My Ghost Story

A lot of good ghost stories take place in Thailand. Because in Thailand they believe in ghosts. It is part of their culture. They feed their dead ancestors on a daily basis. They give them a place to live in their houses and create a shrine to them. Essentially they ask for the ghosts to reside with them every day.

And I can tell you from the bottom of my little red veined heart that spirits listen.

I only have one tale that happened to me. I heard a lot of them. I felt chills up and down my back and the hair stand up on my arms more than once. I watched the teller’s face and had no doubt that they had been in the presence of a spirit. The spirits have a stronghold in that country. They have the power of belief and acknowledgement on their side. Belief is a force to be reckoned with whatever side it lies on.

I was a missionary in Thailand and lived there for 18 months. I was in one part of Bangkok for over 6 months. And resided in the same house for the whole time I was in that area. The Elders lived just 5 houses away in the same little neighborhood. There was some scary things that happened in their house but that is not my story for this Halloween Day. This is:

As missionaries we were required to sleep in the same room at night. One reason was because you were always supposed to be with your companion. For another, there was only one window air conditioner in the house and it was in the one bedroom. Therefore, you slept in the same room. It was a night no different than any of the others. I went to bed and quickly went to sleep. I woke up to find a presence hovering over the headboard of the bed. It was completely non material and was slightly emanating some kind of unearthly light. I was not disturbed by it at all. In fact, I felt really comforted by being in the realm of his glowing. The darkness of the room looked quite evil.
I knew it was a male spirit. And I knew that he was there to protect me. I looked around and there was another one at the foot of my bed. By now I was wide awake and I looked over at my companion’s bed and sure enough, there was two spirits at her bedside as well. I asked if they ever changed places, the head man and the foot man. And my voice came out in an icy breath that you could see in the room. He shook his head no.
And then suddenly there was quite a few other presences in the corner of my room. They were floating off the floor of that I am certain, although I have no idea how many there were. And they were singing. Somehow I knew, I knew if they stopped singing that my companion and I would not see the light of day. I could feel the pulsing of the evil outside their light. Outside the room. I could feel it’s anger and it’s power. But the singing was strong. StrongER. It was primary songs that I have known all my life. And they sang for what seemed like hours. I remember dozing off and waking back up to a different song. I remember singing along with them. I remember just knowing what the next song that they were going to sing was. And, yes, they were singing in English. My companion never woke up that night. I never thought to wake her either. They were enough. They stayed with me until sunlight came in through the window. The singers vanished first and then the two at the bed walked through the door. And my life became normal again.

I don’t tell this story that often. Who wants to be thought of as a loony? But there are unexplainable things that happen out there. Bad AND good things. So have fun trick or treating and make sure you save a candy bar for me.

2 anxiety causing questions

I might as well put this out there so if you so desire you can wait with me as well. Waiting. Not a good profession for me. It tends to go hand in hand with "the anxiety." You know, how some blue shirts bring out the color in your eyes. Well, waiting brings out the anxiety in me.

Luckily the waiting shouldn't be too long. But the outcome could bring on some terminal anxiety so hey! at least there is something to look forward too.

I think that the Petersons have come to some kind of life fork in the road. Maybe not but we have been given some opportunities that can change our lives and making the decision is what is causing the "a" word.

Last week Bart came home with a new job opportunity up in Idaho. Basically to go up there and do what he is doing down here. Only not for somebody but for himself. So instead of paying Brandon, his current boss, the $20 to 50,000 dollars a month and Bart taking home a decent and stable pay Bart would be the one taking home the $20 to $50,000 dollars a month. Yes, I did say a month. I myself am impressed with this amount of money. It means that I could stay home forever and we could plop money down on the table and BUY insurance. Bart is very impressed with this amount of money and goes around with green little dollar signs in his eyes. (Not his halloween costume.) I suppose that we are not up there right now because of course, it is not salary it is commission and while somebody is up there right now making this much money there is a risk. AND because we both realize our kids and ourselves have a good life right where we are. But I sense that Bart is thinking seriously about this new challenge. Do you give up happiness for more money?

So while we were looking up houses in McCall on the internet last week, Bart's secretary and his boss got into it. And the end result is that Bart no longer has a secretary/office manager/salesperson at his office. That = a job opening. Bart thinks I have been home long enough. Bart thinks it would be fabulous if I came and worked there to learn the ins and outs of his job so if and when we do move I could be a helper. If we don't move, I would be the partner when the boss gives the company over to his two main employees next year. Is it good for a marriage for spouses to work together?

Good thing I don't live in Nebraska

Sometimes my feelings will be running wild all over the place a million miles a minute and I will look up and see the mountains. So impending. So large. So immovable. They whisper to me that you don't have to move fast to be magnificent. The view will literally stop me. In my tracks. My head and my heart may even skip a beat.

I may be thinking of the beauty that is looming before me.
I may be thinking of the pioneers trying to climb their families over the hills in the snow.
I may be thinking of how I take the mountains for granted. I sometimes forget that they are there while my mind is racing and I am driving over the speed limit to get to my next engagement until I look up and they smack me in the face.

Then I can focus and for a couple more minutes I can hold it together.

Could it really only be 365 days ago?

This is the girls the first day of 7th grade just last year. Ryan is the one in the brown shirt. Please proceed down to the next picture for the metamorphosis.























Still the girls. But I can't help but detect a bit more attitude in this picture.

What do you think?

I have several theories percolating in my brain at this very moment. One has to do with sex so it might never see it's way on to the screen but there, here is my mention of the s word so I can proudly call myself racy today.

Can we even call that a good try? hmmm.

Another one of the theories has to do with what we talk about every day. Sports. Bart and I have had countless conversations on how to motivate the kids to want to do their best. Bart's football team's motto is DO YOUR JOB. How succinct, don't you think? If everyone does their job then the win will come. The quarterback will make a good pass because that falls in his job description. The reciever will catch the ball and deftly handle it to the end zone because he is on task. The blockers will defend and not let a man get through because that is their job. It is a good motto.

My son and his 11 year old friends have shown the skill and talent at practice. They have shown the love of the game in front of my house, in the street, at recess, at 6 am in the morning, at 3 times a week practices. They like each other as a team and also shown that at my house many times inviting them over for football or even sometimes playdoh. However, they have only won two games this year and if asked Bart and the other coaches would say (expletives excluded) they don't do their jobs in games. For whatever reason.

But that is the question, isn't it? What reason is there that they don't do their jobs during game time, the one hour of the week that they actually have spectators and cheerleaders, they get to wear their nifty new uniforms that make them look like "MEN" I've been told, they get to hit people that are not on their own team?!?!

Bart and I have a theory. Simply put, we live in a new area of town. Young marrieds. Young families. Starter homes. These kids for the most part are the firstborn children. They have not sat at the sidelines of siblings games and practices. They have not watched their brothers and older friends play street ball. They have not sat glued to the TV for the 149th superbowl because they are just coming out of the spongebob phase and there has been nobody to change the channel on them. We play against many east side teams. This is a more established neighborhood area. The 10 year olds are the younger kids of the family. They have witnessed and been part of a family tradition of Saturday football on the field and Monday night football at home. They have thrown around a pigskin since they were two. Now ten, they have lived the game so much more than these first borns who were brought up by their mothers and their fathers, not their siblings.

Today I gained scientific based proof on these thoughts. Cooper came home from school and we started the How Was School Today conversation. We have already establshed that the best part of school is recess. Usually we start with that.
"Mom, do you know what is sad? Today I versed Brian in football and he tackled me. Me! He tackled me. Isn't that sad? Nobody tackles me. So I tackled him when he had the ball and he. cried!"
"Cooper, you have to be careful. People are not going to want to play football with you if you hurt them.'
"Mom. That. is. how. you. play. football. You. injure. people." He says this through gritted teeth exasperated that he must even give voice to this absolute truth.

Let's face it. Chase was brought up by Little Bear, Maisy, Steve and Blue and me. Love. Sharing. Cleaning up with a song. Not a helmet or a groin cup in sight. But Cooper. His mentors are Chase, Chase's friends and Ryan. He will be that second generation football player. The one that got brought up by his siblings. The one that is not afraid to hit back. The one that has been hit by a football in his face by his brother and told to laugh it off. The one that learned the end zone dance and loved to do it naked in front of all the friends.

I think that 2010 is going to be a winning season.

Just Kidding

Obviously I am just kidding. I would NEVER have a moose in my house. However, I do know a good deal when I see one so I did buy this for my mother and father as a lawn decoration. I hope they will rearrange and have the moose running after the garden gnomes who will be trying to climb up the trees.

I have the hottest shuffle on my ipod right now. I have it hooked up into my ihome alarm clock next to my bed and I can't hardly wait to get to bed to turn it on and listen. A lot of Alison Krauss, a lot of Dixie Chicks, a smidgen of the Police and a dash of some 70's disco. My oh my.

You don't see one of these every day

Look at what I got Bart for Christmas. I didn't think it would come so soon but I can't wait to give it to him. I hope he will want to put it downstairs because it would make the front room a bit crowded.

Thursday and you know what that means

My friend is a pharmacist manager at a big chain store. She has an pharmacist tech that works with her who is extremely good looking. She really likes him because he is nice as well. And young. And single.

My friend is not the only one that has noticed these desirous traits of his. The other day a customer came up to the counter. She motioned over toward Jake and said "I would like pharmacist McDreamy to help me out today if he could."

A Letter to the Daughter

Dear Ryan

I am writing this letter to say I am sorry about Wednesday night. I am not sorry for what I said. But I am sorry about how I said it. I am sorry about the emotion behind it. I am sorry because I am completely befuddled by being the mother of a 13 year old. And I don't know quite how to do the job correctly.

I can't tell you how my feelings toward you have changed since I have quit my job and been able to stay at home. My feelings are so much.......bigger. Every feeling that I have for you is bigger. More intense. Maybe I have let you become a person. Not that I had to let you for you to start becoming. But that I have acknowledged that you are. A real live person with your own feelings and opinions and agendas.

It has always been a scary thing for me to love another person. I probably don't do it well. I definately don't show love to others well. Even when I think I am doing my best. Even when the love is not fragile and it is not fickle I hold onto it deep inside like a treasure. For it is just that. However, love is a treasure to be shared. I know that with my heart but my anxiety fueled mind keeps me prisoner sometimes.

But with you, I not only have this new and tender love for an amazing and talented young lady who is also my daughter but I have this duty. This responsibility. This stewardship as a mother to make sure that you know you are loved. To make sure you have enough love from your family members that you don't feel you have to go out and find it somewhere else. I feel this mantle about my shoulders every day.

Being a parent is a tightrope act. I can't make all your decisions or you never learn independence. I have to exercise my parental "NO" or else you would choose things that you are not yet old enough for. I can push you toward things and support you in them knowing that at some point simply me giving support is enough to make you rebel from those very things. I can't tell you things are important when I am not showing you by example that they are.

I have given up years of my life for your soccer career. And yet I know some of it is selfish. I love it. I love the game. I love team sports. I love watching you and all the kids get better at something. I love being part of something that has energy. I revere anything that can change so many lives for good. I see it as a positive influence in my life, your life, even your brother's lives are richer for the time they have had to spend on the playground or on the side of the field on a beautiful fall day rather than in front of the TV or playing video games. I am invested.

And then when I see you choosing to be friends with the girl with the worst attitude on the team I cringe. I watch her out on the field. She runs like the wind. She plays hard. Her attitude is fake. She wants to excel. She is involved in the goal. Amazing but then the game ends. Her heavy cloak of attitude is pulled right back on. Immediately. Always. I feel sorry for her but I hold my tongue. She is not a primary player in your life. This is not one of the battles I choose to fight.

But Wednesday night you chose her over your team. Not surprisely, she's too cool to give team cheers. Seen that. Known that. Apparently as a team coach I can overlook that. Apparently as a mother I cannot. I can't allow you to show disrespect to your coach by not participating. I can't allow you to lose out on all the positive rewards of being on a team and becoming part of something that is bigger than you. I can't allow you to be another bad example to all the other girls there. At least not without saying something. And say something I did. In essence, I just said DON'T. I didn't explain why. I was angry and I was disappointed that we were losing. So there was too much emotion in my words as well.

I hope you know why I had to say something to you. I hope I have parented you enough that you know what you did wrong. And I also hope that my love, my pride, my belief in you is the background wallpaper in your heart and these little corrective interchanges that will continue to happen will be exactly that: little.

You are doing so good at the growing up thing. Wow.
Love,
Your mom

Love captured

I am the officially unofficial photographer of Ryan's soccer team. Please enjoy just a few of the images that I love from the game on the sidebar.

I can't believe how much the girls have grown since this past year. And I do mean emotionally. And I do mean athletically. This season we did move up a division so we are playing all new and better teams than last year. Obviously we are not winning every game but there have been some brillant games. Some awesome effort. Incredible plays.

I wish I could capture more of the intensity, the fun, the camaderie on camera but hopefully when I put the pictures all together on a DVD with music at the end of the season it will mean something.

I do realize that at this time of the girl's lives, it is truly the parents that make 90% of the decisions in their lives. We are the ones that paid the club fees, we are the ones that drive them to practice every week. We are the ones that make sure that their uniforms are clean for the games. We are the ones that buy the Gatorade. So even if the DVD means something to the parents and not the girls, I will feel validated.

The girls may just see a picture of themselves with disheveled hair, a sweaty upper lip and an awkward body pose.
The parents will see their baby pure and wonderful and perfect.

Confused

Does it mean that I have been home for too long when I want to buy perfume with just the tad scent of Febreeze and a faint but definite bouquet of clorox bleach?

An Apology to the Universe

Yesturday: It was the weekend. We had done our familial duties. 8 hours of youth sports. In the rain. The wind. The sun. It seemed only right that we should go out and spend a bit of time with adults. Nothing too crazy. At the last minute, we decided to go out to dinner with two other couples. They were close friends. None of this "getting to know you" conversation was necessary. The scenario was very familiar.

We spent 3 hours at the table. It was relaxing. And there was a lot of laughing. Unfortunately most of the laughing came at the expense of another couple that we all know and wasn't there. There was a lot of teasing. Unfortunately most of the fun came from light barbs and cracks about stupid things that were mostly negative about marriage, about sex, about men vs. women, about money sharing. I don't think anyone went home feeling hurt but I don't think that anyone went home feeling uplifted, energized, validated either.

I told Bart later that I didn't see one positive thing come from our night out. How horrible. Not one affirmative feeling, vibe, sparkle went out into the universe from my actions last night. In fact, I think.....er, I know not only did nothing constructive come from my night but maybe there was a negative residue that was left from the night. And so I apologize, o universe. I know better. I know that there are too many nonsparkle things in this world already. I know I don't want that to be my legacy.

Bart does think I am a freak and that's fine but he understands. I am no way saying that one cannot relax, take a break, veg out or do nothing even for an extended amount of time and not continue to be part of the positive. I remember the first time I ever consciously had a perfect day. And it was a day of play. A day of fun. Danny, the same boy mentioned in the previous KISS post had a catamaran which is a sail boat. I think it was our freshman year when he and his couple of friends decided to spend spring break camping and sailing at Chesapeake Bay. Despite all the whining and crying, Jill and I never did get permission to accompany them for the whole week. So we had to be satisfied with a couple of day trips. One day we packed up a lumberjack's breakfast, loaded a couple more of our friends in the car and set off at 4 in the morning. We got there right in time to cook the breakfast buffet and then spend the whole day on the water. There was sun. There was splashing. There was dunking. There was reciting "The Breakfast Club" and "Sixteen Candles" movies word for word contests. There was kissing. Nothing important got done that day. But I remember sitting on the dock watching the sun setting into that endless puddle of water and thinking "Jesus Christ could've spent the day with us." There had not been one derogatory remark. There had not been mean taunts or teasing. There had not been anything to taint the day. The whole day. For me it was startling and life altering realization. You don't have to be in church, you don't have to be serious, you don't even have to be thinking about religious or spiritual things because life and living is spiritual. Having fun, learning, caring about another human being and enjoying the sun is part of the spiritual agenda.

But last night was another story. And I am so sorry.

The Ghouls are definately out and about

Cooper and his neighor friend Zach. Still too young to think it is not cool to smile for the camera.

The triple threat. Could not even bother to smile for me although I did boss them into the wagon.

This pumpkin patch is a 17 acre piece of land in the smack dab middle of our too fast growing city. All of our houses are squooshing out the farms, the horse properties, the untamed wilderness areas. And it so makes me sad. New houses just don't have enough foilage. The new neighborhoods are just naked. Today in the car we were in another part of the city and Cooper looked out the window and said "Oh, I like that house."
There was such passion in his voice I was interested to see what house he was referring to. No house in sight.
"I don't see a house, Cooper." Chase and I said in unison.
"Over there. You can't see the house but it is over there with all those trees." There was a large pocket of mature trees on one of the corners of the intersection we were out. "I like trees. I want to live in a house with trees. Mom, you like trees too. Can we live in that house?"
"Cooper, we have trees at our house now." Chase is so quick to point out wrongful thinking.
"Yea, but they are little trees. And I want big trees at my house. Mom and me like the shade. We like the tall trees, huh Mama?"

Sometimes I worry what will happen when Bart's 7 year plan comes to fruition. We will have enough money to move out of the city and have lots and lots of trees. By then Ryan will be out of the house, Chase will have just finished high school but Cooper will have to be dragged from his friends, his school, his reputation that has been firmly established here in the city. Sometimes I worry but then we have conversations like these and I think how could I doubt the love of trees?

What I have really been doing

I'm a little behind the times and just decided to reintroduce myself to prime time television. I've never seen Grey or any of her anatomy until this past week. I bought season 1 and season 2 at Costco and the television gods couldn't be happier. They have hooked another addict.

Come on. If you had just watched 32 episodes of Grey's Anatomy in the last two week you wouldn't be posting too much either.

I mean, after watching what is going on in Izzy's life there really isn't too much to complain about here .....in realityland.

After watching what is going in George's life I had all of us go and get a haircut.

After watching what is going on with Kristina, well, who am I to think my life could ever compete with Kristina's?

After watching what is going on with Meredith, I started wearing a whole lot more black panties.

Question number 172

Why do we even have a door on our bathroom? There is not one time, one time that I have a private moment to myself. If it is not one of the kids, it is tried and true that the phone rings or the doorbell sounds. Seriously, there is some sort of karma going on. Truly, I know that I deserve it. I was the best at having to go to the bathroom when there was every any chore going on at my house when I was a kid. But see my husband now plays that same trick on me

(is it a trick if the trickee knows just what the tricker is doing?)

so why would I need to be double karmaed in the way of not being able to get a second in the bathroom?