Changes

It's been an interesting weekend for me.

First, I learned that my hours at the farm will be greatly reduced with the first frost. Then, with a real hard freeze, the work will pretty much stop. I knew this was how seasonal work went, but I thought maybe I'd be one of the lucky ones who got to stay busy all winter with farm projects. Doesn't seem likely. So, so sad.

Second, I learned that the farmer himself would be moving on to other projects starting mid-October. There will be a different farmer in charge next year. Mixed feelings. I really like Hunter. He's easy going, super-knowledgeable, and he's got a theory or answer for every question I can think up. I'm glad he's doing what's best for him and his family, but I'll miss him.

Finally, my church calling has changed. In our church, we have a lay clergy. Members from the congregation are asked to take on different responsibilities at different times. I've been a teacher in the women's organization (Relief Society) for 2 years, and now I will be in the presidency of the children's organization (Primary). More mixed feelings. I love our Relief Society group. I love learning from their experience and testimonies every week. Preparing/Delivering lessons was hard, but the payoff was fantastic. Being a Relief Society teacher was a breakthrough for me. For the first time since Rachel left, I really felt connected and happy and confidently myself with these women. Tonight, I'm worried about the change. If I think too hard about it, I start to cry. One thing is for certain: I won't get to enjoy a closeness with the Relief Society sisters at church any more. I do know, however, that I will get to work with some remarkable people in the Primary organization...dedicated, smart, and inspired leaders and teachers. I look forward to learning from them.

Some other thoughts: I wonder how my kids will react to having me in Primary with them. I ponder my own talents and abilities, wondering how I can contribute to the work being done here. I think back to my experience as a Primary teacher and wonder how I can help our current teachers feel support, connection, and spiritual uplift as they serve in the Primary. I'm sad that I won't get to know the new Relief Society Presidency very well.

On the bright side, I am making progress on my "40th Year" goals:

Shorter hours at the farm mean more time to train for an Olympic Distance Triathlon. I may have found someone to take on the whole triathlon with me. Woo hoo! I've found a couple of neat ladies to run with. One to bike with. And the swimming, well, that's not really something you can do with someone else. It's too hard to talk :( I will be taking on the Railsplitter Triathlon on June 16, 2019. It's a Saturday race, to be held at the Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site in Petersburg, IL, so feel free to come cheer me on ;)

One-on-one time with Bobby and the kids is going well. I've logged 3-3.5 hours so far with each one during the month of September. One thing I've realized is that small chunks of time matter a lot. A half-hour here, 45-minutes there is the only way I will meet this goal with my sanity in place. So, a wonderful side effect of this is coming to appreciate those small chunks of time I have with one kid during a normal working day. The boys were elsewhere one day, so I sat in the front room with Alice during her piano practice. No screens. No book. No interruptions. I just got to be with her and joke around with her and appreciate the person she is. It was liberating, actually, to say "this one-on-one time with Alice is more important than chores X, Y and Z right now. This is meaningful and relevant and a priority in my life." It made me so happy.

As for my bucket list trip, I've been researching Road Scholar destinations, scanning cruise lines, poring over Amtrak travel catalogs, and compiling a list of experiences I've always wanted to have (e.g. hot air balloon ride, SCUBA diving course). Nothing has popped out at me yet. Still deciding if this is something I do alone (not so fun) or with my whole posse (expensive) or with just Bobby (what do we do with the kids?!). Details, details, details.

Still working on the others...but I've still got time.

Challah

Alice has done something I have only dreamed about...

Challah bread!!! It was dang tasty. She's stinking proud of herself.

And since I don't often get to take pictures of Alice anymore, I wanted to post this recent one of her doing her piano practice.

I snapped this one before she noticed the camera. I publish it with her permission, of course.

She enjoys piano lessons. She enjoys flute lessons and 6th grade band and chorus. She tells me chorus is the highlight of her school day! She also tells me that social studies is the only class in which she's actually learning something new.

Middle school is getting more routine. Not easier, but routine. Alice tells me there are a couple fights a week in the halls. The most recent one was in the girls locker room during her P.E. class. She has been assigned to sit by at least one challenging fellow in one of her classes. He tests her patience. I remember being stuck with some difficult kids, too. Teachers do that on purpose to some degree, putting the quiet and steady kids next to the loud and boundary-pushing ones. I make her sit by James all the time ;)

Fantastic Alice. She's got this whole growing up thing under control.

Fine Motor Skills

James suddenly decided that he likes to draw and color and now he does it almost daily. The other night, he took a pen and paper into his room and came out with this as a gift for me:

The letter above each head tells you who is who. The heart is love. Alice and Robert didn't make the cut this time (I think he just ran out of room?? Maybe??).

My heart swelled with love and joy for this little kid who could express such tender emotion. Then Bobby told me to look at the back...there was more...

I laughed and laughed and laughed. Dude. That is James in a nutshell.

Breakthrough

At dinner tonight, Alice is telling us a something about school and stops herself mid-sentence, "Wow. I'm talking really loud."

And then she softens her voice.

And finishes her story at a normal, adult volume.

My jaw drops to the floor. 

Maybe this doesn't mean much to you, but WOWZERS that makes a difference at our house. Somewhere after the first few weeks of kindergarten, both Alice and Robert had developed what I call their "school voice." It's loud. It's all the time. It doesn't stop when they're home for the afternoon or all summer. It's ALL the time. James started louder than they did when he went into kindergarten, but we're a month into it now and his school voice has truly kicked in. Matthew is, not surprisingly, already at full school voice volume a couple years early. Sigh.

So. Loud. Just for talking about regular stuff every day. Happy, sad, angry, funny...doesn't matter.

Anyway, with Alice's moment tonight, it occurred to me that maybe the school voice thing doesn't have to be forever...maybe the shouting will eventually stop....maybe.

Lessons From the Farm

A few more things I've learned...

...the right tool for the job makes a HUGE difference. I'm so used to making do with what's on-hand that taking the extra 60 seconds to find the right clippers for harvesting squash seems painfully inefficient. But, it turns out, using the right clippers makes each cut a little easier, which adds up to a LOT easier after an hour or two of harvesting squash. Little things can really add up!

...the uniform makes me better at my job. Every time I work at the farm, I wear a lightweight long-sleeved button-up shirt, lightweight pants, long socks, boots, and a wide-brimmed hat. I started with that setup to keep the sun and mosquitoes off of my skin, but it's a fantastic super suit! I am slightly resistant to prickly plants, mud, spiders, bees, and a myriad of gross and slightly scary things. I'm braver. More prepared to get dirty or haul brush. Sure, I'm also a little sweatier than my short-sleeved and short-pantsed co-workers in the humid heat, but I like the fearlessness.

...once you are soaked to the skin, head to toe, the rain can't bother you anymore. It's quite liberating. I had forgotten that from my childhood.

...harvesting is fun, but I really dig infrastructure stuff: irrigation, trellising, planting, pruning, weeding, hauling, putting in, tearing out. I love anything systematic, methodical, and orderly. I like seeing myself get better or more efficient at a new task, modifying my technique as I come across snags, developing a new system to maximize my effectiveness. That is the work that I am most proud of.

...social capital matters. I often find myself assigned a task with someone else and we're trying to figure out how to tackle it. My first impulse is to find the most efficient use of our time in completing the task. But when I work directly with my boss, he often chooses to work alongside me, even when I'm slower than he is. I've enjoyed getting to know many people on the farm (almost as much as learning how to farm itself). So, nowadays when I'm assigned a task, I try to strike a balance between  efficiency and building relationships. Those are the best days.