Rebekah Staggs

I enjoy our evenings. I mean I REALLY enjoy our evenings. We don’t do anything particularly special on our evenings: We cook. We eat at a table as a family. We talk. We play games. We read. We watch TV. We relax. Our evenings are not filled with hustle and bustle. They are spent together hanging out. I cherish the time and don’t give it up easily.

We used to be the average American family. Our evenings were filled with things. We did school and work during the day and the extras in the evenings. We ate, and came home, and slept, and did it all again the next day with something different. Some evenings we even went our separate ways to do all the extra curricular activities we were in.

A few years back we stopped. We did nothing. I came to cherish the stillness and togetherness. Now we do one activity on a weekly basis. During the day. We float and rotate other activities on a non-stressful loose schedule. All during the day. We thought long and hard about adding to our activity and a couple of nights a month we give up an evening to our one activity.

I am always hesitant to add anything to our schedule. We enjoy doing things, but still have a lot of free time to let ourselves unwind and be creative. I don’t want to go back to the hustle and bustle of rarely (Or never.) having an evening home. Everything seems to be during the evenings. You can have something every evening and never be home except to sleep! Evening service at church, Scouts, karate, church again, music, dance, date night, friends night, kids’ night, movie night, on and on till there are no evenings left in a week or a month. Next thing you know years have flown by.

Yes, we miss out on certain things, but I believe the benefits of not burning the candle at both ends are worth it. We are not usually stressed about our activities. We are generally on time to the things we attend . We get the things we say will do done. We keep up with our schooling. Our home is usually clean…or at least organized. We eat most of our meals at our kitchen table at home. Best of all we spend large quantities of time relaxing at home as a family.

It’s a balance we have found that works in our lives and we cherish our evenings. What do you with with your evenings? How much time are you actually spending together?

My husband, my son, and myself were out doing errands. It was lunch time and we were sitting down at Panda Express enjoying a meal together. My son had finished almost all of his work for the day. It was our first week back to school and  after a two week winter/holiday break I was feeling the “first week back blues.” 

As I was sitting there, enjoying my chicken and veggies, and thinking how much I enjoyed our school break. Even though I was sick for half of the break. I had a wonderful time not doing the school thing. Not having any set time we had to do things or go places. We played games, watched TV, read books, cooked, talked, and just had a wonderful relaxed time. I ENJOYED being around my son and having all the extra time since we were NOT going to practices or studying anything in particular. Just hanging out.

As I sat there missing the more relaxed, unscheduled, couple of weeks of just hanging out with my son I heard the woman at the table next to me say, “I am so glad school started yesterday. I couldn’t stand being around my kids any longer!” How sad for her, how sad for her children.

Counting down the days till our next break when I can once more enjoy an abundance of unscheduled free time with my child!

I admit I was reluctant to watch this movie. I was warned there was an infertility theme so I stuck it in on the bottom of my queue and didn’t think about it until it finally came in the mail. I am not really much of a “chick flick” kinda gal, but I am a foodie so I thought I’d give it a try once it came in. I had ignored posts or blogs about the movie until after I watched it so as not to color my view of watching it.

Overall it was an enjoyable movie. The food and the cooking were fun. Meryl Streep portrays Julia to a T! I also liked how they portrayed the relationship between Julia Childs and her husband. You don’t see a lot of loving, supportive, and obviously still sensual relationships between married couples on the screen these days. Much less an older couple that has been married for a lot of years. I found Julie to be a bit much at times, but her husband came across as overly supportive and understanding.

As for the infertility theme I totally missed the first scene where they reference infertility. Apparently they are sitting on a bench in the park and there is a wistful look of longing at a baby stroller? I remember them on the bench, but must have blinked and missed the look or something.

In the other scene it has been maybe 15 years or more since Julia got married. Her sister (in her late thirties/early forties?) gets married and as a newlywed writes to tell Julia she is pregnant. Julia has a moment of shock. Starts sobbing while saying, “I’m so happy.” Her husband looks at her and pulls her into his arms. End of scene. It took maybe a minute for the whole thing to play out with very little dialogue. What amazes me is the wealth of difference everyone seems to read into this scene.

Just some of the things I found that people said about the scene:
It was a tense family situation where Julia is sad for herself because she can’t have children. 
She is envious and bitter about her sister’s pregnancy.
The people in the movie theater laughed during the scene. 
It had all the complex and conflicting emotions someone feels when a loved one has what you won’t.
Resentment, joy, grief, resignation quickly played out in that brief scene.

The one thing I found was that you could tell a lot about the writer by what they saw in that moment. Each wrote what their own feelings would be in the same situation. Those who have never been touched by infertility saw a bitter woman who really wasn’t happy for her sister. Or who maybe was happy, but overcome by her own inability and loss.

Those in the midst of their own struggles saw what they deal with on a daily basis. The happy joy for a loved one co-mingled with the brief moments of ugly that come at first and then you fight back down with the better part of your nature.

Those nearer the end of their journey, and closer to peace, saw the reminder of things past or lost mixed in with the joy and happiness for a loved one.

Of her own infertility, from Julia’s book, “My Life in France.” (Which I have not read, but found some excepts from.) She writes, 

“We had tried. But for some reason our efforts didn’t take. It was sad, but we didn’t spend too much time thinking about it and never considered adoption. It was just one of those things. We were living very full lives.”

I wonder if she really considered it “just one of those things” at the time she was going through it? Or,  if this is just how she views it looking back 50 years after the fact? Either way I think the infertile world can find comfort in the words of a 90 year old woman who never had children.  Who led a full life. Who had a loving marriage. And at the end of it all infertility was just one of those things in her life. I, for one, find comfort in that.

I’ll close with something I read recently (It had nothing to do with babies or infertility.) that really summed it up for  me. That Place of Peace and Acceptance we all as infertiles strive for and beat down the ugly parts of our natures to get to:

It said a great deal for her that she watched him without an excess of envy. Yearning, yes, and maybe a little sadness.

Not only is it a long journey, no matter what you strive for, to get to the point of sadness and yearning without bitterness and envy. But, it takes someone who has also walked a difficult path to recognize the difference between the two.

It has been a long time since I sat at my computer and blogged much. With the start of a new year, and new beginnings, I hope to blog more often. You’ll notice a whole new look. I have trimmed away a lot of my old blog posts and reorganized things.

I still have a wide variety of interests and a lot of my posts will fall under Ramblings (or rants) on various topics.
Range will cover my growing interest in guns, shooting, and concealed carry.
Recipes will be a way to share new foods and recipes I have tried.
And Reviews will be a place to talk about movies, games, holsters, and whatever I have an opinion about.

Have fun and Happy 2011!

You know when I mention that my husband works from home I’ve had comments ranging from, “That must be so nice to have him around all the time.” to (usually from young wives just starting down the road of a work at home husband)  “How do you stand having him around all the time?”  

It wasn’t always easy. When we switched from part time “day job” and part time home business, to full time home business I’ll admit it had some moments. A few tips I’ve learned over the years that have made things easier.

Home, but not really home:
It is a hard adjustment to make the switch to working from home. When a husband works at an outside office and comes home he is home and hopefully work is left at work. When he works from home he *IS* home all the time, but he is working a big portion of it. So while I can ask for help if I really need it, the idea is to act during the day as if he is off at a job. Because, he *IS* at his job. This helps *HIM* to make the mental switch that he is working, even though he is home. Sometimes the switch between work is done and I’m home now gets a little blended, but that happens with a lot of outside jobs as well.

When the muse strikes:
Being married to a programmer is a little like I’d imagine being married to an artist would be like. When the muse strikes and they are in the zone GET OUT OF THE WAY! I’ve spoken with several other wives (Husbands in the same business) and I think it must be something in the hard wiring of our men. Maybe it is part of what makes them good programmers. Whatever it is when they are working on a problem it is best to just let them take care of it. After a frenzy of programming usually comes some quiet relaxing time. Sometimes food, drink (coffee/caffeine seems to be a driving force behind a lot of coding.), and the occasional reminder of other responsibilities is in order… otherwise it is best to just let the streak run it’s course.

Organization:
Yes, I’m big on organization. I am a homemaker, we run a home business and my husband works from home all day, and we home-school. That is a lot of time for all of us to be at home. Keeping things orderly and running well makes for better use of time and less stress. It is difficult to get work done if you are living in chaos and have a long list of things that are nagging at your mind.

A day out:
Never underestimate the power of a day out. Being homebodies is a good thing. Too much of a good thing is sometimes not a good thing. Make good use of a day outside of the house. Take yourself/pack up the kids and leave the house for most of the day. Go watch a movie, walk the mall, go to a park, go to the zoo, go somewhere and do something. This makes for a good day for work in an empty house or even just enjoying the house with peace and quiet. And of course sometimes switching places can be nice for HIM to get out and clear his mind.

The perk of single-minded programmer types:
When they switch from coding to courting it can be quite nice to have all that single minded attention roll back to you.  😉