shannydokes's Xanga

I Went Yard Sale-ing All Morning Long, and all I Got Was This Lousy Bobblehead

Sat, 10 May 2008 23:29:32 GMT

Believe it or not, there is an "Empire Today" Carpet Guy Bobblehead - Steve found him at a yard sale this morning, and was so blown away by him that the woman (who couldn't stop laughing at his reaction) gave him the stupid bobblehead for FREE - not that we would have paid a cent for it. There are not many commercials that rile Steve quite as much as the insipid "Call 1-800-588-2300 TODAY" carpet commercials - might have something to do with Steve actually calling them one time and having them show up at our house with horrid, cheap carpet far from 50% off Home Depot (in fact, the guy told us we should call Home Depot if we insisted on higher quality stuff). So now this little guy sits on my t.v. room coffee table waiting for someone to decide what to do with him. This picture doesn't do him justice. He is REALLY, REALLY CREEPY.

Life is not a .... well, you'll see

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:12:34 GMT

I didn't make it to church on Sunday, and yes, I felt guilty. But Emma was at a youth group retreat, and Steve was down with a pretty bad cold, and needed meds, so I opted to drop Ben off at his Sunday school class and head to Target to buy meds for my hubby. We often joke when we drive by places like Target, that are packed to the gills on Sunday morning, "the pagans are out worshipping this morning." Mean, judgemental, but it always gets a giggle. And sure enough, Target was packed at 9:00 this Sunday morning, so I hurried and got my stuff and tried to find the shortest line. I got behind a couple that had a cart stuffed with cases of soda, Doritos, etc. Breakfast, I guessed. The woman was loudly talking to the clerk, obviously recognizing her from her past, and was gleefully telling her all the wonderful things that had happened to her in the past few years, houses, husbands, and sure enough, she pulled up her sweatshirt to show the clerk (and all the rest of us lucky enough to be there) her "baby belly." The clerk stood looking a little stunned while the woman rattled on and on and her husband, obviously embarrassed, grabbed the bags in an effort to escape. Then the inevitable question: "And what's new with you? How's Dan?" In the quietest voice she could muster, the clerk explained that things were done with Dan, and she was back in town living with her mom. The pregnant one actually squealed, "you're living with your MOM??" Ugh. The husband finally grabbed control of the situation, said their goodbyes for both of them, and escorted his wife over to the food court for, I saw later, the biggest cup of Mountain Dew I've ever seen (no kidding).

So there I was, alone with the clerk. "Good morning, ma'am" she said. Double ugh. I had my best "not ma'am" outfit on, ratty jeans, sneakers and my PITT hoodie. I was in no way looking like a ma'am, but I was feeling sorry for her so I smiled and said hi. I slid my card in the little card thingie, looked up, and the dear woman was wiping tears off her face. I was stunned, but even more stunned when she smirked at me and stated, "My life sucks." Wow. I had not even combed my hair yet that morning, I was really not prepared for this. But for some reason I got angry that someone could reduce someone else to tears that easily that early in the morning, and I opened my mouth and said, "You know, life is not a pissing contest. You're not in competition with that woman." It worked, she smiled and let out a laugh. "I live with my mom." "You've got your mom, and a place to live. You look healthy, you've got a job, and opportunity to turn things around. You look like you are doing okay to me." "Thanks," she said, a little lighter sounding. But, of course, I was not done. "You know, we're here to store up treasures in heaven, not beat everybody else at the loot game. Loving your neighbor is more important than getting the Volvo." Now she was looking at ME, stunned. I realized I was standing there telling a clerk at TARGET on a Sunday morning that material possessions were irrelevant. It was time for me to leave.

By the way, the baby mama was driving away with her hubby in a shiny black Suburban when I walked out, yapping away at him. Sigh.

Landon James

Thu, 01 May 2008 21:20:10 GMT

The Book of Wisdom 4:7-15
a blameless life is a ripe old age.

The just man, though he die early, shall be at rest.
For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time,
nor can it be measured in terms of years.
Rather, understanding is the hoary crown for men,
and an unsullied life, the attainment of old age.
He who pleased God was loved;
he who lived among sinners was transported -
Snatched away, lest wickedness pervert his mind or deceit beguile
his soul;
For the witchery of paltry things obscures what is right
and the whirl of desire transforms the innocent mind.
Having become perfect in a short while, he reached the
fullness of a long career;
for his soul was pleasing to the Lord,
therefore he sped him out of the midst of wickedness.
But the people saw and did not understand,
nor did they take this into account.
The Word of the Lord.

(read at Landon's funeral service, February 5, 2008, Mansfield, Mass.)

Landon James Zimmerman

January 24, 2007 - January 30, 2008

Rest sweet, little one. It seems our tears will never dry.

I Just Can't Let It Go

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:41:06 GMT

I haven't taken down my Christmas tree yet.

In years past, that would not have been possible. By this date it would have been a pathetic corpse of a tree, no needles, sagging branches, a fire hazard at best. But a few years ago I got me a brand new shiny, 8 ft. fake Christmas tree, with branches that take days, not hours, to assemble and hold more lights and ornaments that any family has a right to ever own. BTW, don't ever buy a Christmas tree in a warehouse store. When we first laid eyes on it in the massive Loew's down the street, it was cute and full, and not fake looking. When we got it home, it still wasn't fake looking, but it takes up (over) half of our living room, and the poor angel on top in perpetually bent over in order to fit. I thought I wanted to get rid of it this year when we first put it up, it just was TOO MUCH, but now it threatens to become a permanent fixture in our home. Why? Because it is so pretty, and twinkly, and cheerful, and it makes me happy when I sit in the same room with it, which has been all the time lately.

When you live in Pittsburgh, the chances of seeing the sun for more than a few hours a month during the winter are slim, and the cloud covered sky makes everything else seem brown or grey and just pretty miserable. And this year we have for some reason escaped the massive storms of the midwest and east, so we haven't even had a good snow to cover the mud and rotting leaves left all over the landscape this year. Ugh. So when I come home from work each night I run upstairs and put my jammie pants on and my fluffy bathrobe, grab the knitting, and sit with the twinkling tree all night, and I just feel better. It's more fun (and cheaper) than a sun lamp. It might never come down.

Resolute

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:29:17 GMT

resolute (rěz'ə-lōōt', rěz'ə-lōōt') adjective

1. Doing what one has decided to do, in spite of opposition, criticism etc (emphasis mine)

2. Firm or determined; unwavering.

My new year's resolution? To be resolute.

Fixing Life

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:04:30 GMT

I hate to be blindsided. It's a major fear in my life, I'm sure brought on by a father who made it a sport on a daily basis with his six kids while we were growing up. My mom told me years later that he did it to keep all of us off balance so we wouldn't gang up on him as a unit. It worked. I realize now that being blindsided is a pretty common occurrence in most people's lives, and I have watched friends and acquaintances deal with such incidences calmly and rationally, and get on with life. Not me. I flail, panic, become even more controlling, panic, try everything I can to get it to stop, stop, stop, panic, control some more, and finally find something to end the panic and pain. I am then drained, and it takes me months to get over it, just in time to be blindsided again. So I try harder to control the calm times so as to avoid being blindsided at all, which of course doesn't work, either. Sigh.

I got blindsided in August. Boom, hit me like a brick, in the worst area to hit me in, one of my kids. The panic was stronger, the pain stronger, the controlling stronger. Usually, my arsenal of solutions holds something that at least calms things down to a dull roar for awhile, but not this time. Everything I did made things worse. But I kept trying, and making things worse, and worse, until I became paralyzed with panic and grief. I started shutting down, avoiding people, not sleeping, and yes, not knitting.

I have friends who listened to me calmly for months about this, when I would let them, when I wasn't avoiding them as well. One night one of these friends asked me as we sat around the campfire what was the worst thing that could happen in this situation. Really, the worst thing. When I stopped and thought for awhile and told him what I thought the worst thing was, he told me that that wasn't really all that bad, and I needed to let go and let it happen if it was going to. That I was keeping my kid from growing up and taking responsibility by trying to protect myself from the inevitable grief I was going to feel when it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. It wasn't about me. Let go.

I'm trying that. My friend Susan tells me that she believes God finally gave me something I couldn't control to show me that I was never in control anyway. As I look back now I realize how much more difficult I have made situations in my life because of my fear of being blindsided and the fear of feeling out of control that it causes in me. I think I am at the point in my life where handing that over is easier than carrying it around forever. It won't be easy, but neither is fear.

Wailing

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:40:11 GMT

It has been a stormy few weeks in Pittsburgh, Pa., and a very stormy few weeks here in the Hostetter household. After enjoying an unusually long stretch of peace and serenity, we as a family have been hit with challenges, disappointments and attacks galore (and with two teenagers we were expecting......?) Nights have been sleepless, days filled with new (not good) surprises, difficult phone calls, fearfulness and lots and lots of anger. I am feeling very worn down, beaten up and bloodied, and we don't know if things will be better tomorrow, or will completely blow up in our faces. Sigh.

But I love Sunday mornings. I get out of bed with a joyful expectancy that has not been dashed once since I found my little church almost two years ago. I always feel loved, appreciated and safe with this particular body of believers, a gift beyond measure. So I dragged my sad, fearful, weary heart over to West View this morning knowing good things awaited me. And this is what I heard:

A man named Mark, who lost a very young son to cancer eight years ago, talked about playing in the rain with his remaining two sons awhile back, and having a "life is good" moment recognizing that, with all the storms that have come into their family's lives (and there have been many), God has continued to bless them with the gift of laughter and play, and how blessed he is to have his wife and sons to laugh with. The storms are always going to come, and you should expect them, he said, and be delighted when God brings laughter and joy into your life as well.

And a man whose name I don't even know told the story of hiking in the woods last summer with his one year old son strapped in a carrier on his back. They were about a mile away from their cabin when a strong storm blew in over the lake, and it began to rain. He reached back and pulled his son's hood over his head and began to walk quickly as the rain began pelting down. Then the lightning began, and the thunder, and his son began whimpering, so he walked faster. The rain became a torrent and they were suddenly completely drenched, when from behind him his son began wailing, a heartrending sound he had never heard before, filled with fear and frustration and complete helplessness. He quickly undid the latches on the carrier and placed it on the ground, picked up his son and wrapped him up in his arms close to his heart, and began talking to him as he walked, saying, "I love you little buddy, Daddy knows the way home, we'll get there, don't worry, Daddy's got you." And it wasn't until much later, when they were home and dry and his son was sleeping, and he was sitting there feeling the joy of being father, protector and comforter, that he recognized what God does with us, his children, all the time. He picks us up and carries us as we are wailing, and comforts and protects us, and makes us safe.

Every few weeks at church one of the pastors will ask if there is anyone in the congregation who came to church that morning with a heavy burden on their heart, and would they raise their hand if they felt comfortable and allow people in the congregation to surround them and pray for them (I love this congregation). And when I looked around I saw my friend Patty, whose beautiful 16-year-old granddaughter, Shannon, fell from the sky in a single engine plane last summer, and who is still tormented with the vision of her Shannon screaming in terror and dying as she hit that mountain. She had her hand up and tears were flowing, so I went to her and threw my arms around her like God does with us and held her close and told her over and over that Shannon wasn't up in the mountain anymore, she was with Jesus, protected and safe, and she could let that vision go. And as Patty wailed, I wailed, too, and I think God heard us both.

Come ye sinners, poor and needy
Weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready stands to save you
Full of pity, love, and power

Come ye thirsty, come and welcome
God's free bounty glorify
True belief and true repentance
Every grace that brings you nigh

I will rise and go to Jesus
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior
Oh, there are ten thousand charms

Come ye weary, heavy-laden
Lost and ruined by the fall
If you tarry until you're better
You will never come at all

I will rise and go to Jesus
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior
Oh, there are ten thousand charms

--Todd Agnew, Come Ye Sinners

Simple. Perfect. Simply perfect.

Peace.

Helen Louise

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:50:15 GMT

It's not her birthday. It's not even the anniversary of her death. And I didn't have any thoughts about writing about my mom.

But my daughter, the joy of my heart, did something this week that startled me and has me tearing up and gazing off still, and I'm feeling compelled.

Meg, my oldest, started a Xanga site this week, and on her first blog she wrote this:

It was actually my mom who inspired me to do this, and I'm sure she's proudly smiling as she reads this. I sat down one evening to read through her blogs, and beyond being thoroughly entertained......I also found that I was learning stuff about my own mom!! By the time I got to the end of her page, I had decided to venture into the world of blogging. I was so amused and impressed, and I loved having some insight into the daily things that my mom cared enough about to write about. I could do this, right? After all, I am my mother's daughter.

So why am I writing about my mom? Because I didn't know or understand my mom at all, and, eleven years after her death, it haunts me almost daily. At her funeral I sat with my five siblings and our families, in shock that she was gone and sad beyond belief that she and I could never seem to gel, to never become friends. As the rector talked about my mom, he said something that has confounded me for eleven years -- he said that Louise was a difficult person to know, that she pushed people away, even (especially) those that she loved, because she didn't feel worthy of their love and attention. I looked around the sanctuary, at my siblings, my mom's friends, anybody to see if they were as shocked as I to hear what I just heard--You mean it wasn't JUST ME?? I was literally stunned. What came so casually out of a man's mouth that had only known her for a few years was a major revelation to her 39-year-old middle daughter. I thought she just didn't like me. To this day, I don't know if she did or not, and I never will. I learned the most important thing about my mom three days after she died. If I had been more observant, or more in tune with her, or something, our relationship, I believe, would have been different.

I have felt very connected to my mom since her funeral, and it's a wild ride that I take almost daily, figuring out my mom, and me and my mom. I see her every day in things that I do, or feel, or remember. The animosity is gone as I recognize that I am like her in so many ways, and that's okay. I took up knitting because the first Christmas that she was gone was heartbreaking when the knitted dishcloths for her daughters were absent. And ten minutes after picking up my needles and yarn, I am asleep on the couch with my mouth hanging open, just like she was. I pick at my lower lip till it bleeds when I am anxious or tired, something I can still envision her doing, and see my siblings and my daughters do as well. I hate making dinner, but I love to cook. I whine when I come home from work that I just put in an 8-hour day and that should be enough, a feeling she expressed often. I find (and sing) a song that goes with every comment my children make, which irritates them as much as it did us when we were kids.

I am also not like her in many ways. I am not as strong as she was. She bore six children while moving an average of every two years with an alcoholic, abusive husband who was never there for her, or all those children. When he finally physically left her she was much younger than I am now and still had five of those kids at home. She had to work two jobs after being a stay at home mom for decades, had her home and car taken from her by the bank, had the electricity and gas turned off on a regular basis, and was never there to send her kids off to school or welcome them home again. And yet, when she found out she had cancer, and "the horses were already out of the barn," she said that she couldn't complain, she had had a good life. We didn't see it like that, but she did.

The rector paused for a few minutes at her funeral to give us all a chance to forgive Louise for things she had done against us, and to ask Louise's forgiveness for our transgressions against her. I am still doing that today. I ask her forgiveness for being too hardheaded and self-centered to see and understand, and be more of a help. I know now how hard life can be. I ask her forgiveness for taking her grandchildren away from her those years that I didn't understand her, and would stay away. I forgive her for never being able to hug me or tell me she loved me when I was growing up, and thank her for finally doing that the months before her death. It meant everything.

Thanks, Meg, for making your mom feel like maybe she's on the right path with you and Emma and Ben. I want you to know me and what I think and feel before somebody else has to tell you after I'm gone. I know it's hard to see your parents as flesh and blood humans with feelings and lives when you are busy developing yours, and I love you so much for trying.

Lazy Hazy Days??!!

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:53:06 GMT

A few years ago (okay, probably more than a few) there was a t.v. commercial on that had sweet, slow music, wonderful images of wheat fields and sand dunes, and people drinking huge glasses of lemonade, smiling sweetly at each other as they swung their feet from the hammock they were occupying together for the afternoon. Country Time Lemonade, if I remember correctly. It drove me crazy back then (I was probably nursing a baby with sweat dripping everywhere in my 90° livingroom with laundry piled high), and for some reason I cannot get it out of my head today. I couldn't understand back then, nor can I now, how anybody could think that summertime was the season to slow down, slack off, lie around. It has never been that way for me, and I hated when that commercial would come on because I felt like I was missing out on something. Then I got older and looked around and realized that nobody slows down, slacks off, lies around. For one thing, there is now yardwork to add to the pile of chores for the week, so not only are you responsible for the inside of your house being organized and tidy, but the outside of your house better look like Better Homes & Gardens so you won't embarrass the neighbors (who mow twice a week and are always the first to shovel in the winter.).

And if you hate AC (and I do) and love having the windows open (and I do) the inside of your house looks and feels like dust central (especially since they are working day and night on the Parkway right outside your front door). So while you are outside weeding and raking and sweeping and mowing, you know you should be inside dusting and mopping and sometimes making dinner for the family. I can't keep up, I have stopped trying, I even bought some lemonade this week. The frozen concentrate kind.

Ben took off on his mission trip to Slidell, Louisiana this past Saturday. http://www.slidell.la.us/ He is drywalling houses that have been gutted from Katrina almost two years ago. This is the same boy who considers it work figuring out what to make for breakfast when he finally gets himself up for the day. I love him dearly, he's a great kid, but he never offered to help drywall any of the 13 rooms in this house a few years back, and we spent gobs of money to send him down south to do just that for perfect strangers. Just kidding, I am thrilled and proud of him for going, and will have pictures hopefully to show (if he remembers that I packed a camera right next to the toothpaste and deodorant.).

Emma has been volunteering her time doing two different Vacation Bible Schools this week, one at Beulah Church (the mission group that Ben is with) and one at our church in West View. So add chauffeur to my list (the laundry will just have to wait). She is also trying to finish up school while Ben is away and can't hassle her all day, but I think she might be slacking off, slowing down, lying around. The lemonade is going rather fast.

And just so you know that I am doing something, and to prove this is a knitting blog after all, I have been making some good progress on my fan and feather shawl, not a quick knit by any means.

And then there's Harry Potter.........doesn't lazy and hazy sound good?

Knit Wit

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:39:57 GMT

Some of my family and a few friends who have been reading my Xanga site have asked me why I suddenly decided to expound in a public forum. And I tell them it's because of my knitting. Which confuses them, because I said nothing about my knitting on my Xanga site. (So here are a few things I have done lately.)

I have been a voracious reader of knitting blogs for a long time (yes, there are such things), which often takes away from the time I have to actually knit, which is silly. (So is going to the store and squeezing yarn and drooling over needles, but I can't stop myself from doing that, either.) And I have always wanted my own blog, but have been a little intimidated by the idea. Then I found Xanga, and it looked like it wasn't going to eat up all my time and brain cells to figure out, so I did it, and it sat here, and sat here, for the longest time. I didn't have a single thing to write about. And then one night my dog ran away, and it was so traumatic that I started writing. And it felt good to have a voice. I realized that at home I listen, and at work, I listen, and at church, I listen -- I've got good ears, and no voice. I wanted to call my weblog "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things," but even I thought that was a bit corny. Shannydokes is a nickname my Uncle Ray gave me when I was very little, the only nickname I have ever had (that I've been told about). It's one of my favorite things, and Uncle Ray was a favorite uncle. It was a good and fitting start.