores that phenomenon. While you are at Anne's blog, Modern Mrs. Darcy, bookmark it. She's absolutely the best resource for a good book recommendation and she has lots of other smart things to say (probably because she reads a lot).

Back to reading with audiobooks: A whole book about something that matters to me? Much better than clicking around on a screen. Books expand the idea; they unfold and they carry the reader for the duration. This practice of listening to audiobooks is one that will be a lifelong one for me. When my children were little, we always listened to books read aloud in the car. As much for my edification as theirs. And we still do, sometimes, though I rarely have them all together in the car at once. The younger boys and I listened through the entire Mysterious Benedict Society series last fall. Such good listening! Time well spent. I love to listen. I love to curl up with the print version, too, but we'll save that conversation for Friday's needle & thREAD.

In the middle block of my walking time, I pray. I pray the Office of Readings and then a rosary, filling my tank with scripture and feeding my soul with the wisdom of the Church Fathers. It's concentrated time to both talk with God and to listen to Him.

Then, I do my version of Morning Pages. In her book The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron insists on three handwritten pages of a "brain dump" every morning. It's stream of consciousness writing about anything and everything that becomes the "bedrock tool of creative recovery." I've been creatively dry for quite some time. Just not feeling it... There are a myriad of reasons for my own dry syndrome and most will remain close to my heart. The steps back to creative joy, though, are outlined here, in this post. In the walking. In the praying. In the journaling. Cameron insists on writing this all out. I'm a rebel;-). I dictate my Morning Pages to my iPhone using the "notes" app and the microphone button. I usually stop talking to myself when I pass my neighbors walking in the dawn. Then I keep right on going.

There are, of course, health benefits to this whole walking thing. Walking burns calories, strengthens back muscles, (supposedly) slims your waist, strengthens bones, lowers blood pressure, shapes and tones legs and bottom, reduces risk of heart disease and diabetes, and helps us manage stress. The big question I'm getting lately is "How much weight have you lost?" The big answer? None. Absolutely not one pound. At first, this bothered me tremendously. Then, a couple weeks ago, while talking walking with my friend Nicole--who is sharing this walking journey using a Jawbone Up--I found msyelf saying, "You know, it wouldn't matter if I never lost weight. I'd still keep walking." For all the things this has done for me and all the ways it enhances my well-being, weight is becoming just a number on a scale. That alone is extraordinary. I grew up believing weight was probably the most important thing about a woman. I come from an extended family of eating disorders. It's a thing. A bad thing. And it's a thing that I'm grateful to have mostly dodged because I've spent most of my adult life pregnant or nursing and the baby always won the inner struggle over the number on the scale. I ate very healthfully for my children, overcoming any genetic or environmental predisposition to sabotage my health for the sake of scale.Still, the scale tormented me and it fed my doubt about my worth all the time. I haven't been nursing for two years. Two years of time during which middle aged creep and hypthyroidism can mess with my mind. To have found peace with the scale is nothing short of miraculous.

We live as we move, a step at a time. And there's something in gentle walking that reminds me of how it is I must live if I am to savor this life that I have been given. Savoring this life becomes an automatic and appropriate response the miniute I dispense with velocity and pressure. This earth is beautiful and so are we, if I just take the time to notice.

from Walking in this World

I need time outside. I knew this about myself, of course, but over the years I have become increasingly an indoor person. And my whole self was sad. I just didn't know how sad until I started walking. Now, I notice the outdoors and it makes me happy. I notice how the leaves are already starting to turn just little. I notice the cattails have gotten quite fat and are going to burst momentarily. I notice how many areas of my neighborhood are alive with natural beauty. I notice the subtle changes from day-to-day in the terrain of my natural surroundings. My body is in tune with the sunrise. I can tell you the percentage of humidity without even looking at my weather app and be accurate within a point or two. I'm noticing. I'm really seeing. And it has slowed the relentless pace of my mind. I used to think I needed to live in the country. Too much hustle and bustle here in the suburbs. Now, I firmly believe that one can live in the most serene of surroundings and still hear crashing noises in her head. Likewise, one can live in the bustle of a Washington, DC suburb and slow down enough to notice the details that bring quiet peace.

Obviously, walking has much improved my mood. I'm calmer. I'm more magnanimous. I'm taking things in stride more often than not. Karoline remarked last weekend as we were being silly at the playground, "You just seem so happy lately, Mommy."  And my husband echoed her just yesterday as I ran past him on the stairs on the way to grab my running shoes, "You're smiling. It makes me happy to see you happy." All the stresses have not melted away. I still have major IT issues here "at work." I still have lots of kid things-- some quite serious--taking up my brain space. But I've turned a very important corner on self-care. I've learned, once and for all, that it's not selfish. Big difference. Self-care serves my family. Just ask them; they'll tell you.

The day that Sarah Harkins died, Mary Beth, Sarah Annie, and I drove down to be with Ginny's kids while Ginny and Jonny went to the hospital to say goodbye.It took us about two hours to get there. Mary Beth and I talked the whole way, two warriors in an extraordinary yearlong battle with grief. I'd already walked my 10,000 steps before the drive and when I got there, I puttered around Ginny's house and then went out into her yard with her girls to soak in the sunshine and to force myself to be very present in the sacred moments of the day. I stayed for awhile and talked with Ginny when she got home. Then we did the drive in reverse. It was evening by the time we got home and I thought to myself what a long, exceptionally full day it had been and how I was looking forward to just curling up in bed next to my husband and going to sleep.

When I pulled up in the driveway, there was a group text from Patrick to Mike and me. It was a screenshot of Paddy's Fitbit Flex. He had 19,000 steps for the day. And he was most definitely taunting.Mike joshed with him and said something about giving UVa their money's worth (a reference to Patrick's athletic scholarship). I said, "I only have 7,000 steps to go to reach you." I was totally kidding. It was one thing to share stats with Paddy's friend, Aimee. She was encouraging and well, not hyper-competitive. If Patrick is two things, he's (1) very competitive and (2) in perpetual motion. I am not setting myself up to compete with Patrick. I bought Mike a Fitbit Flex so that he'd be encouraged to be more active. Paddy bought himself a Fitbit. I have no idea why. But I suspect that, like me, he likes to watch the numbers rise. He likes the tangible, objective proof of his effort. And, though I would not have known it 2 months ago, we share a bit of competitive spirit. 

So was it the competitor in me that compelled me out again that afternoon? Maybe just a little. Mostly, though, it was knowing that I could. Knowing that I was able to move myself through a glorious world, inhaling goodness as I went. And so I went. 9,000 steps more as the evening stretched into night. 

And the evening gratitude walk habit was begun.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Uploaded by Elizabeth Foss on 2014-08-05.

Dave Matthews and Kenny Chesney: I'm Alive

What happened on the trail in July

In the beginning of July I told you about my Fitbit Flex. If you missed that post, take a minute and read it now; it's kind of necessary to this post. I'll wait. 

This picks up where that leaves off.

I resolved to walk 150 miles in July. I have a very short stride, so I'd noticed that 10,000 steps for most people was about 5 miles. For me, it was 4.2 miles. It took considerably more steps to get to 5 miles. I figured that I'd have my 10,000 steps a day goal and then I'd have my 5 mile a day goal. July has 31 days, so I left myself a buffer in case I just wasn't feeling it one day. But only one day. I wasn't going to to leave myself much margin. 

I quickly settled into an early morning routine, mapping out various routes in my neighborhood carefully so I knew how far to go and which way to return home to keep within my allotted time and distance goals. If I could get around 8,000 steps first thing in the morning, as long as I was conscious of taking the active route throughout the day (parking further away, going to fetch things in the house myself instead of sending an active child), I could hit the 10,000 steps goal. Then, an evening walk around the block usually capped the five mile mark.

A little before the middle of the month, we went to the beach. I say "we," but I took the four girls and Nick to Myrtle Beach, where the girls were competing at a dance competition. So, it wasn't a family vacation. It was a half-a-family trip to the beach. I was a little concerned about my walking routine--partly because I'm a creature of habit in a big way and partly because I knew that this particular parenting endeavor was going to take serious stress  management on my part. I'm very much out of my element at dance competitions (a subject for another lengthy essay, no doubt).

I had insomnia at the beach. I could not will my body to sleep past 4AM any morning I was there. So, I gave up trying. Instead, I got up and walked. It was dark and I was a little concerned about safety in a strange area, so I essentially walked the parking lot of the condos where we were staying, weaving in and out of lit stairways, for about an hour and a half every morning. I'd come to the beach with some heavy things on my heart and as I walked I listened first to Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake (reviewed a bit here) and then to John Gottman's The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (reviewed extensively here). Note: I wasn't having a proper midlife crisis; my marriage wasn't falling apart. I just had a lot of thinking to do and in the quiet of the South Carolina mornings, to the rhythm of my feet falling again and again, I started doing it. Soon, I was logging 10,000 steps first thing in the morning and only reluctantly going inside.

It was dark when I started and I watched the sun rise every day. I was glorying in being outside. Thick, humid Carolina air was having a field day with my hair and leaving me drenched by the end of the walk, but the sunshine? Absolutely golden. As soon as the sun came up, I moved from the parking lot to the many ponds and walked around them. I recognized quickly how much I'd missed fresh air and sunshine and how restorative both were to my soul. 

Then, we'd all trudge off to the air-conditioned convention center for the dance competition. At varied moments throughout the day, when the noise and the drama and crush of the crowd overwhelmed me, I'd take my iPhone, my earbuds, and my perpetually sneakered self over to the adjoining hotel. I'd get to the halls of guest rooms and I'd walk, listening to Divineoffice.org. In the quiet. Up one hall, up the stairs, down the next hall, up those stairs, up to the top and then down again. Then back to the convention center, a much calmer person. It ocurred to me that I was sneaking off to walk and I did briefly wonder about the addictive behavior aspect of that, but really, it seemed all good.

The  Fitbit Flex began to give me smiley faces and trophies and then, I watched something else happen. I'd gathered just a few people around me on Fitbit's "friend" page. Not long after starting to use it, I decided that I was going to limit my "friends" to only people I knew in person. I didn't want exercise to be another occasion of social media. I needed this walking world to be my world away from social media. So, I've got my kids there. Chrystal Hurst and Kat Lee, who walked with me in Colorado and inspired me to get going in the first place. And then, I have three college women who are Division 1 athletes. They're friends of Patrick's, but they're absolutely real life people. Could I be as active as they are, at least now, in the offseason? I watched as my stats stayed above theirs most days. And one of them became one my biggest encouragers. She was in Charlottesville, walking all the places I used to walk when I walked way more than 10,000 steps every day and I was home from the beach by then, nearly 30 years older than those fit college days, wondering exactly what the next thirty years might hold. Somehow, the connection and the raw numbers were very encouraging.

I had very few conversations at Sally's in Colorado. I was just too sick. And too shy. But Chrystal Evans Hurst went out of her way to find me and one of the things we talked about was finding writing time. I told her that I used do my "quiet time" on a stationery bike in my closet. I'd listen to Divine Office, pray, read something inspirational. Then, I'd write for awhile. Last winter, I realized this time was becoming less fruitful and I abandoned the bike for a couple hours of  time with Bible and journal every morning in a chair in my living room. 

Very fruitful. 

I wrote Restore following those intense quiet times and it is and probably always will be one of my favorite writing projects ever. But I was completely unmotivated to write much else. And I wasn't exercising at all. In early March, I got strep throat (and probably undiagnosed mono) and then I began the exhausting and unrelenting task of caring for several children with rare serious manifestations of adenovirus (another visit to the specialist today, by the way, pray?). The class times at the gym were always inconvenient. The pace of life unrelenting. All the way to mid-June-- when Chrystal persisted in asking, "But when will you exercise? And how will you find time to write?" She was the preacher's daughter. Couldn't she just say, "Wow! Two hours of quiet time in the morning every day? That's awesome. Go you. Nothing else matters."?

But she didn't. Instead, she said, "When will you write?" and "How many steps today?" The question hung heavy through the end of June and I pounded it out on the pavement those first few weeks of July.

Tomorrow, the answers and the unfolding of walking magic.

Thinking about Educating at Home?

Hi, there! If you are coming from I Take Joy, welcome! I've gotten several requests lately for thoughts on curriculum. It's that time of year again. As we move this blog from Typepad to Squarespace, I'll be sure to move homeschooling posts this month. In the meantime, if you're hunting around, wanting to know what I think, here are some links to get you going. 

There are lots and lots of notes on real learning at home and detailed booklists here.

I'm a firm believer in balancing academics with the rest of life. 

My thoughts on early chidlhood education are here, among other places. 

There is a complete, literature- and art- based early childhood curriculum here. It needs some sprucing up, I know, perhaps this year... 

Our learning at home is brought to you by storybooks. The idea is here and some of the ways we've lived it are here, in words and pictures. 

Oh, and I wrote a book on homeschooling. You don't have to pay $45.00 for a used copy on Amazon;-).  I think there are still new copies available here. And it's only $18.65.