Posts from — February 2009

I can hardly think of 25 random things that you do not already know about me. I’ve been tagged in more of these than I can count and I’ve scoffed at the idea until now because, well, I have nothing better to write about! (P.S. I realize some of these items make me sound like quite the, um, well, “prude”(?) but I was trying to think of things that might be surprising to my current readers – who might know me as rather, well, um, “granola”(?) )

1. I was born on a communal plantation in Mississippi — my father delivered me
2. I was a varsity basketball cheerleader my freshman year of high school (and hated it. with a passion.)
3. I went to 9 different elementary schools.
4. Since my hair began to grow, I have had a patch of hair on the crown of my head that is made of FRIZZY curls, which I finally cut super short and parted my hair to “comb over” it so no one sees this when I was 8. It’s still there. Another reason I don’t let other people cut my hair, so I don’t have to explain it!

5. I have had 4 last names. “Snoddy” (unofficially), “Melancon” til I was 7, “Melody” til I was 18, and “Ortecho” since then.
6. I am 1 of 7 brothers and sisters, but was only raised with one older brother.
7. I started what I called “Yesha Ladies Ministry” in my public high school to mentor young girls.
8. I played the viola for 5 years, though somewhat half-heartedly. I developed tendinitis in my shoulder really bad and decided to give it up.
9. I was in a handful of high school plays and musicals, including the “nurse” in Romeo and Juliet in which the fat suit made me pass out for a few minutes after the curtain closed. No one even noticed.

10. At 16, I “kissed dating goodbye” and avoided males until I met Hubby (almost 18).
11. I got married at 18. I had my first child at 21. I started my own business at 22.
12. I lead “MarriageLife” ministry/student organization for married and engaged students at my college for 2 years.
13. From middle school (when I actually began to notice) until I graduated college, I made less than 5 B’s total.
14. I was raised by my single father since I was 2.
15. I used to love Mariah Carey. I had all her cassette’s, was in her fan club, and named my siamese cat “Mariah”. I lost interest around the “butterfly” album.
16. I once paid a taxi 25 dollars to pick up cookie dough for me when I was in middle school staying the night at a friends house (if Carissa ever reads this: do you remember that?!)
17. I sang a lot in high school, in the praise band, etc. Largest crowd I have had a solo in front of was around 700. One of the colleges I was originally going to go to was in Missouri, and after my audition I was offered a $4,000/year scholarship to sing on their contemporary christian traveling girl team. I really haven’t sang much in 6 years, though, so this seems like a world away.

18. I was really scrawny before puberty and very self-conscious about it, I even drank protein shakes to GAIN weight.
19. I have a large scar on my calf from my cat (you guessed it, Mariah the crazy siamese) who attacked my leg when I was 14.
20. I have never smoked anything (cigarette, pot, etc) or taken any drug. The strongest drug I have ever taken was something for my nausea when I was pregnant.
21. I have only laid with one man
22. I love peanut butter. There are very few things I don’t like it on. I eat it daily on bread, waffles, pancakes, celery, carrots, desserts I call “peanut butter balls”, so on.
23. I have hands-down, the WORST silent-but-deadly gas ON THE PLANET… which I am so glad I can blame on IBS.
24. In 5th grade, I was suspended from school for one day and given 3 weeks of detention for being one of a group of playground kids to coerce our two friends into kissing! LOL (My dad wrote a strict THIS IS BS letter to the principal and I got out of the detention.)
25. I have 12 aunts and uncles, plus their spouses and children. I would guess that’s around… oh, maybe around 30 first cousins alone. Dem Cajun’s don’t know how to use birth control

Whew, I did it! Who knew I was so interesting? (not.)

Well, last night’s thing with Shane Claiborne was awesome. My favorite things he said were that – “the world can’t afford the American dream”. That “if every American actually had their ideal middle class life, then statistically we would need 4 planets”. (quotes paraphrased a bit based on my faulty memory ) I loved when his friend Chris was giving advice to a young man who had moved himself and his wife into low-income housing after reading Shane’s book in order to start building “intentional community” with the poor. Chris told him that’s why its called intentional community – it doesn’t just happen. “But in the meantime”, he said, “if you want to build community, work on your marriage! That’s part of your community right there!”

Yep, good stuff. Especially since I got to share tea with 3 lovely mama’s afterwards

The main topic of my inner life this week has been all about anger. Yes, I can say “irritability” so it sounds more neatly packaged and normal, esp for a pregnant woman. But anger is tough for me, both to feel AND to admit.
For some people, being sad seems “bad”. Crying and showing this emotion, or allowing oneself to take time to grieve and express hurt — to do this they feel weak, out of control, and vulnerable. But for me, it isn’t sadness that I fear, its anger. It is the emotion that I least understand, least know what to DO with, and least have a picture of its healthy expression.
To learn that no emotion is “bad” and that a “closer walk with Thee” isn’t the one-size-fits-all for every “negative” emotion (are you picturing all my air quotes? I’m doing them!) has been eye opening. I might have known these were myths on some level, but I still lived as though this dormant tiger inside me must be tamed, not released. Anger is scary to me, not only because I have a few scarring memories of rage displayed to me as a child, (and the fear that it’s somehow inherent, which is almost worse), but also because I have rarely practiced anger and allowed myself to be okay with my own anger. And I don’t mean about MOST things in life, because there are plenty of relationships and situations in which I can handle being displeased and expressing that with boundaries and staying cool and collected. But in the last season of my life, anger over one or two related situations/people have been very difficult for me to know what to do with.
Namely, I am angry about most of my past with Hubby, and often angry that I am currently pregnant as well (though I differentiate this from the baby, whom I’m excited to see and love). I picked up somewhere along the way that anger was a wasteful emotion — and an immature one at that. A productive, mature, God-loving gal would never really feel angry, and certainly not for years!
But every time I stuffed it down, prayed for its removal, denied its existence, and distracted myself with the rest of my life, the anger never went anywhere. I didn’t even realize how THERE it was until the revelation 7 months ago that my husband, my marriage of over 5 years, was built on lies and was falling down all around me. For awhile, I recognized my anger, and believed that I had every right to be angry for the ways I had been cheated and abused. But as time went on, I struggled with feeling angry still, knowing that I was beginning to love my husband and that my present marriage was completely different than it had been before – so I waited for the release of forgiveness and acceptance that was surely around the corner. Well, so far, it hasn’t come, at least not in any sort of eventful, official way! There is still so much processing going on and so much healing to do. Like a large wound, I still have a lot of work to do and time to allow for its healing. I can’t yet look down and see the faint scar of a hurt that “once was”. It’s still throbbing, it still hurts. The miraculous part about it is that I have a best friend with whom I can share this with, whose anger at his past matches my own, and there we find common ground.
Being pregnant, hormonal and exhausted has, as I anticipated, made the healing process even more difficult for me. My days are stretched out over a fitness course of leaps and hoops which I must attempt to scale, only to make it to the next sleep-deprived morning and try to live as gratefully and lovingly as I can, while my anger sometimes rears up again, begging to be recognized, validated, and released. The physical and emotional demands of bearing a child take a toll on a woman’s body and soul, and having just gone through a life crisis, are even more debilitating sometimes. I want to be happy, rested, and joyous, but often find myself distracted, resentful, and tired instead. And then feel guilty that I am not thriving in each of my roles in my family life.
My counselor and I have talked about an “anger plan” in which I can journal what I am angry about daily (so I recognize what I am actually angry about and don’t take it out on anyone or anything else), and then find some sort of physical release for the anger that can symbolically let it seep out in a healthy, harmless way. I asked her, “So… revisiting it for an hour every day is really supposed to make it eventually, like, GO AWAY?!” It seems so counter-intuitive to me. But since crazier things have worked, I’m giving it a try She basically said, “In theory, anger is one of those emotions that DOES work this way. You name it, release it, practice it, and you’ll find it much less overwhelming and scary”.
Just to highlight how hard this is for me, those of you who have been around this blog awhile know that I am fairly no holds bar about my content. Yet here I am, writing about my anger with honesty, and I feel really hesitant to push “publish”! I hear the disapproving voices (real or imagined) because in my world, it is simply not okay to be so angry that you would JOURNAL about it daily!
But then, I remember that I am not alone. There have been many people hurt and burned, esp in their marriages, and maybe they too are finding out that to “get over” their anger prematurely never quite settles anything. Status quo might return sooner, but peace of mind doesn’t.
So yeah, here we go: it’s okay to be angry! It’s doesn’t mean I’m a vengeful maniac, lol, it just means I’m legitimately angry at a few things, and I might as well face the facts. Whew. Why is recovery so dang arduous?!?!

This is so cool. We actually have a leak in our kitchen sink that a plumber supposedly fixed a year ago, but, yeah, not so much. It fills up a bucket pretty often. What a great idea to put it in your toilet and stop wasting 5 gallons of drinking water every time you poop!
And let’s not forget the much loved bathroom motto: When its yellow, let it mellow. When its brown, flush it down

We’ve been doing lots of livin’ and learnin’ around these parts lately. I got to hang out with some girlfriends this weekend, do some more knitting, though I realized that my anemia was very likely the reason I was so (SO!) tired and foggy this passed week. I had started taking my prenatals (finally) for the iron in them when my last midwife visit reported me low on iron. But little did I know, I was not getting much of the iron because I was drinking the supplement down with kefir (calcium). Anyhoo, when I noticed my nails and skin were really pale and other strange symptoms, I did a bit of searching and figured out the big mystery. I’ve been doing the prenatals with EmergenC infused water now instead, and eating more iron rich foods like edamame, etc. I’m happy to report I am feeling much better this last day or two, though, so hopefully it’s all good!

Let’s see, I just did a rough draft of our tax forms and it looks like, low and behold, we won’t owe anything! A very small return, actually, which is better than I expected. I’m also in the process of seeing if the state is going to be willing to help us cover the cost of the birth, because with Hubby’s reduced income we are in the income limits for state health coverage. I should know more in about two weeks, so keep your fingers crossed!

Lil’ E made use of a camera his nana sent him and took some pretty cool little pictures this week. It was funny to watch him take over his camera so seriously, learn to zoom in and out, flip through modes, and turn it off safely when he wasn’t using it. When we went on a walk, he would say, “Wow, look at that beautiful house, let me have my camera now!” lol Below are a few of my personal favorites. I love his perspective, he really took ownership of this experience. (I am NOT showing you the dozens of my big red face that he took )
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As I have shared, the books I have been reading are SO interesting and I am really feeling passionate about Lil’ E’s natural learning process. I’ve been keeping a journal of what he’s learning and interested in through out the day, without any special curriculum or coercion from an adult. He asks questions all.day.long. Questions like, “Why does the kitty have brown gums but we have pink gums?” or “Why do sidewalks break?” And he makes fascinating statements like, “When I grow up, then I will like onions like you and dada. And I will also know how to find my way home by myself!”

He gets into all kinds of things and I make observations of what he’s “learning” as he does them. From the last few days, here’s a handful of the dozens of learning activities he has accomplished:

• Arranged domino’s into letter shapes to spell his name. Pointed out imaginary characteristics of each letter, saying “E is looking at the T. T is looking in the mirror. H is running. A is dancing. N is jumping rope.”
• Used scrabble game pieces to make up words and ask us if he has spelled something.
• flipped through a grown up book of mine to count pages in the corner. Recognized numbers 1-30 almost seamlessly.
• Learned that orange juice is made from squeezing oranges.
• Read two books about Valentine’s Day
• Looked at illustrations of a 30 week old fetus and counted how many week’s until his little sister is born
• Sang many songs, but mostly repeated “This Old Man” and “Do a Deer”
• Listened to oldies on the radio with mama and danced. One began with lots of bongo sounds and he recognized it and went to get his bongos to play along, with decent rhythm!
• Learned about heat from candles and fire safety
• Sorted his sea shell collection according to shape
• Valentine crafts – drew distinct facial features on hearts, recognized every other red/pink pattern in paper loop garland, wrote out by himself the letters/words “Ethan loves Dada” and “Ethan loves nana betsy and papa” and “Ethan loves pawpaw and mawmaw” in his valentine cards
• Out of nowhere, asked why the letters “T” and “V” spell “TV” but the letter “Y” doesn’t spell “WHY”
• Helped with chickens, observed that chickens are birds like in the trees but they don’t fly as well and they are bigger. Discussed that some animals have feathers/fur/scales/hair.

It’s really amazing to just be present with him and observe all that he takes in. Such a variety of topics are included in his curious little world, without me having to do much of anything except facilitate an environment in which he can learn. So cool! I love that he has a desire to learn new things (as we all do, inherently!) and that when I step back, he can really TAKE OFF!

So yeah, like I said, livin’ and learnin’, not a lot new that other than this. Hopefully I’ll have some interesting things happen and smack ya with a really cool post soon

Only The Boss could make watching any part of the super bowl worth it!

When the men in tights come back out, I go back to cooking dinner and working